ABSTRACT
Abstinence from the ordinary activities of life is seen upon numerous occasions, such as in the" Sweat Lodge" experience of the Indian, who renounces the usual activities of daily existence, and retires to a hut to become so pure that the spirits may look through him; on various holy days, such as the Atonement Day of the Hebrews, where prohibition of food and of the ordinary occupations is most emphatically enjoined, on the Israelitish Sabbath, when the direst results would befall one who dares violate the strict taboos associated with the sacred day, with eclipses of the moon, when the usual business is suspended, and with numerous other situations. When Westermarck tries to account for the inactivity which follows a death as due to a natural condition of sorrow, or assumes that the mourner may be in a. delicate condition requiring rest, he cannot have a grasp of the real situation.1 Although the sorrow motive may occasionally figure in the complex, yet its role is so unimportant that we may eliminate it entirely when considering the specific phase of the problem. What might at first glance be interpreted as a mark of sorrow, certainly assumes an entirely different aspect when carefully investigated. Taboo is entwined with social and political institutions; it is significant to note that everything sacred seems to be taboo, but not vice versa, and that the belief may not be imposed, but spontaneous. Thus the death taboo seems primarily to be a result of the terror and bewilderment caused by the entrance of death into the circle.
