Removal of the Tongue from Slain Animals for Sacred & Magical Purposes
“...Omaha hunters [c. 1884] remove the tongue of a slain buffalo through an opening made in the animal's throat. The tongues thus removed are sacred and may not touch any tool or metal except when they are boiling in the kettles at the sacred tent. They are eaten as sacred food.
"Indian bear-hunters [c. 18th-19th cent.] cut out what they call the bear's little tongue (a fleshy mass under the real tongue) and keep it for good luck in hunting or burn it to determine, from its crackling and so on, whether the soul of the slain bear is angry with them or not. In folk-tales the hero commonly cuts out the tongue of the wild beast which he has slain and preserves it as a token. The incident serves to shew that the custom was a common one, since folk-tales reflect with accuracy the customs and beliefs of a primitive age.
"On the other hand, the tongues of certain animals, as the otter and the eagle, are torn out and sometimes worn round their necks by Thlinkeet [i.e., Tlingit] and Haida shamans [c. 1880s] as a means of conferring superhuman knowledge and power on their possessors. In particular, an otter’s tongue is supposed to convey a knowledge of ‘the language of all inanimate objects, of birds, animals, and other living creatures’ to the shaman, who wears it in a little bag hung round his neck.
"When a Galla [i.e., Oromo] priest [c. 1890s] sacrifices an animal and decides that the omens are favourable, he cuts out the tongue, sticks his thumb through it, and so flays the animal. In certain cases Gallas cut out the tongues of oxen and wear them on their heads as tokens.
"In Bohemia [i.e., Czechia, c. 1860s] a fox's tongue is worn as an amulet to make a timid person bold; in Oldenburg and Belgium it is a remedy for erysipelas. In Bohemia [again, c. 1860s] the tongue of a male snake, if cut from the living animal on St. George's Eve and placed under a person's tongue, will confer the gift of eloquence.
"The Homeric Greeks cut out the tongues of sacrificial victims and burned them. According to some accounts, the tongues of the victims were assigned by the Greeks to Hermes, as the god of speech, or to his human representatives the heralds. On the principles of sympathetic magic we might expect that heralds should taste the tongues of sacrificial victims to strengthen their voices, or to acquire the gift of tongues.”
—J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn & of the Wild, part 2 (The Golden Bough, vol. VIII, 1912, pp. 269-271)
