Note 57.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

It may be so. It may be another illustration of the fluidity of the concept of personality. But what we have already learned of mana may lead us to place another interpretation upon it. It was not merely the gods whose influence or personality was conveyed by contact. The king in his turn spread an awful influence in the same way, or even by the utterance of a word. In New Zealand “the garments of an ariki, or high chief, were tapu, as well as everything relating to him; they could not be worn by anyone else, lest they should kill him.” If a single drop of a high chief’s blood flowed on anything, it consecrated the object to him, or, as the natives phrased it, rendered it tapu. This consequence resulted to everything touched by him, to everything to which he chose to affix his name or the name of one of his ancestors. He could not eat with his wife, lest his sanctity should kill her, though she herself was by marriage consecrated to him. Nor was the sanctity by any means confined to the highest chiefs. It extended downwards to the lower ranks, but always in a decreasing measure. It mainly depended on rank and influence;57.1 it could be none other than the effect of mana.