a mask, and no masked man may enter his house. If a dog enters his
house, it is killed and thrown out. As priest of the Earth he may not
sit on the bare ground, nor eat things that have fallen on the ground,
nor may earth be thrown at him.[11] According to ancient Brahmanic
ritual a king at his inauguration trod on a tiger's skin and a golden
plate; he was shod with shoes of boar's skin, and so long as he lived
thereafter he might not stand on the earth with his bare feet.[12]

[Certain persons on certain occasions forbidden to touch the ground with
their feet.]

But besides persons who are permanently sacred or tabooed and are
therefore permanently forbidden to touch the ground with their feet,
there are others who enjoy the character of sanctity or taboo only on
certain occasions, and to whom accordingly the prohibition in question
only applies at the definite seasons during which they exhale the odour
of sanctity. Thus among the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo, while
the priestesses are engaged in the performance of certain rites they may
not step on the ground, and boards are laid for them to tread on.[13] At
a funeral ceremony observed by night among the Michemis, a Tibetan tribe
near the northern frontier of Assam, a priest fantastically bedecked
with tiger's teeth, many-coloured plumes, bells, and shells, executed a
wild dance for the purpose of exorcising the evil spirits; then all
fires were extinguished and a new light was struck by a man suspended by
his feet from a beam in the ceiling; "he did not touch the ground," we
are told, "in order to indicate that the light came from heaven."[14]
Again, newly born infants are strongly tabooed; accordingly in Loango
they are not allowed to touch the earth.[15] Among the Iluvans of
Malabar the bridegroom on his wedding-day is bathed by seven young men
and then carried or walks on planks from the bathing-place to the
marriage booth; he may not touch the ground with his feet.[16] With the
Dyaks of Landak and Tajan, two districts of Dutch Borneo, it is a custom
that for a certain time after marriage neither bride nor bridegroom may
tread on the earth.[17] Warriors, again, on the war-path are surrounded,
so to say, by an atmosphere of taboo; hence some Indians of North
America might not sit on the bare ground the whole time they were out on
a warlike expedition.[18] In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to
many taboos; one of them is that the chief hunter may not