he plague-power off with it.[1015] A woman is tabooed forty
days at the birth of a male child, and eighty days at the birth of a
female child; the taboo is removed by a holocaust and a
sin-offering.[1016]

+617+. A general taboo regulation may be set aside by tribal agreement
in the interests of convenience or pleasure. On certain occasions the
restrictions on the intercourse of the sexes are removed for a brief
period, at the expiration of which the prohibitory law resumes its
place.[1017] Many special ceremonies in various parts of the world have
to do with modifications of marriage laws.[1018]

+618+. _Taboo and magic._ Reference is made above to magical procedures
in connection with taboo customs. Taboo and magic have a common basis in
the conception of an occult force (which may conveniently be called
_mana_) resident in all things, but they contemplate different sides of
this force, and their social developments are very different. Taboo
recognizes the inherent malefic manifestations of the force (known by
supposed experience), and avoids them; magic uses the mana energy to
effect results impossible for unaided human power. In taboo man feels
himself to be under the dominance of an occult law, and his virtue is
blind obedience; in magic he feels himself to be the master of a great
energy, and what he needs is knowledge. Taboo has originated a mass of
irrational rules for the guidance of everyday life; magic has grown
into a quasi-science, with an organized body of adepts, touching
religion on one side and real science on another side.

+619+. A closer relationship between magic and taboo has been assumed in
view of the fact that both rest to some extent on the principle of the
association of ideas, the principle that like procedures produce like
results. It is true that some taboo rules depend on this
conception:[1019] the flesh of timid animals is avoided, that of
courageous animals is eaten, under the belief that the man partakes of
the character of the food he eats; association with women is sometimes
supposed to make a man or a boy effeminate. It is to be expected that in
the immense number of taboo prohibitions and precautions some should be
found in which the association of ideas is the determining factor. But
for the majority of taboo regulations this explanation does not hold. In
the economic and sexual taboos mentioned above, in the dread of corpses,
in the fear of touching things belonging to a chief,