and if
soiled, thrown into the fire--partly as an offering to the dead, and
partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread upon any
particle of it."[31] At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo the
food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground;
hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of
thin poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common
house.[32] When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired of
eating walrus, one of the women brought the head and neck of a reindeer
for him to eat. This venison had to be completely wrapt up before it was
brought into the house, and once in the house it could only be placed on
the platform which served as a bed. "To have placed it on the floor or
on the platform behind the fire-lamp, among the walrus, musk-ox, and
polar-bear meat which occupy a goodly portion of both of these places,
would have horrified the whole town, as, according to the actual belief
of the Innuits, not another walrus could be secured this year, and there
would ever be trouble in catching any more."[33] But in this case the
real scruple appears to have been felt not so much at placing the
venison on the ground as at bringing it into contact with walrus
meat.[34]

[Magical implements and remedies thought to lose their virtue by contact
with the ground.]

Sometimes magical implements and remedies are supposed to lose their
virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they
are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the
Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native
sorcerer points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any
chance allowed to touch the earth.[35] The wives of rajahs in Macassar,
a district of southern Celebes, pride themselves on their luxuriant
tresses and are at great pains to oil and preserve them. Should the hair
begin to grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages
of time; among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted
from crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very
efficacious, but during its application the woman's feet may not come
into contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be
lost.[36] Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour
would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrenched from a man's body
without touching the ground,