ng their energies.
Instead of conserving their strength they weaken themselves by the many
privations they undergo before fighting, in order to ensure victory.
Professor Frazer well says:--

"When we observe what pains these misguided savages took to unfit
themselves for the business of war by abstaining from food, denying
themselves rest, and lacerating their bodies, we shall probably not be
disposed to attribute their practice of continence in war to a rational
fear of dissipating their bodily energies by indulgence in the lusts of
the flesh."[72]

The conception of woman as one heavily charged with supernatural
potentialities, and, therefore, a source of danger to the community,
seems to lie at the basis of the widespread belief in the religious
'uncleanness' of women. The real significance of the word 'unclean' in
religious ritual has been obscured by our modern use of it in a hygienic
or ethical sense. In reality it is but an illustration of the principle
of 'taboo,' and 'taboo' may extend to anything, good or bad, useful or
useless, hygienically clean or unclean. The primary meaning of 'taboo,'
a Polynesian word, is something that is set aside or forbidden. The
field covered by this word among savage and semi-savage races is, as
Robertson Smith points out, "very wide, for there is no part of life in
which the savage does not feel himself surrounded by mysterious agencies
and recognise the need of walking warily."[73] Anything may thus become
the object of a 'taboo.' Weapons, food, animals, places, special
relations of one person to another at certain times and under certain
conditions. It is enough that some special or particular degree of
supernatural influence is associated with the object in question. The
ancient Jews, for example, in prohibiting the eating of swine's flesh,
were as far as possible removed in their thought from any connection
with dietetics. They were simply following the well-known savage custom
that the totem of a tribe is sacred. The pig was a totem with many of
the Semitic tribes, and must not, therefore, be eaten.[74] It was not an
unclean animal, in the modern sense, it was a 'holy' animal. With the
Syrians the dove was so holy that even to touch it made a man 'unclean'
for a whole day. No North American Indian will eat of the flesh of an
animal that is a tribal totem, except under grave necessity, and even
then with elaborate religious ceremonies. So, "a prohibition to eat the
flesh of