RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN
MAGIC AND FETISHISM
RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.
_Foolscap 8vo. Price 1s. net per volume._
ANIMISM.
By EDWARD CLODD, Author of _The Story of Creation_.
PANTHEISM.
By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON, Author of _The Religion of the
Universe_.
THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA.
By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the
University of Cambridge.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.
By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge,
Author of _Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion_.
ISLAM.
By Professor T. W. ARNOLD, Assistant Librarian at the India
Office, Author of _The Preaching of Islam_.
MAGIC AND FETISHISM.
By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cambridge
University.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.
By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.
By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum.
BUDDHISM. 2 vols.
By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal
Asiatic Society.
HINDUISM.
By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed
Books and MSS., British Museum.
SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.
By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the _Oxford English
Dictionary_.
CELTIC RELIGION.
By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College,
Aberystwyth.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of _The Mythology of the British
Islands_.
JUDAISM.
By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in
Cambridge University, Author of _Jewish Life in the Middle
Ages_.
PRIMITIVE OR NICENE CHRISTIANITY.
By JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, LL.D., Joint Editor of the
_Encyclopædia Biblica_.
SHINTOISM.
MEDIAEVAL CHRISTIANITY.
ZOROASTRIANISM.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ITALY.
_Other Volumes to follow._
MAGIC
AND FETISHISM
By
ALFRED C. HADDON, Sc.D., F.R.S.
UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN ETHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
16 JAMES STREET HAYMARKET
1906
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
PREFATORY NOTE
It is by no means easy to do justice to such a large, comprehensive, and
at the same time vague subject as magic in the small compass of a Primer,
and part of even that small space had to be devoted to another subject.
For sins of omission I must claim this excuse; for sins of commission I
claim the indulgence of the reader.
A. C. H.
CONTENTS
MAGIC
I. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.
A. Contagious Magic.
Hair, nail-pairings, etc. (3), scalp-lock (4), saliva (5),
luck-ball (5), footprints (6), clothes (7), rag bushes and
pin-wells (8), personal ‘ornaments’ (9), food (10), cannibalism
(10), sympathetic relations between persons (11), couvade (13).
B. Homœopathic Magic.
Plants (15), rain-making (16), wind-making (18), increase of
plants (18), and of animals (19), luring animals to be caught
(19), human effigies to injure or kill people (20).
II. MAGICAL POWER OF NAMES AND WORDS.
Objection to names being mentioned of people, fairies, and
animals (22), names of power (24), satire (26), _geis_ (27),
tabu (28).
III. TALISMANS AND AMULETS.
Stones and metals (30), colour (31), bones, teeth, claws,
etc. (32), lucky pig (33), amulets against the evil eye (33),
luck-bone (39).
IV. DIVINATION—(40).
V. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MAGIC.
A. Public Magic.
Australian _intichiuma_ totem ceremonies (41), corn-planting
dance of the Musquakie (45).
B. Private Magic.
Folk-remedies (46), love-charms (47), nefarious magic (48).
VI. MAGICIANS.
Training of sorcerers and societies of magicians (51).
VII. PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGICAL PRACTICES.
Nervous instability (53), suggestion (53), make-believe (55),
tabu (55), _mana_ (58), projective will-power or telepathy
(60), from spell to prayer (61), the impossible not undertaken
(62), loopholes in case of failure (63).
FETISHISM
I. DEFINITION.
1. Etymological (66), 2. Historical (66), 3. Dogmatic (67).
II. ESSENTIAL CHARACTERS OF FETISHISM.
May be any object (72), a symbolic charm with sympathetic
properties (74), a sign or token representing an ideal notion
or being (76), habitation of a spiritual being (77), vehicle
for communication of a spirit (79), instrument by which spirit
acts (80), possesses personality and will (83), may act by own
will or by foreign spirit (84), spirit and material object can
be dissociated (87), worshipped, sacrificed to, talked with
(89), petted and ill-treated (90).
III. FETISHISM AS A FORM OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP—(91).
MAGIC
I. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
As knowledge increases, mankind learns more and more about the world and
the processes of nature, but even at the present day the vast majority of
white men possess only a rudimentary amount of this knowledge; indeed,
most so-called educated people have very vague ideas concerning the
physical universe in which they live. Such being the case, it is not
surprising that primitive peoples have very confused notions concerning
these matters, and, as the result of false inductions concerning the
causes of phenomena, they seek to accomplish ends by means that we
recognise as inadequate. ‘It is plain,’ as Dr. Jevons points out (36,
33), ‘that as long as man is turned loose as it were amongst these
innumerable possible causes with nothing to guide his choice, the chances
against his making the right selection are considerable.’ Further, ‘no
progress could be made in science until man had distinguished, at any
rate roughly, possible from absolutely impossible effects (or causes),
and had learned to dismiss from consideration the impossible. It might
be expected that experience would suffice of itself to teach man this
essential distinction, but the vast majority of the human race have not
yet learned from experience that like does not necessarily produce like:
four-fifths of mankind, probably, believe in sympathetic magic.’
The instances of sympathetic magic as Dr. Hirn points out (32, 278)
are naturally divided into two main classes which, broadly speaking,
correspond to the two types of association, contiguity and similarity,
and as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether a given
associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one
of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given
superstition is to be assigned. We will start from the facts that are
simpler and easier to explain.
A. Contagious Magic.
1. Sympathetic Magic based on a material connection between things (32,
279) has been aptly termed by Dr. Frazer (21, 77) =Contagious Magic=. All
over the world we meet with examples of the belief that objects which
were once related to one another retain their connection though they may
be separated, and whatever may happen to one part or object the other
part or object is similarly affected; thus, by acting upon a part of a
given whole we may influence the whole as well as all its other parts.
This belief explains why a magician, wishing to influence or act upon
some particular individual, desires to obtain some portion of his body
or something actually connected with him. A few hairs from the beard,
a lock of hair, some nail-parings, a drop of blood from the nose which
has fallen to the ground, and which has not been rendered impalpable
by effacing it with the foot, are used by Basuto sorcerers (10, 277),
and indeed by workers of magic everywhere. A few of the examples
collected by Mr. Hartland (30, ii. 66) will suffice to demonstrate the
universality of this belief. In some parts of England a girl forsaken by
her lover is advised to get a lock of his hair and boil it; whilst it is
simmering in the pot he will have no rest. In certain parts of Germany
and Transylvania the clippings of the hair or nails, as well as broken
pieces of the teeth, are buried beneath the elder tree which grows in
the courtyard, or are burnt, or carefully hidden, for fear of witches.
Patagonians burn the hairs brushed out from their heads, and all the
parings of their nails for they believe that spells may be wrought upon
them by any one who can obtain a piece of either.
The potency of the hair is shown in the beliefs about the long narrow
beaded band which is used to tie up the hair of a Musquakie woman (56,
96, 7). This, though a talisman when first worn, becomes something
infinitely more sacred and precious, being transfused with the essence of
her soul; any one gaining possession of it has her for an abject slave if
he keeps it, and kills her if he destroys it. A woman will go from a man
she loves to a man she hates if he has contrived to possess himself of
her hair-string; and a man will forsake wife and children for a witch who
has touched his lips with her hair-string. The hair-string is made for a
girl by her mother or grandmother and decorated with ‘luck’ patterns; it
is also prayed over by the maker and a shaman. The scalp-lock ornament
worn by the Musquakie men is kept with great care as it helps to protect
the soul. As the tearing out of the scalp-lock makes the soul at its root
the slave of the one obtaining it, so the possession of its ornament and
shield, which has absorbed some of its essence, gives the possessor the
ability to send the rightful owner brain fever and madness (56, 106).
In the South Sea Islands it was necessary to the success of any sorcery
to secure something connected with the body of the victim. Accordingly
a spittoon was always carried by the confidential servant of a chief in
the Hawaiian Islands to receive his expectorations, which were carefully
buried every morning. The Tahitians used to burn or bury the hair they
cut off, and every individual among them had his distinct basket for
food. As Mr. Hartland points out (30, ii. 76), the custom, everywhere
practised, of obliterating all trace of the saliva after spitting,
doubtless originated in the desire to prevent the use of it for magical
purposes, and the same desire led to the extreme cleanliness in the
disposal of fouler excreta which is almost universally a characteristic
of savages. Thus this belief has been one of the most beneficial of
superstitions.
Luck-bags of red cloth, which contain ‘the four things of good fortune,’
are made by witches in Italy (43, 287), who while sewing it sing an
incantation. American Negroes brought over from West Africa the art of
making ‘luck-balls’ or ‘cunjerin’ bags,’ a practice which is kept up to
the present day. They are supposed to bring happiness and success in
everything the owner undertakes; one made for Charles G. Leland, at the
instigation of Miss Owen (57, 173), contained, in addition to knotted
threads, a piece of foil to represent the brightness of the little spirit
that was going to be in the ball, a leaf of clover _in the place of the
hair of the one that is going to own the ball_, and some dust which
was designed to blind the eyes of enemies. Miss Owen got the same man,
Alexander, the King of the Voodoos, who made the ball for Mr. Leland,
to make one for me, and she informed me that ‘it was made just like Mr.
Leland’s with the same words and with the same materials, excepting the
clover. This is not the season for clover, _so a fragment of paper, torn
from one of your books, represents you_.’
It is not essential that the object to be operated upon should have
formed an actual part of a person, for something associated with that
person, such as something habitually worn or used, is sufficient, or as
in the case of the luck-ball just cited, the association may be as remote
as that between an author and a piece of the paper of a book he has
published.
Earth from a man’s footprints, on account of its close contact with the
person, has acquired the virtues of a portion of his body. Widely spread
in Germany is the belief that if a sod whereon a man has trodden—all the
better if with the naked foot—be taken up and dried behind the hearth
or oven, he will parch up with it and languish, or his foot will be
withered. He will be lamed, or even killed, by sticking his footprint
with nails—coffin nails are the best—or broken glass (30, ii. 78); but
these are also the practices of Australian or other savages. To quote
only one example from Australia (34, 26), sharp fragments of quartz,
glass, bone, or charcoal are buried in the footprints of the victim or in
the mark made in the ground by his reclining body. They are supposed to
enter the victim, and rheumatic affections are very frequently attributed
to them.
Clothes, from their intimate association with the person, have naturally
attained a prominent place among the instruments of witchcraft. In
Germany and Denmark no portion of a survivor’s clothing must on any
account be put upon a corpse, else the owner will languish away as it
moulders in the grave. To hang rags from the clothing of a dead man upon
a vine is to render it barren. ‘Probably,’ as Mr. Hartland suggests, ‘it
is only a different interpretation of the same belief which alike in
Christian, in Mohammedan, and in Buddhist lands has led to the ascription
of marvellous powers to the clothes and other relics of departed saints.
The divine power which was immanent in these personages during life
attaches not merely to every portion of their bodies but to every shred
of their apparel’ (30, ii. 90). An illustrative parallel can be taken
from the Pacific. The red feathers which adorned the sacred girdle worn
by the Tahitian kings were taken from the images of the gods. The girdle
‘thus became sacred, even as the person of the gods, the feathers being
supposed to retain all the dreadful attributes of power and vengeance
which the idols possessed, and with which it was designed to endow the
king.’ So potent was it that Mr. Ellis says (17, iii. 108) it ‘not only
raised him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with their
gods.’
It is conceivable, as Mr. Hartland suggests (30, ii. 214), that
uneducated folk might argue thus: if an article of my clothing in a
witch’s hands may cause me to suffer, the same article in contact with a
beneficent power may relieve pain, restore me to health, or promote my
general prosperity. Hence the practice of throwing pins into wells, of
tying rags on bushes and trees, of driving nails into trees and stocks,
of throwing stones and sticks on cairns, and the analogous practices
throughout the world, suggest that they are to be interpreted as acts of
ceremonial union with the spirit identified with well, tree, stock, or
cairn (30, ii. 228). In the British Islands the sanctity of the well or
bush was subsequently annexed by the missionaries who took up their abode
beside them, and thus we find the wells or trees called after certain
saints and the healing power attributed to the latter, whereas the
holiness and efficacy of the wells were in the vast majority of cases, if
not in all, pre-Christian (27, 383).
Objects are worn or eaten so that by induction the individual may acquire
their properties. Thus the Red Indian hunter (70, 131) wears ornaments of
the claws of the grizzly bear, that he may be endowed with its courage
and ferocity, and the Tyrolese hunter still wears tufts of eagle’s down
in his hat, to gain the eagle’s keen sight and courage. ‘Look,’ writes
Casalis (10, 271), ‘at those strange objects hanging from the necks of
our little black friends. There is a kite’s foot in order that the poor
child may escape misfortune with the swiftness of the kite in its flight.
Another has the claw of a lion in order that his life may be as firmly
secured against all danger as that of a lion; a third is adorned with
the tarsus bone of a sheep, or an iron ring, that he may oppose to evil
a resistance as firm as iron, or as that little compact bone without
marrow which could not be crushed between two stones without difficulty.’
The eating of certain kinds of food, more especially of the flesh of
animals, would similarly have a very potent effect; thus among the Dyaks
(65, i. 176), young men sometimes abstain from eating the flesh of deer,
lest they should become timid. The Abipones of Paraguay (14, 258) ‘detest
the thought of eating hens, eggs, sheep, fish, or tortoises, imagining
that these tender kinds of food engender sloth and languor in their
bodies and cowardice in their minds. On the other hand they eagerly
devour the flesh of the tiger [jaguar], bull, stag, boar, anta and
tamandua [ant-eaters], having an idea that, from continually feeding on
these animals, their strength, boldness, and courage are increased.’
Belief in contagious magic leads quite logically to various revolting
practices. In Torres Straits the sweat of renowned warriors was drunk
by young men, who also ate mixed with their food the scrapings from the
finger-nails of the warriors which had become saturated with human blood
in order ‘to make strong and like a stone; no afraid’ (29, v. 301). The
eyes and tongue of a freshly killed enemy were frequently torn out and
given to lads to make them brave and fearless. The Australian natives
believe that a man’s fat and his strength and vitality are connected,
therefore the wasting of the body and disease are the result of the
absence of fat, perhaps to be followed by death. By eating a man’s fat,
and thus making it part of himself, the black fellow thinks that he also
acquires the strength of the deceased. So also they think that human fat
brings success in hunting, causes spears which are anointed with it to
fly true, or the club to strike irresistible blows. The possession of
human fat is, therefore, much desired by these aborigines, especially
those who feel age or disease, or who wish to be successful in the
magical arts, for it is believed that the spirit of the dead man whose
fat has been used will help the charm to act (35, 411, 361). Cannibalism
for magical purposes of this sort has probably been extremely common and
is possibly at the base of a good deal of anthropophagy.
Very widely spread is the belief that close relatives or even friends are
bound together in a sympathetic relation, which is especially manifest on
important occasions or at critical times. When a Land Dyak village has
turned out for a wild-pig hunt in the jungle, those who remain at home
may not touch water or oil with their hands during the absence of their
friends, lest the hunters should all become ‘butter-fingered,’ and the
prey so escape them (60, i. 430). It is also recorded from Borneo that
when men are on a war expedition, fires are lighted at home, the mats
are spread, and the fires kept up till late in the evening and lighted
again before dawn, so that the men may not be cold; the roofing of the
house is opened before dawn, so that the men may not lie too long and
so fall into the enemies’ hands (60, ii. 104). Again when a Dyak is out
head-hunting, his wife, or, if he is unmarried, his sister, must wear
a sword day and night, in order that he may be always thinking of his
weapons; and she may not sleep during the day nor go to bed before two
in the morning, lest her husband or brother should thereby be surprised
in his sleep by an enemy (20, i. 30). Similar instances could easily
be multiplied indefinitely from various savage countries, but even in
Europe there are not lacking records of a real sympathy between husband
and wife, where the former suffers from certain characteristic ailments
of the latter (59, 240). There is a very widely spread series of customs
based upon the belief that the father and his unborn or newly born child
are in such sympathetic relationship that the former has to take all
sorts of precautions lest his offspring should in any way be injured. The
extreme form this custom takes is for the newly made father to take to
his bed and be specially dieted; this occurs in many places, but notably
in the East Indian Archipelago and in South America. The custom, which
is known as the _Couvade_, is subject to many modifications, which have
been tabulated and discussed by Mr. H. Ling Roth (59, 204). Among the
Land Dyaks of Borneo the husband of a pregnant woman, until the time of
her delivery, may not do work with any sharp instrument, except what may
be absolutely necessary for the cultivation of his farm; he may not tie
things together with rattans, or strike animals, or fire guns, or do
anything of a violent character for fear of injuring the child. Often the
men must abstain from certain food lest it should affect the child; thus
in Guiana partaking of the Agouti would make the child meagre, or eating
a _labba_ would make the infant’s mouth protrude like the _labba’s_, or
make it spotted like the _labba_, which spots would ultimately become
ulcers (59, 220). Thus the father is frequently debarred from performing
many of the usually unconsidered daily acts, lest they should affect the
welfare of a child that is newly born or is about to be born; and there
is the curious development of the belief of an occult reaction of the
expected child on the father, affecting, to take one example, his success
in fishing (59, 234).
B. Homœopathic Magic.
2. When man first began to think about the world around him he must
have noted (what he, in common with other animals, had unconsciously
acted upon in the past) that day and night and the seasons arrived in
regular succession, the same stars rose and set, an animal reproduced
its own kind, in fact that there was a uniformity in nature. But side by
side with these natural sequences there were irregularities. Some days
were shorter than others, some were bright, others cloudy, the length
and character of the seasons varied from year to year, some stars had
a course in the heavens independent of the majority. Again, he might
early have noticed that many of these fluctuations in sunshine and rain,
in heat and cold, affected him directly or indirectly by influencing
vegetation. We need not be surprised, therefore, if he came to the
conclusion that it would be better for him if he exerted himself to
regulate matters somewhat, but then the difficulty would arise, what was
he to do?
The unenlightened mind does not discriminate between cause and effect,
and imagines that as like produces like, so a result can be attained by
imitating it. Hence arose =Mimetic= or =Symbolic Magic=, which, following
Dr. Hirn, is better termed =Homœopathic Magic=, which is occult influence
based upon a likeness between things (32, 282). On this was founded
the mediæval medical theory known as the Doctrine of Signatures, which
supposes that plants and minerals indicate by their external characters
the diseases which nature intended them to remedy.
It would be easy to give a large number of examples to illustrate
homœopathic magic, but a few will suffice. Thus the Euphrasia, or
eye-bright, was, and is, supposed to be good for the eyes, on the
strength of a black pupil-like spot in its corolla (70, 123). The yellow
turmeric, or saffron, cured jaundice. The roots of roses or their slips,
with their knots removed and set amongst broom, will bring forth yellow
roses (47, x. 70).
The influence of homœopathic magic can be traced in beliefs and practices
from the lowest savages to civilised nations. The magician who works
by similarities makes representations of things or beings, in order
to acquire an influence over them. By dramatic or pictorial imitation
heavenly bodies are influenced, rain is made, plants and animals are
increased, animals enticed to their destruction, human beings acted upon.
When it was wished to cause rain to fall in Murray Island, Torres
Straits, the rain-maker scooped a hole in the ground, and lined it with
leaves and placed in it a rude stone image of a man which had previously
been anointed with oil and rubbed with scented grass; then he poured the
decoction of minced leaves of various plants mixed with water over the
image—the image being so laid in the hole as to point to the quarter from
which the rain was expected. Earth was heaped over the image and leaves
and shells placed on the mound, and all the while the rain-maker muttered
an incantation in a low sepulchral tone. Four large screens composed
of plaited coco-nut leaves were placed at the head, foot, and sides of
the grave to represent clouds; on the upper part of each was fastened a
blackened oblong of vegetable cloth to mimic a black thunder-cloud, and
coco-nut leaves, with their leaflets pointing downwards, were suspended
close by to represent rain. A torch was ignited and waved lengthwise
over the grave; the smoke represented clouds and the flames mimicked
lightning, and a bamboo clapper was sounded to imitate thunder.
The rain was supposed to come when the decoction round the image was
rotten. The incantation consisted of enumerating various aspects of
certain forms of clouds. Rain could be made in this manner only by one
section of the community, and amongst these one or two men had a much
greater reputation than the others (29, vi.).
This may be taken as an example of a typical rain-making ceremony, in
which all the phenomena of a thunder shower are imitated.
If a native of Mabuiag, in Torres Straits, required rain he went to the
rain-maker and asked him to make some. The latter might reply, ‘You go
and put some more thatch on your house and on mine too’; this was to keep
out the forthcoming rain. The rain-maker painted the front of his body
white, and the back black. This was explained by my informant thus: ‘All
along same as clouds, black behind, white he go first,’ or he painted
his body with black spots to make the clouds come separately; when they
congregated, the rain fell. The rain-maker put ‘medicine’ in his right
hand and waved it towards his body and chanted an incantation. To stop
the rain the rain-maker put red paint on the crown of his head, to
represent the shining sun, and ruddled his body all over. He then lay
doubled up and was closely surrounded with three mats, so that no wind
could penetrate to him. Finally he burnt some leaves on the sea-shore
close to the water, on a rising tide; the smoke represented the clouds,
and as it was dissipated so they disappeared, and as the encroaching sea
washed away the ashes, so the clouds were scattered (29, v. 350).
In the island of Muralug certain old men could raise a wind by very
rapidly whirling a thin bull-roarer attached to a long string. More wind
could be obtained by climbing to the top of a tree and performing there.
In this case the noise made by the bull-roarer imitated that produced by
a gale of wind (29, v. 352).
Examples of the magical increase of plants are found in the ‘yam stones’
placed in their gardens by various Papuans, which by their rounded shape
suggest the actual tubers (28, 202; 29, vi.).
The following instances are culled from that treasury of folk custom and
belief—_The Golden Bough_. In Thüringen the man who sows flax carries the
seed in a long bag which reaches from his shoulders to his knees, and he
walks with long strides, so that the bag sways to and fro on his back.
It is believed that this will cause the flax to wave in the wind. In the
interior of Sumatra rice is sown by women who, in sowing, let their hair
hang loose down their back, in order that the rice may grow luxuriantly
and have long stalks. It is commonly believed in Germany and Austria
that leaping high in the fields will make the flax or hemp grow tall. A
Bavarian sower, in sowing wheat, will sometimes wear a golden ring, in
order that the corn may have a fine yellow colour (20, i. 35, 36).
As references are given on pp. 41-44 to magical practices for the
increase of animals, further examples need not be added here, their
object being to provide plenty of food for the community. It was for the
same reason that images of fish, turtle, and dugong were made by the
islanders of Torres Straits and taken with them when they went fishing,
with the idea that the image lured the real animal to its destruction;
and men of the dugong clan who were symbolically decorated made mimetic
movements with a dead dugong to constrain others to come and be caught
(29, v. 337, 182, and vi.).
The same people used to carve small human effigies out of thin slabs
of wood and coat them with beeswax, or the images were made entirely
of beeswax. These figures were treated in various ways for nefarious
magic, but always the first action was to call them by the names of the
persons who were to be affected by them. If the magician pulled an arm
or a leg off the image, the patient felt sore in the corresponding limb,
and became ill, and eventually died in great pain; should the magician
restore the dismembered limb, the patient would recover. If a magician
pricked with the spine of a sting ray an image that had been named,
the person indicated would be stung in the same place by a sting ray
when he went fishing on the reef (29, v. 324). Analogous customs are to
this day practised in Britain. The first example comes from Ross-shire
(48, 373). The _corp creagh_ is a body of clay rudely shaped into the
image of a person whose hurt is desired. After a tolerably correct
representation is obtained, it is stuck all over with pins and thorns
and placed in a running stream. As the image is worn away by the action
of the water the victim also wastes away with some mortal disease. The
more pins that are stuck in from time to time the more excruciating
agony the victim suffers. Should, however, any wayfarer discover the
_corp_ in the stream, the spell is broken and the victim duly recovers.
From Argyleshire we learn (49, 144) that a long incantation was used as
the pins were being put in the clay image, the beginning of which was
something to this effect: ‘As you waste away, may —— waste away; as this
wounds you, may it wound ——.’ When it was desired that the person should
die a lingering death, care was taken that the pins should not touch
where the heart was supposed to be; but when a speedy death was desired,
the pins were stuck over the region of the heart. Actual instances of
the employment of the _corp chrè_ or _corp chreadh_, clay body or clay
corpse (as Dr. Maclagan calls it), are given by the two authors last
cited, one of which occurred about the year 1899. This practice is merely
the continuance of old customs, for ‘King James in his _Dæmonology_,
says that “the devil teacheth how to make pictures of wax or clay,
that by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may
be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness”; and in the
eleventh century certain Jews, it was believed, made a waxen image of
Bishop Eberhard, set about with tapers, bribed a clerk to baptize it,
and set fire to it on the Sabbath, the which image burning away at the
middle, the bishop fell grievously sick and died’ (70, 124).
Many magical practices and beliefs are difficult to classify as either
contagious or homœopathic magic; they may even be a mixture of both. Such
is the belief in the power of names or words, talismans and amulets,
divination, and various practices of public and private magic. These will
be dealt with under separate headings.
II. MAGICAL POWER OF NAMES AND WORDS
A =Name= is considered by backward folk to be part and parcel of a
living being, and as magic can be performed on a person through tangible
substances that have come into contact with him, so magic can be
performed or influence exerted through the utterance of a person’s name.
In the west of Ireland and in Torres Straits people have refused to tell
me their names, though there was no objection to some one else giving me
the information; the idea evidently being that by telling their own name
to a stranger they were voluntarily putting themselves into the power of
that stranger, who, by the knowledge of their name so imparted, could
affect them in some way. Over the greater part of America was spread the
belief in a personal soul, which is neither the bodily life nor yet the
mental power, but a sort of spiritual body. In many tribes, writes Dr.
Brinton (7, 277), this third soul or ‘astral body’ bore a relation to
the private personal name. Among the Mayas and Nahuas, it was conferred
or came into existence with the name; and for this reason the personal
name was sacred and rarely uttered. The name was thus part of the
individuality, and through it the soul could be injured. Professor Rhŷs
has shown (58, 566-7) from philological evidence, that Aryan-speaking
peoples ‘believed at one time not only that the name was a part of the
man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul, the
breath of life.’ The dislike of hearing their names mentioned is not
confined to human beings, for, as is well known, in the British Islands
the Fairies have a very strong repugnance to being so called; hence they
should be termed the Wee-folk, the Good People, or by other ambiguous
terms. Certain Scottish and English fishermen believe that the salmon and
pig have a similar objection to being ‘named,’ but they do not mind being
called respectively the ‘red-fish’ or the ‘queer fellow.’
If power can be exerted over men by the use of their names, it is
only reasonable to believe that spirits and deities can be similarly
influenced. Torres Straits islanders believe that a local bogey or a
spirit-girl can be summoned by being mentioned by name (29, v. 14, 86),
as the witch of Endor brought up the spirit of Samuel. Dr. Frazer (20,
i. 443-6) gives examples to show that people have believed that gods
must keep their true names secret, lest other gods or even men should
be able to conjure with them; even Ra, the great Egyptian god of the
sun, declared that the name given him by his father and mother ‘remained
hidden in my body since my birth, that no magician might have magic power
over me.’ This probably was one reason why the real name of supreme
Gods was known but to a chosen few; one instance will suffice. To the
Mohammedans, Allah is but an epithet in place of the Most Great Name;
for, according to a Moslem belief, the secret of the latter is committed
to prophets and apostles alone. Another reason is that the utterance of
these secret names gives tremendous power, for (42, 273) those who know
the Most Great Name of God can, by pronouncing it, transport themselves
from place to place at will, can kill the living, raise the dead to life,
and work other miracles.
According to Jewish tradition, when Lilith, Adam’s first wife, refused
to yield obedience to him she uttered the Shem-hamphorash, that is,
pronounced the ineffable name of Jehovah and instantly flew away. This
utterance evidently gave her such power that even Jehovah could not
coerce her, and the three angels, Snoi (Sennoi), Snsnoi (Sansennoi), and
Smnglf (Sammangeloph), who were sent after her, were contented with a
compromise, and Lilith swore by the name of the Living God that she would
refrain from doing any injury to infants wherever and whenever she should
find those angels, or their names, or their pictures, on parchment or
paper, or on whatever else they might be drawn, ‘and for this reason,’
says a rabbinical writer, ‘we write the names of these angels on slips
of paper or parchment, and bind them upon infants, that Lilith seeing
them, may remember her oath; and may abstain from doing our infants any
injury’ (1, 165). The custom is still maintained in the east of London of
printing portions of Scripture and these three names on pieces of paper,
which are placed on the four walls of a room where a baby is expected,
where they remain eight days for a boy and twenty days for a girl.
Apart from the coercive power which is attributed to the pronouncing
of names, there is an analogous belief in the utterance of words or
phrases. Those =Words of Power= have been classed by Mr. Clodd (11,
194) as: (1) Creative Words; (2) Mantrams and their kin; (3) Passwords;
(4) Spells or Invocations for conjuring up the spirit of the dead, or
for exorcising demons, or for removing spells on the living; and (5)
Cure-charms in formulæ or magic words. Mr. Clodd points out that these
classes overlap and intermingle.
Even among such backward people as the Australians, certain of the
medicine-men or sorcerers were bards who devoted their poetic faculties
to the purposes of enchantment, such as the Bunjil-yenjin of the Kurnai,
whose peculiar branch of magic was composing and singing potent love
charms and the arrangement of marriages by elopement spells (35, 356,
274).
In few countries was the spoken word more effective than in ancient
Ireland; a sorcerer, whether a druid or not, would stand on one foot,
with one arm outstretched and with one eye shut, and chant an incantation
in a loud voice (37, i. 240). The grand weapon of the Irish poets by
which they enforced their demands was the _satire_. A poet could compose
a satire that would blight crops, dry up milch-cows, and raise an
ulcerous blister on the face. A story is told (37, i. 454) of Senchán
Torpest, chief poet of Ireland, who lived in the seventh century, that
once when his dinner was eaten in his absence by rats, he muttered a
satire beginning, ‘Rats, though sharp their snouts, are not powerful in
battle,’ which killed ten of them on the spot. Shakespeare, and other
Elizabethan writers, often refer to the belief that Irish bards could
rhyme rats to death. The Irish =geis= or =geas= [pronounced gesh or
gass], plural _geasa_ [gassa], was the exact equivalent of an ordinary
=tabu=, but people sometimes put an injunction on a person in some such
form as ‘I place you under heavy _geasa_, which no true champion will
break through, to do so and so.’ In this manner, the witch-lady forces
Finn to search for the ring she had dropped into the lake; and Marbhan
put the arch-poet Senchán Torpest under _geasa_ to obtain a copy of a
lost story. When the request was reasonable or just the abjured person
could not refuse without loss of honour and reputation and probably in
early days personal harm would accrue if the _geasa_ were disregarded.
The power of the _geis_ was so strong that when Grania put Diarmuid under
_geasa_ of danger and destruction to elope with her, he was advised by
his friends against his will to agree: Oisin said, ‘You are not guilty
if the bonds were laid on you,’ and Osgar said, ‘It is a pitiful man that
would break his bonds’ (25, 347, 8).
Sympathetic magic bulks largely in the life of backward peoples, not
merely in the form of actions to be performed, but also in those to be
abstained from. The ‘Thou shalt not’ is more in evidence than ‘Thou
shalt.’ The prohibitions of savages and barbarians are now spoken of
under the general term of =tabu=. Some tabus are rational from our point
of view, others seem to us to be utterly irrational, but this does not
affect their validity in any way. So much has been written on this
subject by divers writers that only one or two examples need be given
here. The subject is again referred to on p. 55.
The old Irish tale, the ‘Bruiden Dá Derga,’ tells of the destruction
following the violation of tabus. Conaire, King of Ulster, was put under
certain _geasa_ by his father, such as: ‘Thou shalt not go _desiul_ round
Tara nor withershins round Bregia,’ ‘The evil beasts of Cerna must not
be hunted by thee,’ ‘There shall not go before thee three Reds to the
house of Red,’ and others. But on the way to Dá Derga’s Hostel ‘They went
righthandwise round Tara, and lefthandwise round Bregia, and the evil
beasts of Cerna were hunted by him, but he saw it not till the chase had
ended.’ Then he saw three red men going before him to the house of Red,
and Conaire says, ‘All my _geasa_ have seized me to-night,’ and before
the next day Conaire and all his host were destroyed in Dá Derga’s Hostel
(66, xxii.). When Cuchulain was on his way to his last combat he met
three hags, daughters of a wizard, all blind of the left eye. They were
cooking a dog with poisons and spells on spits of a rowan tree. It was
_geis_ to Cuchulain to eat at a cooking-hearth, or to eat the flesh of a
hound, but the women put him on his honour not to refuse the piece they
offered him, so he took it, and all the strength went out of the left
hand in which he took the food (66, iii.).
III. TALISMANS AND AMULETS
In the forms of magic we have hitherto considered, something is done by
a human being, whether by action, representation, or word, but there is
another branch of magic in which the virtue resides intrinsically in
certain objects which are variously termed charms, talismans, amulets,
or mascots. Those that transmit qualities or are worn for good luck
may be termed =talismans=, while the term =amulet= may be restricted
with advantage to those charms which are preventive in their action; but
the same charm is in some cases employed for both these purposes. These
objects are continuously effective without any action on the part of the
preparer or wearer, as they possess power in their own right, but this is
from very diverse causes.
Certain =stones= from their colour suggest flesh; thus garnets and
carnelians are worn in the rough or worked into beads as amulets against
skin diseases. Most precious stones are credited with distinctive
properties, and some have a reputation for being unlucky, as for example
the precious opal. The amethyst, as its name implies, was regarded by
the ancient Greeks as a charm against becoming intoxicated; among the
ancient Egyptians the amethyst corresponded to the Zodiacal sign of
the Goat, and as the goat was an enemy to vines, so the amethyst was a
foe to wine. Leland (43, 351) points out that it also ‘drives away bad
thoughts and confers ripe and happy genius.’ Amber beads are carried by
people of various races for weak eyes, and it is essential they should
be looked through to strengthen the sight (43, 267). The electrical
power of attraction of light objects by amber when rubbed was doubtless
one cause of its supposed virtue. The several =metals= have their active
magical properties. A lump of crude antimony in Italy is very efficacious
when the following invocation is pronounced: ‘Antimony, who art of zinc
and copper! thou most powerful, I keep thee ever by me, that thou mayest
banish from me evil people, and bring good luck to me.’ Gold is the most
genial or luck-bringing, and, as a woman said, ‘antimony is stronger than
lead, because it consists of three metals, or rather always has in it
copper and lead’ (43, 373-4).
=Colour= alone has its magical qualities, hence the frequency of red
woollen thread or stuff in counter-charms against the evil eye, as an old
saw expresses it: ‘Roan tree and red thread, will drive the witches aa
wud’ (49, 156). For the same reason red coral is so greatly valued. Blue
is of equal efficacy, hence the wearing of turquoise by so many Oriental
and North African peoples, and blue beads are worn by people for much the
same reason, that they suspend them round the necks of donkeys or camels.
When dealing with contagious magic, we saw that many objects are worn,
in order that certain qualities of the animals from which they were
obtained may be imparted to the wearer. The wild =boar’s tusk=, the
acquisition of which is greatly desired by the natives of the Papuan Gulf
as a mark of bravery, is coveted not so much as a personal ornament, as
for the courage, ferocity, and daring which it is supposed to contain and
to be capable of imparting to any one who wears it (33, 427). Probably
this is the reason why boars’ tusks are so much prized all over New
Guinea, where they are wrought into ‘ornaments,’ which are carried in
the mouth or worn on the chest when on the war-path. In West Africa the
=bones= from the legs of tortoises are much valued as anklets, in order
to give the wearers endurance. The lower jaw-bone of the tortoise is
worn by certain tribes as a preventive against toothache; in this case
the reason would seem to be that as the tortoise has no teeth it cannot
suffer from toothache, and thus freedom from toothache can be imparted by
that edentulous jaw. The spinal bones of snakes are strung together for a
girdle as a cure for backache (3, 237).
Africans, according to Arnot (3, 237), believe largely in preventive
measures, and their charms are chiefly of that order. In passing through
a country where leopards and lions abound, they carefully provide
themselves with the =claws=, =teeth=, =lips=, and =whiskers= of those
animals, and hang them around their necks, to secure themselves against
being attacked. For the same purpose the point of an elephant’s trunk is
generally worn by the elephant-hunters.
A large class of talismans consists of =models= or =representations of
objects=, and the attributes of the original pass on to the symbol. The
pig, perhaps on account of its abundant fecundity, was primarily sacred
to the earth goddess, whether she was known as Demeter, Ceres, or by any
other name. Leland points out (43, 255) that little gold and silver pigs
were offered to Ceres, who was pre-eminently a goddess of fertility,
and therefore of good luck and all genial influences. For these reasons
they were worn by Roman ladies, and ‘=lucky pigs=’ are still very common
charms, especially in South Germany.
The belief in the =evil eye= is not only widely spread, but extremely
ancient, and in some places is still firmly rooted among the folk.
‘Overlooking’ may be intentional, but it is believed that many persons,
without intention and even against their will, by the glance of their
eye, have caused injurious effects; so that, in some cases, mothers would
not venture to expose their infants to the look of their own fathers.
Plutarch (18, 13) vouches for this, and admits that envy exerts an evil
influence through the eyes, and adds that it is wise to employ charms
and antidotes to turn aside these evil glances. A friend of his stated
that some even fascinate themselves by their own gaze, and alluded to the
story of Eutelidas, who, like Narcissus, fell a victim to the admiration
he felt for his own likeness. Women and children seem to have been
accounted by all old classical writers as the most liable to injury.
Among the Greeks and Romans statues of Nemesis were erected which were
adored and invoked to save their worshippers from fascination. In Rome,
according to Pliny, special laws were enacted against injury to crops by
incantation, excantation, or fascination (18, 15).
‘Eat not the bread of him that hath an evil eye’ is just as much a maxim
to-day as it was in the time of Solomon, and Mr. Elworthy says (18, 107)
in Naples, at the appearance of a person having this reputation, a cry
of ‘Jettatore!’ is passed, and even in a crowded street it causes an
instantaneous vanishing of everybody—a rush up entries, into shops, or
elsewhere. Ever since the establishment of the religious orders, monks
have had the special reputation of possessing the fatal influence. The
last Pope but one, Pius the Ninth, was firmly believed to have had the
evil eye. A Roman would candidly say: ‘Nothing succeeds with anybody or
anything when he wishes well to it. When he went to St. Agnese to hold
a great festival, down went the floor, and the people were all smashed
together. Then he visited the column to the Madonna in the Piazza di
Spagna, and blessed it and the workmen; of course, one fell from the
scaffold the same day and killed himself’ (18, 23, 25).
Domestic animals always have been considered as peculiarly susceptible
to this evil influence. Cows are particularly liable to fascination
in Scotland, while in England of all animals the pig is most often
‘overlooked.’ The Turk and the Arab think the same of their horses and
camels; above all the Neapolitan cabman of to-day believes in the great
danger to his horse from the eye of the _jettatore_.
The commonest of all ancient Egyptian amulets, except the scarab, was
‘the Eye of Osiris,’ as it is called by us. These mystic eyes were worn
equally by the living and the dead as amulets; it being natural, from the
associations of homœopathic magic, that representations of the eye itself
should have been considered potent amulets against its malign influence.
All the peoples round the Mediterranean employed representations of eyes
as amulets. In Syria and Cairo necklaces composed of flat glass eyes
are sold to the present day, and eye-designs protect the clothes, horse
trappings, and many of the objects of daily use of the Moors (72, 211).
Plutarch declares that the objects that are fixed up to ward off
witchcraft or fascination derive their efficacy from the fact that they
act through the strangeness and ridiculousness of their forms, which fix
the mischief-working eye upon themselves.