In some parts of New
Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for
hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on that day from
all the neighbourhood.
8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails
BUT even when the hair and nails have been safely cut, there remains
the difficulty of disposing of them, for their owner believes
himself liable to suffer from any harm that may befall them. The
notion that a man may be bewitched by means of the clippings of his
hair, the parings of his nails, or any other severed portion of his
person is almost world-wide, and attested by evidence too ample, too
familiar, and too tedious in its uniformity to be here analysed at
length. The general idea on which the superstition rests is that of
the sympathetic connexion supposed to persist between a person and
everything that has once been part of his body or in any way closely
related to him. A very few examples must suffice. They belong to
that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called contagious.
Dread of sorcery, we are told, formed one of the most salient
characteristics of the Marquesan islanders in the old days.
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