Note 224.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Now the act of stepping over another is everywhere regarded as one of great rudeness, if not insult. More than this, it is regarded as likely to communicate some mysterious injury or to take away some luck, good quality or advantage from the person who is thus treated. Hence it is often hotly resented. Without going beyond the Congo region, it is enough to note that in Loango to step over a child is to interfere with his development—in other words, to stop his growth; to step over an adult is to transfer to him every evil from which one may be suffering. It is not good even to reach, or to throw anything, across him; and if such a thing be done, the action must be repeated in the contrary direction, in order, it would seem, to reverse the spell.224.1 But in the ceremony of purification an act in ordinary circumstances so injurious is ritually performed for some beneficial effect. This may be simply to take away some evil; it may be to dispossess finally and for ever the tenacious ghost, in case all the previous efforts have proved unavailing. But the difference of the performer’s sex means surely more than this. When a widow is purified, her husband’s brother performs the final rite; when it is a widower, his wife’s sister. Now it will be observed these persons belong to the precise class from which the next spouse is to be taken. When the husband dies the widow becomes the wife of one of his brothers; when the wife dies the husband demands another wife from her family.224.2 The act of stepping over the widow or widower, therefore, seems to symbolize the taking of possession by one of the persons entitled to do so.