e of which "the flesh
of timid animals is avoided by warriors, but they love the meat of
tigers, boars, and stags, for their courage and speed."[3, p.131.] Are
not these food taboos rather, Dr. Marett asks, a "misapplication of the
ideas of association by similarity and contiguity" amounting to the
sympathetic taboos so carefully described by such writers on Magic as
MM. Hubert and Mauss of L'Annee Sociologique? Still another kind of
taboos mentioned by Dr. Frazer but amplified by Mr. Crawley in "The
Mystic Rose," the taboos on knots at childbirth, marriage, and death,
are much better described by the term "sympathetic taboo." Moreover, if
taboo were a form of magic as defined by Dr. Frazer, it would be a
somewhat definite and measurable quantity; whereas the distinguishing
characteristic of taboo everywhere is the "infinite plus of awfulness"
always accompanying its violation. As Dr. Marett observes, there may be
certain definite results, such as prescribed punishment for violations
against which a legal code is in process of growth. There may be also
social "growlings," showing the opposition of public opinion to which
the savage is at least as keenly sensitive as the modern. But it is the
"infinite plus" always attached to the violation of taboo that puts it
into the realm of the mystical, the magical. It would seem that Dr.
Frazer's definition does not include enough.

It is when we turn to the subject of this study that we see most clearly
the deficiencies in these explanations--to the "classic well-nigh
universal major taboo" of the woman shunned. Dr. Marett uses her as his
most telling argument against the inclusiveness of the concepts of Dr.
Frazer and of MM. Hubert and Mauss. He says: "It is difficult to
conceive of sympathy, and sympathy only, as the continuous, or even the
originally efficient cause of the avoidance." Mr Crawley had called
attention to the fact that savages fear womanly characteristics, that
is, effeminacy, which is identified with weakness. While noting with
great psychological insight the presence of other factors, such as the
dislike of the different, he had gone so far as to express the opinion
that the fear of effeminacy was probably the chief factor in the Sex
Taboo. This is probably the weakest point in Mr. Crawley's study, for he
shows so clearly the presence of other elements, notably mystery, the
element that made woman the potential witch against whom suspicion
concentrated in so t