The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. Edward Westermarck

enemy, is tabooed for ten days, during which he is not allowed to hold intercourse with his wife nor to meddle with fire; but, at the same time, he is treated with distinction, and presents of pigs are brought to him.34 On the other hand, there can be no doubt that in various cases the polluting effect attributed to manslaughter has exercised some influence upon the moral judgment of the act. Whenever the commission of an act of homicide has any tendency at all to call forth moral blame, the disapproval of the deed will easily be enhanced by the spiritual danger attending on it, as also by the inconvenient restrictions laid on the tabooed manslayer and the ceremonies of purification to which he is subject. The deprivations which he has to undergo come to be looked upon in the light of a punishment, and the rights of cleansing as a means of removing guilt. The taboo rules which, among the Omahas, a murderer whose life was spared had to observe for a period varying from two to four years are spoken of by Mr. Dorsey as his “punishment,” and this seems also partly to have been the native point of view. The murderer sometimes wandered at night, crying, and lamenting his offence, until, at the end of the designated period, the kindred of his victim heard his crying, and said:—“It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd. Put on moccasins and wear a good robe.”35 Moreover, the notion of a persecuting ghost may be replaced by the notion of an avenging god. Confusions are common in the world of mystery; doings or functions attributed to one being are afterwards transferred to another—this is a rule of which many important examples will be given in following chapters. The Jbâla of Northern Morocco do not nowadays believe in ghosts, yet they regard a person who has shed human blood to be in some degree unclean for the rest of his life. Poison oozes out from underneath his nails; hence anybody who drinks the water in which he has washed his hands will fall dangerously ill. The meat of an animal which he has killed is difficult to digest, and so is any food eaten in his company. If he comes to a place where people are digging a well, the water will at once run away. He is said to be mejnûn, haunted by jnûn (jinn), a race of beings entirely distinct from men, living or dead. The Greenlanders believed that an abortion or a child born under concealment was transformed into an evil spirit called ángiaq, for the purpose of avenging the crime.36 In Eastern Central Africa, “after killing a slave, the master is afraid of Chilope. This means that he will become emaciated, lose his eye-sight, and ultimately die a miserable death. He therefore goes to his chief and gives him a certain fee (in cloth, or slaves, or such legal tenders), and says, ‘Get me a charm (luasi), because I have slain a man.’ When he has used this charm, which may be either drunk or administered in a bath, the danger passes away.”37 Among the Omahas the ghost of the murdered man was not lost sight of; the murderer “was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the tribe when they were going on the hunt lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind, which might cause damage.” But at the same time his deed was considered offensive to Wakanda; no one wished to eat with him, for they said, “If we eat with whom Wakanda hates, for his crime, Wakanda will hate us.”38 In the Chinese books there are numerous instances of persons haunted by the souls of their victims on their death-bed, and in most of these cases the ghosts state expressly that they are avenging themselves with the special authorisation of Heaven.39 The Greek belief in the Erinys of a murdered man no doubt originated in the earlier notion of a persecuting ghost, whose anger or curses in later times were personified as an independent spirit.40 And the transformation went further still: the Erinyes were represented as the ministers of Zeus, who by punishing the murderer carried out his divine will. Zeus was considered the originator of the rites of purification; when visited with madness by the Erinyes, Ixion appealed to Zeus Hikesios, and at the altar of Zeus Meilichios Theseus underwent purification for the shedding of kindred blood.41 Originally, as it seems, only the murder of a kinsman was an offence against Zeus and under the ban of the Erinyes, but later on their sphere of action was expanded, and all bloodshed, if the victim had any rights at all within the city, became a sin which needed purification.42 Uncleanness was thus transformed into spiritual impurity. When the pollution with which a manslayer is tainted is regarded as merely the work of a ghost or of some spirit-substitute who, like the Moorish jnûn, has nothing to do with the administration of justice, it may be devoid of all moral significance in spite of the dread it inspires; but the case is different when it comes to be conceived of as a divine punishment, or as a sin-pollution in the eyes of the supreme god. Such a transformation of ideas could hardly take place unless the act, considered polluting, were by itself apt to evoke moral disapproval. But it is obvious that the gravity of the offence is increased by the religious aspect it assumes.

34 von Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels, i. 133.

35 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369.