wing-room, meanwhile, Bertram Ingledew was reflecting, as
he waited for the church people to clear away, how interesting these
English clothes-taboos and day-taboos promised to prove, beside some
similar customs he had met with or read of in his investigations
elsewhere. He remembered how on a certain morning of the year the High
Priest of the Zapotecs was obliged to get drunk, an act which on any
other day in the calendar would have been regarded by all as a terrible
sin in him. He reflected how in Guinea and Tonquin, at a particular
period once a twelvemonth, nothing is considered wrong, and everything
lawful, so that the worst crimes and misdemeanours go unnoticed and
unpunished. He smiled to think how some days are tabooed in certain
countries, so that whatever you do on them, were it only a game of
tennis, is accounted wicked; while some days are periods of absolute
licence, so that whatever you do on them, were it murder itself, becomes
fit and holy. To him and his people at home, of course, it was the
intrinsic character of the act itself that made it right or wrong, not
the particular day or week or month on which one happened to do it. What
was wicked in June was wicked still in October. But not so among the
unreasoning devotees of taboo, in Africa or in England. There, what was
right in May became wicked in September, and what was wrong on Sunday
became harmless or even obligatory on Wednesday or Thursday. It was all
very hard for a rational being to understand and explain: but he meant
to fathom it, all the same, to the very bottom--to find out why, for
example, in Uganda, whoever appears before the king must appear stark
naked, while in England, whoever appears before the queen must wear a
tailor's sword or a long silk train and a headdress of ostrich-feathers;
why, in Morocco, when you enter a mosque, you must take off your shoes
and catch a violent cold, in order to show your respect for Allah; while
in Europe, on entering a similar religious building, you must uncover
your head, no matter how draughty the place may be, since the deity who
presides there appears to be indifferent to the danger of consumption
or chest-diseases for his worshippers; why certain clothes or foods are
prescribed in London or Paris for Sundays and Fridays, while certain
others, just equally warm or digestible or the contrary, are perfectly
lawful to all the world alike on Tuesdays and Saturdays. These were
the curious questions he