The Golden Bough. James George Frazer
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rotted, she would die.”698 A Marquesan chief told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the Happah tribe having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a plantain leaf for the purpose of taking his life. Lieut. Gamble argued with him, but in vain; die he must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back to him; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the greater part of his property. He complained of excessive pain in the head, breast and sides.699 When an Australian blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend sticks the spear-thrower up every night before the camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign that his wife is dead.700 The way in which the charm operates was explained to Mr. Howitt by a Mirajuri man. “You see,” he said, “when a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and roasts it with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold of the smell of the man, and that settles the poor fellow.”701 In Germany it is a common notion that if birds find a person's cut hair, and build their nests with it, the person will suffer from headache;702 sometimes it is thought that he will have an eruption on the head.703 Again it is thought that cut or combed out hair may disturb the weather by producing rain and hail, thunder and lightning. We have seen that in New Zealand a spell was uttered at hair-cutting to avert thunder and lightning. In the Tirol, witches are supposed to use cut or combed out hair to make hail-stones or thunder-storms with.704 Thlinket Indians have been known to attribute stormy weather to the fact that a girl had combed her hair outside of the house.705 The Romans seem to have held similar views, for it was a maxim with them that no one on shipboard should cut his hair or nails except in a storm,706 that is, when the mischief was already done. In West Africa, when the Mani of Chitombe or Jumba died, the people used to run in crowds to the corpse and tear out his hair, teeth, and nails, which they kept as a rain-charm, believing that otherwise no rain would fall. The Makoko of Anzikos begged the missionaries to give him half their beards as a rain-charm.707 In some Victorian tribes the sorcerer used to burn human hair in time of drought; it was never burned at other times for fear of causing a deluge of rain. Also when the river was low, the sorcerer would place human hair in the stream to increase the supply of water.708
To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers, it is necessary to deposit them in some safe place. Hence the natives of the Maldives carefully keep the cuttings of their hair and nails and bury them, with a little water, in the cemeteries; “for they would not for the world tread upon them nor cast them in the fire, for they say that they are part of their body and demand burial as it does; and, indeed, they fold them neatly in cotton; and most of them like to be shaved at the gates of temples and mosques.”709 In New Zealand the severed hair was deposited on some sacred spot of ground “to protect it from being touched accidentally or designedly by any one.”710 The shorn locks of a chief were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery.711 The Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples.712 The cut hair and nails of the Flamen Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.713 The hair of the Vestal virgins was hung upon an ancient lotus-tree.714 In Germany the clippings of hair used often to be buried under an elder-bush.715 In Oldenburg cut hair and nails are wrapt in a cloth which is deposited in a hole in an elder-tree three days before the new moon; the hole is then plugged up.716 In the West of Northumberland it is thought that if the first parings of a child's nails are buried under an ash-tree, the child will turn out a fine singer.717 In Amboina before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the child's hair which he buries under a sago palm.718 In the Aru Islands, when a child is able to run alone, a female relation cuts off a lock of its hair and deposits it on a banana-tree.719 In the island of Roti it is thought that the first hair which a child gets is not his own and that, if it is not cut off, it will make him weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month old, his hair is cut off with much ceremony. As each of the friends who are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, cuts off a little of its hair and drops it into a cocoa-nut shell full of water. Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs it into a little bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a palm-tree. Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking, climbs down, and goes home without speaking to any one.720 Indians of the Yukon territory, Alaska, do not throw away their cut hair and nails, but tie them up in little bundles and place them in the crotches of trees or anywhere where they will not be disturbed by animals. For “they have a superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by animals.”721 The clipped hair and nails are often buried in any secret place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or under a tree, as in the cases already mentioned. In Swabia it is said that cut hair should be buried in a place where neither sun nor moon shines, therefore in the ground, under a stone, etc.722 In Danzig it is buried in a bag under the threshold.723 In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.724 The Zend Avesta directs that the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be placed in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be drawn round each hole with a metal knife.725 In the Grihya-Sûtras it is provided that the hair cut from a child's head at the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water.726 The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.727 The Kafirs carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy; for not only do they bury their cut hair and nails in a sacred place, but when one of them cleans the head of another he preserves the insects which he finds, “carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they be killed by another the blood of his neighbour would be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence.”728 Amongst the Wanyoro of Central Africa all cuttings of the hair and nails are carefully stored under the bed and afterwards strewed about among the tall grass.729 In North Guinea they are carefully hidden (it is not said where) “in order that they may not be used as a fetish for the destruction of him to whom they belong.”730 In Bolang Mongondo (Celebes) the first hair cut from a child's head is kept in a young cocoa-nut, which is commonly hung on the front of the house, under the roof.731
Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races look forward. Thus the Incas of Peru “took extreme care to preserve the nail-parings and the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb; placing them in holes or niches in the walls, and if they fell out, any other Indian that saw them picked them up and put them in their places again. I very often asked different Indians, at various times, why they did this, in order to see what they would say, and they all replied in the same words, saying, ‘Know that all persons who are born must return to life’ (they have no word to express resuscitation), ‘and the souls must rise out of their tombs with all that belonged to their bodies. We, therefore, in order that we may not have to search for our hair and nails at a time when there will be much hurry and confusion, place them in one place, that they may be brought together more conveniently, and, whenever it is possible, we are also careful to spit in one place.’ ”732 In Chile this custom of stuffing the shorn hair into holes in the wall is still observed, it being thought the height of imprudence to throw the hair away.733 Similarly the Turks never throw away the parings of their nails, but carefully keep them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection.734 Some of the Esthonians keep the parings of their finger and toe nails in their bosom, in order to have them at hand when they are asked for them at the day of judgment.735 The Fors of Central Africa object to cut any one else's nails, for should the part cut off be lost and not delivered into its owner's hands, it will have to be made up to him somehow or other after death. The parings are buried in the ground.736 To spit upon the hair before throwing it away is thought in some parts of Europe sufficient to prevent its being used by witches.737 Spitting as a protective charm is well known.
Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the power of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians and some of the Victorian tribes.738 The Makololo of