bidden to quarrel or fight upon consecrated ground."1 But this is only one aspect of the matter; another, equally important, still calls for an explanation. Why should the gods or saints themselves be so anxious to protect criminals who have sought refuge in their sanctuaries? Why do they not deliver them up to justice through their earthly representatives?

The answer lies in certain ideas which refer to human as well as divine protectors of refugees. The god or saint is in exactly the same position as a man to whose house a person has fled for shelter. Among various peoples the domicile of the chief or king is an asylum for criminals; 2 nobody dares to attack a man who is sheltered by so mighty a personage, and from what has been said above, in connection with the rules of hospitality, it is also evident why the chief or king feels himself compelled to protect him. By being in close contact with his host, the suppliant is able to transfer to him a dangerous curse. Sometimes a criminal can in a similar way be a danger to the king even from a distance, or by meeting him, and must in consequence be pardoned. In Madagascar an offender escaped punishment if he could obtain sight of the sovereign, whether before or after conviction; hence criminals at work on the highroad were ordered to withdraw when the sovereign was known to be coming by.3 Among the Bambaras une fois la sentence prononcée, si le condamné parvient à cracher sur un

1 Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, ii. 232. Cf. ibid. i. 227.

2 Harmon, Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 297 (Tacullies). Lewin, Hill Tracts of Chittagong, p. 100 (Kukis). Junghuhn, Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 329 (Macassars and Bugis of Celebes). Tromp, Uit de Salasila van Koetei,' in Bijdragen tot de taalland- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxvii. 84 (natives of Koetei, a district of Borneo). Jung, quoted by Kohler, Recht der Marschallinsulaner,' in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 447 (natives of

Nauru in the Marshall Group). Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 334 (Samoans). Rautanen, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 342 (Ondonga). Schinz, op. cit. p. 312 (Ovambo). Rehme,' Das Recht der Amaxosa,' in Zeitschr. f vergl. Rechtswiss. x. 50. Merker, quoted by Kohler, 'Banturecht in Ostafrika,' ibid. xv. 55 (Wadshagga). Merker, Die Masai, p. 206. Among the Barotse the residences of the Queen and the Prime Minister are places of refuge (Decle, op. cit. p. 75). Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 376.

prince, non-seulement sa personne est sacrée, mais elle est nourrie, logée, etc., par le grand seigneur qui a eu l'imprudence de se tenir à portée de cet étrange projectile." In Usambara even a murderer is safe as soon as he has touched the person of the king. Among the Marutse and neighbouring tribes a person who is accused of any crime receives pardon if he lays a cupathe fossilised base of a conical shell, which is the most highly valued of all their instruments-at the feet of his chief; and a miscreant likewise escapes punishment if he reaches and throws himself on the king's drums.3 On the Slave Coast "criminals who are doomed to death are always gagged, because if a man should speak to the king he must be pardoned."4 In Ashantee, if an offender should succeed in swearing on the king's life, he must be pardoned, because such an oath is believed to involve danger to the king; hence knives are driven through the cheeks from opposite sides, over the tongue, to prevent him from speaking.5 So also among the Romans, according to an old Jewish writer, a person condemned to death was gagged to prevent him from cursing the king." Fear of the curses pronounced by a dissatisfied refugee likewise, in all probability, underlay certain other customs which prevailed in Rome. A servant or slave who came and fell down at the feet of Jupiter's high-priest, taking hold of his knees, was for that day freed from the whip; and if a prisoner with irons and bolts at his feet succeeded in approaching the high-priest in his house, he was let loose and his fetters were thrown into the road, not through the door, but from the roof. Moreover, if a criminal who had been sentenced to death accidentally met a Vestal virgin on his way to the place of execution, his

life was saved.1 So sensitive to imprecations were both Jupiter's high-priest and the priestesses of Vesta, that the Praetor was never allowed to compel them to take an oath.2 Now, as a refugee may by his curse force a king or a priest or any other man with whom he establishes some kind of contact to protect him, so he may in a similar manner constrain a god or saint as soon as he has entered his sanctuary. According to the Moorish expression he is then in the 'ar of the saint, and the saint is bound to protect him, just as a host is bound to protect his guest. It is not only men that have to fear the curses of dissatisfied. refugees. Let us once more remember the words which Aeschylus puts into the mouth of Apollo, when he declares his intention to assist his suppliant, Orestes :"Terrible both among men and gods is the wrath of a refugee, when one abandons him with intent." 3

1 Plutarch, Numa, x. 5.

2 Aulus Gellius, op. cit. x. 15. 31.

Aeschylus, Eumenides, 232 sqq.

CHAPTER XLIX

DUTIES TO GODS (concluded)

SUPERNATURAL beings are widely believed to have a feeling of their worth and dignity. They are sensitive to insults and disrespect, they demand submissiveness and homage.

"The gods of the Gold Coast," says Major Ellis, " are jealous gods, jealous of their dignity, jealous of the adulation and offerings paid to them; and there is nothing they resent so much as any slight, whether intentional or accidental, which may be offered them. . . . There is nothing that offends them so deeply as to ignore them, or question their power, or laugh at them." 1 The wrath of Yahveh burst forth with vehemence whenever his honour or sanctity was in the least violated, however unintentionally. Many peoples consider it insulting and dangerous merely to point at one of the celestial bodies; 3 and among the North American Indians it is a widespread belief that, if anybody points at the rainbow, the finger will wither or become misshapen.4

Nor is it to supernatural danger only that a person exposes himself by irreverence to a god, but in many cases he is also punished by his fellow men. On the Slave Coast insults to a god" are always resented and punished by the

1 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. II.

2 Cf. Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, PP. 38, 102.

on

3 Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 341. Dorman, Origin of Primitive

Superstitions, p. 344 (Chippewas). Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, § 11, p. 13 sq.

Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 257, 442.

priests and worshippers of that god, it being their duty to guard his honour."1 Among the ancient Peruvians 2 and Hebrews, as also among Christian nations up to comparatively recent times, blasphemy was a capital offence. În England, in the reign of Henry VIII., a boy of fifteen was burned because he had spoken, much after the fashion of a parrot, some idle words affecting the sacrament of the altar, which he had chanced to hear but of which he could not have understood the meaning. According to Muhammedan law a person guilty of blasphemy is to be put to death without delay, even though he profess himself repentant, as adequate repentance for such a sin is deemed impossible.5 These and similar laws are rooted in the idea that the god is personally offended by the insult. It was the Lord himself who made the law that he who blasphemed His name should be stoned to death by all the congregation.6 "Blasphemy," says Thomas Aquinas, "as being an offence directly against God, outweighs murder, which is an offence against our neighbour. The blasphemer intends to wound the honour of God." That blasphemy is, or should be, punished not as a sin against the deity but as an offence against the religious feelings of men, is an idea of quite modern origin.

In many cases it is considered offensive to a supernatural being merely to mention his name. Sometimes the name is tabooed on certain occasions only or in ordinary conversation, sometimes it is not to be pronounced at all.

In Morocco the jnûn (jinn) must not be referred to by name in the afternoon and evening after the ‘âșar. If speaking of them at all, the people then make use of some circumlocution; the Berbers of Southern Morocco call them wid-idḍnin, "those others," or wid-urd-hèr'nin, "those unseen," or wid-tntl-tisnt, "those who shun salt." The Greenlanders dare not pronounce the name of a glacier

1 Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 81.

2 Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, i. 42.

3 Leviticus, xxiv. 14 sqq.

Pike, History of Crime in Eng

land, ii. 56.

5

Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 123.

6 Leviticus, xxiv. 16.

? Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 13.3.1.