antation
and exorcism employed in fishing. There must be abstinence from the sex
relation before a fishing expedition. The men start in silence.
Especially, the hoped-for success must not be mentioned. The boat must
have a formula of luck pronounced over it. Sacrifices of taro are
offered to win the favor of the god, lest the lines be broken by sharks
or become entangled in rocks. If the expedition fails to get a good
catch, the fault is laid to the men. Some one of them is thought to have
done something amiss.[187]

+126. Religion and industry.+ Here we meet with a familiar cycle of
notions and usages. We must assume them in all cases, whether they are
reported or not, for the element of supernatural intervention, or magic,
seems never to be wanting. At higher stages it gives way to religious
ritual or to priestly blessing. The Japanese sword maker formerly wore a
priestly garb when making a sword, which was a sacred craft. He also
practiced a purificatory ritual. The sacred rope of rice straw, the
oldest symbol of Shinto, was suspended before the smithy. The workman's
food was all cooked with holy fire, and none of his family might enter
the workshop or speak to him while he was at work.[188] There were also
ascetic practices in the Shinto religion, which an elected
representative of the community undertook each year for the prosperity
of the whole.[189] There is never a case of authority in human society
which does not go back, for its origin and explanation, to the influence
of the other world (ghosts, etc.) over this world.

+127. Artifacts and freaks of nature.+ In the Oxford University museum
may be seen a case full of natural stones, flints, etc., so like the
artifacts of the Chellean type that it would require a skilled observer
to determine whether they are artificial or not. The collection includes
apparent celts, rings, perforated stones, borers, scrapers, and flint
flakes, so that the objects are by no means such as would lie at the
beginning of the series of artifacts, in regard to which the doubt
whether they were artificial would arise from their rudeness and
consequent resemblance to stones broken by natural conjunctures. In the
museum at Dresden may be seen a collection of stones, natural products,
which might serve as models for artificial axes, celts, etc. One object
shows the possibility of freaks of nature of this class. It is a
water-worn stone which might be taken for a skull. In the Copenhagen