so much as counted for fasting"; that which is gained by the fast at dinner ought not to be turned into a feast at supper, but should be expended on the bellies of the poor. And if a person was too weak to fast without injuring his health he was admonished to give the more plentiful alms.3 Tertullian expressly calls fastings "sacrifices which are acceptable to God." They assumed the character of reverence offerings, they were said to be works of reverence towards God. But fasting, as well as temperance, has also from early times been advocated by Christian writers on the ground that it is "the beginning of chastity, whereas "through love of eating love of impurity finds passage.' 1 St. Chrysostom, In Matthæum Homil. LXXVII. (al. LXXVIII.) 6 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, lviii. 710). St. Augustine, Sermones supposititii, cxlii. 2, 6 (Migne, xxxix. 2023 sq.). 2 St. Augustine, Sermones sup posititii, cxli. 4 (Migne, op. cit. xxxix. 2021). See also Canons enacted under King Edgar, 'Of Powerful Men,' 3 (Ancient Laws of England, p. 415); Ecclesiastical Institutes, 38 (ibid. p. 486). 3 St. Chrysostom, In Cap. I. Genes. Homil. X. 2 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. " ד יי 5 Graeca, liii. 83). St. Augustine, Sermones supposititii, cxlii. I (Migne, Xxxix. 2022 sq.). Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, 8 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 806). 5 Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, v. 72, vol. ii. 334. St. Chrysostom, In Epist. II. ad Thessal. Cap. I. Homil. 1. 2 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Gr. Ixii. 470). 7 Tertullian, De jejuniis, 1 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 953). See also Manzoni, Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica, p. 175. CHAPTER XXXVIII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET (concluded) BESIDES the occasional abstinence from certain victuals, which was noticed in the last chapter, there are restrictions in diet of a more durable character. Thus among the Australian aborigines the younger members of a tribe are, as it seems universally, subject to a variety of such restrictions, from which they are only gradually released as they grow older. In the Wotjobaluk tribe in South-Eastern Australia, for instance, boys are forbidden to eat of the kangaroo and the padi-melon, being told that if they transgress these rules they will fall sick, break out all over with eruptions, and perhaps die. If a man under forty eats the tail part of the emu or bustard, he will turn grey, and if he eats the freshwater turtle he will be killed by lightning. If young men or women of the Wakelbura tribe eat emu, black-headed snake, or porcupine, they will become sick and probably die, uttering the sounds peculiar to the creature in question, the spirit of which is believed to have entered into their bodies. In the Warramunga tribe in Central Australia a man is usually well in the middle age before he is allowed. 1 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 81. Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, P. 53. Howitt, Native Tribes of SouthEast Australia, p. 769 sq. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. p. xxxv. Taplin, 'Narrinyeri,' in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 137. Jung, Die Mündungsgegend des Murray und ihre Bewohner,' · in Mittheil. d. Vereins f. Erdkunde zu Halle, 1877, p. 32. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 470 sqq. Iidem, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 611 sq. Eyre, Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 293. 2 Howitt, op. cit. p. 769. to eat wild turkey, rabbit-bandicoot, and emu.1 According to certain writers, the object of these restrictions is to reserve the best things for the use of the elders, and, more especially, of the older men ; but, on the other hand, it has been remarked that, in looking over the list of animals prohibited, one fails to see any good reasons for the selection, unless they may be assumed to have chiefly sprung from superstitious beliefs. Among the Land Dyaks the young men and warriors are debarred from venison for fear it should render them as timid as the hind. The Moors believe that if a young person before the age of puberty eats wolf's flesh he will have troubles afterwards. There are, further, numerous instances of certain kinds. of food being permanently forbidden to certain individuals. In Unyamwezi, south of Victoria Nyanza, women are not permitted to eat fowl, a food which is reserved for the men." Among the Mandingoes of Teesee no woman is allowed to eat an egg, and this prohibition is so rigidly adhered to that "nothing will more affront a woman of Teesee than to offer her an egg"; the men, on the other hand, eat eggs without scruple, even in the presence of their wives." Among the Bayaka, a Bantu people in the Congo Free State, both fowls and eggs are forbidden to women; "if a woman eats an egg she is supposed to become mad, tear off her clothes and run away into the bush." The Bahima of Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, allow men to eat beef and the meat of certain antelopes and of buffalo, whereas women are generally allowed to eat beef only. The people of Darfur, in Central Africa, prohibit their women from eating an animal's liver, because they think that a 1 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 612. 2 lidem, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 470 sq. Iidem, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 613. Jung, in Mittheil. d. Vereins f. Erdkunde zu Halle, 1877, p. 32. 3 Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. 234. 4 St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East, i. 186. 5 Reichard, Die Wanjamuesi,' in Zeitschr. d. Gesellsch. f. Erdkunde zu Berlin, xxiv. 321. 6 Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, i. 114. 7 Torday and Joyce, Ethnography of the Ba-Yaka,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxvi. 41, 42, 51. * Roscoe, 'Bahima,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxvii. 101. 2 4 person may increase his soul by partaking of it, and women are believed to have no souls. The Miris of Northern India prize tiger's flesh as food for men, but consider it unsuitable for women, as "it would make them too strong-minded." In the Australian tribes some articles of food are entirely interdicted to females. The natives inhabiting the neighbourhood of Cape York forbid women to eat various kinds of fish, including some of the best, "on the pretence of causing disease in women, although not injurious to the men. In the Sandwich Islands, again, women were not allowed to eat hog's flesh, turtle, and certain kinds of fruit, as cocoa and banana," Many of these prohibitions have been represented as signs of the low condition of the female sex ; but a intimate knowledge of the facts connected with them. would perhaps show that they have some other foundation than the mere selfishness of the men. For sometimes the latter also are subject to very similar restrictions. Among the Bahuana, in the Congo Free State, "women are forbidden to eat owls or other birds of prey, but are permitted to eat frogs, from which men are obliged to abstain under penalty of becoming ill." With reference to the natives of New Britain, Mr. Powell states that, whilst in one place the women are prohibited from eating pigs or tortoises, the men are, in another place, prohibited from eating anything but human flesh, fowls, or fish. In the Caroline Islands the men are forbidden to eat a common blackbird, Lamprothornis-which is a favourite food of the women-because it is believed that anyone who did so, and afterwards climbed a cocoa-tree, would fall down and perish. In some Dyak tribes on the Western branch 1 Felkin, 'Notes on the For Tribe,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 218. 2 Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 33. 3 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 81. Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. xxxv. • Macgillivray, Voyage of Rattlesnake, ii. 10. von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery VOL. II 6 into the South Sea, iii. 249, note. Cook, quoted by Buckle, Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works, iii. 355. 6 Torday and Joyce, Ethnography of the Ba-Huana,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxvi. 279. 7 Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 173. von Kittlitz, Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, &c. ii. 193 sq. Y of the river of Sarawak, goats, fowls, and the fine kind of fern (paku), which forms an excellent vegetable, are forbidden food to the men, though the women and boys are allowed to partake of them.1 3 4 Among various peoples certain foods are forbidden to priests or magicians. The priests of the ancient Egyptians were not allowed to eat fish, nor to meddle with the esculent or potable substances which were produced out of Egypt; and, according to Plutarch, they so greatly disliked the nature of excrementitious things that they not only rejected most kinds of pulse, but also the flesh of sheep and swine, because it produced much superfluity of nutriment. The lamas of Mongolia will touch no meat of goats, horses, or camels. Among the Semang of the Malay Peninsula the medicine-men will not eat goat or buffalo flesh and but rarely that of fowl." The dairymen of the Todas may drink milk from certain buffaloes only, and are altogether forbidden to eat chillies. These and similar restraints laid upon priests or wizards are probably connected with the idea that holiness is a delicate quality which calls for special precautions. Schomburgk states that the conjurers of the British Guiana Indians partake but seldom of the native hog, because they consider the eating of it injurious to the efficacy of their skill. And the Ulád Bu 'Azîz in Morocco believe that if a scribe or a saint eats wolf's flesh the charms he writes will have no effect, and the saliva of the saint will lose its curative power. There are still other cases in which certain persons are permanently required to abstain from certain kinds of food. Thus in the Andaman Islands every man and woman" is prohibited all through life from eating some 1 Low, Sarawak, p. 266. 2 Herodotus, ii. 37. Plutarch, De 4 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 5. of the Malay Peninsula, ii. 226. For 7 Rivers, Todas, p. 102 sq. some other instances see Landtman, Origin of Priesthood, p. 161 sq. 8 Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 391. 9 Schomburgk, Expedition to the Upper Corentyne,' in Jour. Roy. Geograph. Soc. London, xv. 30. |