ommissioned by the community or its head
to conduct the sacrificial service and related services connected with
shrines. Such a person differs in two respects from the religious
official of the simplest times, the magician (shaman, or medicine man):
the latter acts in his own name and by his own authority, and the
methods he employs are magical--they are based on the belief that the
supernatural Powers are subject to law and may be controlled by one who
knows this law; the priest acts in the name and by the authority of the
community, and his methods are dictated by the friendly social relation
existing between the community and the Powers. He differs, further, from
those religious ministrants (chiefs of clans, fathers of families, and
other prominent men) who acted by virtue of their social or political
positions in that his functions are solely religious and are in that
regard distinct from his civil position. He represents a differentiation
of functions in an orderly nonmagical religious society. Such an office
can arise only under a tolerably well-organized civil government and a
fairly well-defined sacrificial ritual. It is doubtless a slow growth,
and there may be, in a community, a period of transition from one grade
of religious ministers to another when the distinction between the
priest and the magician or between the priest and the headman is hardly
recognizable; the distinction comes, however, to be well marked, and
then indicates an important turning-point in religious history. It may
be, also, that at certain times under certain circumstances the civil
ruler may have priestly functions or the priest may exercise civil
authority; but these exceptional cases do not affect the specific
character of the sacerdotal office.

+1063+. The priest is a sacred person, and is affected by all the
conditions pertaining to the conception of "sacred." In early times he
has to be guarded against contamination by impure or common (profane)
things, and care has to be taken that his quality of sacredness be not
injuriously communicated to other persons or to any object.[1927] The
parts of his person, such as hair and nail-parings, must not be touched
by common folk. The dress worn by him when performing his sacred duties
must be changed when he comes out to mix with the people. He must keep
his body clean, and the food that he may or may not eat is determined by
custom or by law. His sexual relations are defined--sometimes he