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The
legend of the matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place
pursued by the Furies of his murdered mother, and none would sit at
meat with him, or take him in, till he had been purified, reflects
faithfully the real Greek dread of such as were still haunted by an
angry ghost.

6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed
IN SAVAGE society the hunter and the fisherman have often to observe
rules of abstinence and to submit to ceremonies of purification of
the same sort as those which are obligatory on the warrior and the
manslayer; and though we cannot in all cases perceive the exact
purpose which these rules and ceremonies are supposed to serve, we
may with some probability assume that, just as the dread of the
spirits of his enemies is the main motive for the seclusion and
purification of the warrior who hopes to take or has already taken
their lives, so the huntsman or fisherman who complies with similar
customs is principally actuated by a fear of the spirits of the
beasts, birds, or fish which he has killed or intends to kill.


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