Soon after
his return a feast is made for the slain man, in order that his
ghost may not haunt his slayer. In the Pelew Islands, when the men
return from a warlike expedition in which they have taken a life,
the young warriors who have been out fighting for the first time,
and all who handled the slain, are shut up in the large
council-house and become tabooed. They may not quit the edifice, nor
bathe, nor touch a woman, nor eat fish; their food is limited to
coco-nuts and syrup. They rub themselves with charmed leaves and
chew charmed betel. After three days they go together to bathe as
near as possible to the spot where the man was killed.
Among the Natchez Indians of North America young braves who had
taken their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of
abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their wives nor
eat flesh; their only food was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke
these rules, they believed that the soul of the man they had killed
would work their death by magic, that they would gain no more
successes over the enemy, and that the least wound inflicted on them
would prove mortal.
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