[Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.]

To take other instances of what we may call the conservation of energy in magic or religion by insulating sacred bodies from the ground, the natives of New Britain have a secret society called the Duk-duk, the members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces.  Thus disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of the women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for spirits.  When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august society, the adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for each lad, and the novices carry them, carefully wrapt up in leaves, to the sacred ground, where they arrive very tired and weary, for they may not let the bamboos touch the ground nor the sun shine on them.  Outside the fence of the enclosure every lad deposits his bamboo on a couple of forked sticks and covers it up with nut leaves.[23] Among the Carrier Indians of North-Western America, who burned their dead, the ashes of a chief used to be placed in a box and set on the top of a pole beside his hut:  the box was never allowed to touch the ground.[24] In the Omaha tribe of North American Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan was wrapt up from sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered to come in contact with the earth.[25] The Cherokees and kindred Indian tribes of the United States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks, which they regularly took with them to war.  Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box, which contained “certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each.”  The leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it against the enemy.  Where stones were plentiful they rested the ark on them; but where no stones were to be found, they deposited it on short logs.  “The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account.  It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil.  Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for the very same reason.”  After their return home they used to hang the ark on the leader’s red-painted war pole.[26] At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern India, an annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives.  A square box with a domed top figures prominently at the fair.  It is fixed on two poles to be carried on men’s shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang from it nearly to the ground.