ass. In the most remote periods it is
probable that every clan had at least one totem animal which might no
more be killed or eaten than the human individuals of the clan. The
totem was protected by taboo. The totem was sacred and in this capacity
it was looked upon as a source of strength and holiness, and to live
beside it and under its protection was considered as a righteous custom.
In certain communities the idea that it was necessary to abstain from
eating certain totems survived the progress of material civilization.
The cow is taboo to the Hindus, the pig is taboo to the Mohammedans and
to the Jews. The pious Jew abstains from pork because his remote
ancestors, five or six thousand years before our era, had the wild boar
as their totem. This is the origin of this alimentary taboo; among the
ancient Hebrews it arose, and only comparatively recently has it been
suggested that the flesh of these taboo animals was unwholesome. In the
eighteenth century, philosophers propagated the erroneous notion that if
certain religious legislators had forbidden various aliments, it was for
hygienic motives. Even Renan believed that dread of trichinosis and
leprosy had caused the Hebrews to forbid the use of pork. To show the
irrational nature of this explanation, it will be enough to point out
that in the whole of the Bible there is not a single instance of an
epidemic or a malady attributed to the eating of unclean meats; the idea
of hygiene awoke very late in the Greek world. To the Biblical writers,
as to contemporary savages, illness is supernatural; it is an effect of
the wrath of spirits.

Primitive man ascribed all diseases either to the wrath of God, or the
malice of an evil being. The curing of disease by the casting out of
devils and by prayers were the means of relief from sickness recognized
and commanded by the Old Testament. The hygienic explanation of an
alimentary prohibition as still insisted upon by the rabbis is entirely
erroneous and marks the expounder of such an explanation as one who is
entirely ignorant of the evolution of religious beliefs. The entire
matter is well stated in one sentence by Reinach, "Nothing can be more
absurd, generally speaking, than to explain the religious laws and
practices of the remote past by considerations based on modern science."

The Martian is able to trace some curious customs that were exhibited by
the ancient Hebrews as well as most other ancient peoples, and which
have