James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)

“Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maravis, Chevas, Muembas, Lundas und andere von Süd-Afrika,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde (Berlin), vi. (1856) pp. 398 sq. ; F. T. Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller's Life in Western Africa (London, 1861), ii. 251 sq.

W. Mariner, The Natives of the Tonga Islands , 2i. 141 sq. note, 434 note, ii. 82 sq. , 221-224; Captain J. Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), v. 427 sq. Similarly in Fiji any person who had touched the head of a living chief or the body of a dead one was forbidden to handle his food, and must be fed by another (J. E. Erskine, The Western Pacific , p. 254).

On the custom of touching for the King's Evil, see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , vol. i. pp. 368 sqq.

“The idea in which this law [the law of taboo or tapu , as it was called in New Zealand] originated appears to have been, that a portion of the spiritual essence of an atua or of a sacred person was communicated directly to objects which they touched, and also that the spiritual essence so communicated to any object was afterwards more or less retransmitted to anything else brought into contact with it” (E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders , Second Edition, London, 1856, p. 102). Compare id. , Maori Religion and Mythology , p. 25.

Old New Zealand , by a Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), pp. 96 sq.

W. Brown, New Zealand and its Aborigines (London, 1845), p. 76. For more examples of the same kind see ibid. pp. 177 sq.

E. Tregear, “The Maoris of New Zealand,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute , xix. (1890) p. 100.

R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants , 2p. 164.

R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 165.

Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia , pp. 537 sq.

R. Southey, History of Brazil , i. 2(London, 1822), p. 238.

Major A. G. Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), pp. 257 sq.