Note 64 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

This period of seclusion is employed by the Kayan in various games and masquerades, which, if they have a recreative value, possess as well a religious or magical meaning in the minds of the people. During the sowing festival the men play at spinning tops, the youths engage in athletic sports, and maskers, disguised by wooden helmets and bandages of banana leaves, simulate the actions of evil spirits. On the magical significance of games in primitive agriculture, see Sir J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, London, 1912, i, 92-112.