Note 26 — Chapter I · EXPOSITION OF THE PROBLEM AND METHOD

So e. g. there could be placed in the first category different kinds of food taboos. In the Arunta, food procured or handled by certain relatives may not be eaten by a man; nor may be eaten any food in their immediate presence. Such food would disagree with the man. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 469.—If certain food taboos were transgressed during initiation by the boys, their wounds would inflame. Ibid. p. 470.—Certain taboos must be observed during pregnancy both by the woman and her husband; if they were transgressed the sickness of the woman would be worse and the man would lose his skill in hunting. Ibid. p. 471.—Compare also Mitchell, ii. p. 29, and Wilhelmi, p. 176. If the man should transgress the mother-in-law taboo, his hair would prematurely grow grey, or he would soon become bald. This belief is very widespread. Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 296. D. Mathews, p. 49. Mrs. Bates, p. 50. Compare also Waitz Gerland, p. 795, where different norms, enforced by supernatural punishment, are mentioned, and also MacGillivray, ii. 10, Eyre ii. 339, Stanbridge, p. 289. Different ceremonies and ordeals at mourning and burial are regulated by custom; the same thing may probably be said of some of the initiatory ordeals. Noncompliance would involve the general ridicule or contempt of the tribesmen: Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 510. As crimes may be mentioned: transgression of the class rule as well in marriage as in sexual intercourse. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 495, say that the usual punishment is death. Killing by magic: Spencer and Gillen, p. 476; Waitz Gerland, p. 794. In some cases the transgression of the mother-in-law taboo seems to be punished by expulsion from the local group: Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 296.—Salvado says that marriage under thirty years is punished by death (p. 267). Such examples could be indefinitely multiplied.