Note 281.1 — Chapter XIII · Babylonian, Anatolian, and Aegean Ritual.

The significance of the action, as I have interpreted it, is negative rather than positive, the avoidance of a vague peril or the removal of a tabu rather than the attainment of the blessing of fertility, as Dr. Westermarck would regard it. And this idea, the removal of a tabu, seems expressed in the phrase of Herodotus281.1 by which he describes the state of the woman after the ceremony—ἀποσιωσαμένη τῇ θεῷ; and the parallel that I have suggested, the consecration of the first-fruits of the harvest to remove the tabu from the rest of the crop, is somewhat justified by the words of Justin already quoted—“pro reliqua pudicitia libamenta Veneri soluturas.”