Semitic magic : its origins and development

EOYAL TABU. 139
of the widespreading peoples must not eat flesh that lias
been cooked over coals nor bread cooked in asbes.^ He
must not change the raiment of bis body, nor put on clean
{or white) clothes. He must not offer a libation. The
king must not ride forth in his chariot, and must not
speak loudly.^ The priest must not make enquiry in
a secret place. The physician must not lay his hand
on the sick. It is unfitted for making a curse.^ In the
evening the king should make offerings and offer sacrifices
to Marduk and Ishtar ; his prayer will be acceptable to
the god." Two important points to notice in this
hemerology, before going further, are the two phrases
1 Compare the tabu in Shabbatk, Talmud, ed. Schwab, iv, 25, that no
meat, onion, or egg should be put to roast on the eve of the sabbath,
unless it can be finished cooking that day. Bread was not to be put in
the oven or a cake on the ashes unless there was time for a light crust
to form on the surface before the beginning of the Sabbath. The
Assyrian word for ' bread cooked in ashes ' is akal tumri {Devils, ii,
18) ; it is the Hebrew D^S^I HIlJ? , the panis subcinericus of the
Vulgate. For the use in magic compare the instances given in Devils,
loc. cit., and Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, ii, 27 : " Den 27 (Tammuz) feiern
die Manner ein Mysterion des Schemal, zu Ehren der Genien, der
Damonen und der Gottheiten. Sie machen viele Aschenkuchen aus
Mehl, Terebinthenbeeren, getrockneten Weinbeeren (Rosinen, Zibeben)
und geschalten Niissen, wie die Hirten zu thun pflegen." These
prohibitions on cooking probably arise from some tabu against fire ;
compare Exod. xxxv, 3, " Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your
habitations upon the Sabbath," and Lev. x, 1, 2, where the offering of
strange fire meets with the punishment of fire which comes forth from
Yahweh. Josephus {Bell. Jud., ii, 8, 9) says that the Essenes strictly
observed the rules to cook no food and light no fire on the Sabbath.
2 To raise the voice is tabu to a murderer among the Omahas
(Frazer, Golden Bough, i, 340, quoting Dorsey).
^ Often hemerology texts mark this in different form : " On the
nineteenth of lyyar he who uttereth a ban—a god will seize upon him "
{W.A.I., V, pi. 48). On the tabu on work on holy days see Jevons,
Introduction, 2nd ed., 65 ff.