thing were desired there would be no necessity to impose taboo
restrictions concerning it.

It is by a knowledge of the mana concept and the belief in sympathetic
magic, clarified by recognition of the ambivalent element in the
emotional reaction to the thing tabooed, that we can hope to understand
the almost universal custom of the "woman shunned" and the sex taboos of
primitive peoples. This dualism appears most strongly in the attitude
toward woman; for while she was the natural object of the powerful
sexual instinct she was quite as much the source of fear because she was
generally supposed to be endowed with spiritistic forces and in league
with supernatural powers. During the long period when the fact of
paternity was unrecognized, the power of reproduction which was thus
ascribed to woman alone made of her a mysterious being. Her fertility
could be explained only on the basis of her possession of an unusually
large amount of mana or creative force, or by the theory of impregnation
by demonic powers. As a matter of fact, both explanations were accepted
by primitive peoples, so that woman was regarded not only as imbued with
mana but also as being in direct contact with spirits. Many of the
devices for closing the reproductive organs which abounded among savage
tribes were imposed as a protection against spirits rather than against
the males of the human species. The tradition of impregnation by gods or
demons was not confined to savage tribes, but was wide-spread in the
days of Greece and Rome and lasted into biblical times, when we read of
the sons of heaven having intercourse with the daughters of men.

In addition to this fear of the woman as in possession of and in league
with supernatural powers, there was an additional motive to avoidance in
the fear of transmission of her weakness through contact, a fear based
on a belief in sympathetic magic, and believed with all the "intensely