f the evil eye, many more to ritual
notions of uncleanness.[52] No scientific investigation could discover
the origin of the folkways mentioned, if the origin had not chanced to
become known to civilized men. We must believe that the known cases
illustrate the irrational and incongruous origin of many folkways. In
civilized history also we know that customs have owed their origin to
"historical accident,"--the vanity of a princess, the deformity of a
king, the whim of a democracy, the love intrigue of a statesman or
prelate. By the institutions of another age it may be provided that no
one of these things can affect decisions, acts, or interests, but then
the power to decide the ways may have passed to clubs, trades unions,
trusts, commercial rivals, wire-pullers, politicians, and political
fanatics. In these cases also the causes and origins may escape
investigation.

+29. Harmful folkways.+ There are folkways which are positively harmful.
Very often these are just the ones for which a definite reason can be
given. The destruction of a man's goods at his death is a direct
deduction from other-worldliness; the dead man is supposed to want in
the other world just what he wanted here. The destruction of a man's
goods at his death was a great waste of capital, and it must have had a
disastrous effect on the interests of the living, and must have very
seriously hindered the development of civilization. With this custom we
must class all the expenditure of labor and capital on graves, temples,
pyramids, rites, sacrifices, and support of priests, so far as these
were supposed to benefit the dead. The faith in goblinism produced
other-worldly interests which overruled ordinary worldly interests.
Foods have often been forbidden which were plentiful, the prohibition of
which injuriously lessened the food supply. There is a tribe of Bushmen
who will eat no goat's flesh, although goats are the most numerous
domestic animals in the district.[53] Where totemism exists it is
regularly accompanied by a taboo on eating the totem animal. Whatever
may be the real principle in totemism, it overrules the interest in an
abundant food supply. "The origin of the sacred regard paid to the cow
must be sought in the primitive nomadic life of the Indo-European race,"
because it is common to Iranians and Indians of Hindostan.[54] The
Libyans ate oxen but not cows.[55] The same was true of the
Phoenicians and Egyptians.[56] In some cases the sense