If the supposed
evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the taboo would not be
a taboo but a precept of morality or common sense. It is not a taboo
to say, "Do not put your hand in the fire"; it is a rule of common
sense, because the forbidden action entails a real, not an imaginary
evil. In short, those negative precepts which we call taboo are just
as vain and futile as those positive precepts which we call sorcery.
The two things are merely opposite sides or poles of one great
disastrous fallacy, a mistaken conception of the association of
ideas. Of that fallacy, sorcery is the positive, and taboo the
negative pole. If we give the general name of magic to the whole
erroneous system, both theoretical and practical, then taboo may be
defined as the negative side of practical magic. To put this in
tabular form:
Magic
|
----------------------
| |
Theoretical Practical
(Magic as a (Magic as a
pseudo-science) pseudo-art)
|
-----------------
| |
Positive Magic Negative Magic
or Sorcery or Taboo
I have made these remarks on taboo and its relations to magic
because I am about to give some instances of taboos observed by
hunters, fishermen, and others, and I wished to show that they fall
under the head of Sympathetic Magic, being only particular
applications of that general theory.
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