not be disturbed by animals. For “they have a superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by animals.”[1] The clipped hair and nails are often buried in any secret place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or under a tree, as in the cases already mentioned. In Swabia it is said that cut hair should be buried in a place where neither sun nor moon shines, therefore in the ground, under a stone, etc.[2] In Danzig it is buried in a bag under the threshold.[3] In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.[4] The Zend Avesta directs that the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be placed in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be drawn round each hole with a metal knife.[5] In the Grihya-Sûtras it is provided that the hair cut from a child’s head at the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water.[6] The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.[7] The Kafirs carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy; for not only do they bury their cut hair and nails in a sacred place, but when one of them cleans the head of another he preserves the insects which he
- ↑ W. Dall, Alaska and its Resources, p. 54; F. Whymper, “The Natives of the Youkon River,” in Transact. Ethnolog. Soc. of London, vii. 174.
- ↑ E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben, p. 159.
- ↑ W. Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen, p. 630.
- ↑ H. B. Guppy, The Solomon Islands and their Natives, p. 54.
- ↑ Fargaard, xvii.
- ↑ Grihya-Sûtras, translated by H. Oldenberg (Oxford, 1886), vol. i. p. 57.
- ↑ R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa,” in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xii. (1882-84) p. 332.
