of those extremely grotesque figures, of which the ancient Romans were so
fond; indeed, anything that was ridiculous or indecent was supposed to
be a corrective to the harmful influence of fascination. Amulets which
protect against this power are of three classes: (1) Those the object
of which was to attract upon themselves the harmful glance (those were
necessarily exposed to view); (2) charms worn or carried secretly; and
(3) written words of Scripture, Koran, and other sacred writings, or
cabalistic figures and formulæ (18, 149).
The crescent moon was a symbol of many deities, Parvati, Devaki, and
other Indian goddesses, Isis, Athena or Minerva, Artemis or Diana and
the Madonna. Artemis or Diana was the patroness of domestic animals as
well as of the wild creatures of the wood (21, 14); hence we may trace
the extreme prevalence of amulets symbolic of their attributes upon
horses. The crescent—that is the horned moon—and horns appear to be
interchangeable: thus horns, in one form or another, are of all objects
the most common as amulets against the evil eye, whether affecting man
or beast; so much so, that at last it has come to be fully believed by
the Neapolitans, that in default of a horn, in coral or other form, the
mere utterance of the word _corno_ or _corna_ (‘horn’) is an effectual
protection. In Italy, particularly in Naples, the cart harness is
literally made up of charms and prophylactics, such as feathers, hair,
brightly coloured ribbons, and especially objects of shining brass; of
the last the crescent is the most common.
It would take too long to describe all the objects that are employed to
counteract the evil eye in Italy alone. The following may be mentioned:
fish, snakes, and various other animals, tigers’ teeth, keys, a hunchback
(_gobbo_). A single pendent horn, whether of coral, shell, or metal
is extremely common, as are miniature hands, these frequently have
all the digits closed up except the index and little finger, which are
fully extended. This is a potent gesture, and a Neapolitan’s right hand
is almost constantly in that position pointing downwards, just as the
hand-charms are made to hang downwards, as a prophylactic against unknown
or unsuspected attacks (18, 261). Dr. Westermarck has recently (72, 211)
given an illuminating description of the use and representations of the
hand against the evil eye in Morocco.
On studying various kinds of talismans and amulets, it at once becomes
evident that while some are credited with contagious sympathy, others
are mimetic or symbolic, that is homœopathic in their action, while
there are many others that owe their efficacy to an intimate relation
with a spiritual being of some kind or other, or with a deity. The
charms of this third group are to be regarded as =fetishes= so long as
the recognition lasts that they are dependent for their virtue upon
these extraneous beings; but when this belief is lost the charm becomes
a mere talisman or amulet. The change from a fetish to a =luck-object=
is constantly taking place owing to the despiritualising effect of
increasing civilisation. To take one example, Mr. E. Lovett first drew
my attention to the ‘=luck bones=’ that are worn by Whitby, and probably
by other Yorkshire, fishermen, and another friend subsequently confirmed
the fact that these bones not only bring good fortune but are safeguards
against drowning. The bone in question being the =T=-shaped hyoid- or
tongue-bone of a sheep, Mr. Lovett suggested that this bone might have
something to do with Thor’s hammer. Later Professor Boyd Dawkins showed
me the identical bone worn for a similar purpose by Manx fishermen, and
it is worthy of note that there were Scandinavian settlements at both
Whitby and the Isle of Man. I informed Herr E. Friedel of these facts
and inferences, and he discovered (22, 412) that the men in the Berlin
slaughter-yards have a similar custom, the end of the long arm of the
bone being perforated for a thread that is fastened round the neck of the
wearer. On looking into the archæological evidence he found that in the
early iron age unmistakable representations of Thor’s hammer were worn as
charms in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. In those early days there can
be little doubt that the influence of the god passed into the models of
his weapon, and that these objects partook of the nature of fetishes,
but later the symbols of the god degenerated into luck-objects.
IV. DIVINATION
Men not only attempt to act directly upon nature, but they usually
exhibit a keen desire to be guided as to the best course to take when
in doubt, difficulty, or danger, and to be forewarned of the future.
The practice of =divination= is by no means confined to professional
magicians, or even to soothsayers, but any one may employ the accessory
means.
Any object may be used in divination: thus in Europe, as in Torres
Straits (29, v. 361), a stick may be dropped to indicate a direction
to be taken; or coins may be spun or dice thrown. Divination by means
of skulls was common in Torres Straits (29, v. 362); in this case the
spirit of the dead person was supposed to give the required advice.
Haruspication, or divination by means of certain viscera, was largely
employed by the Romans, and I have several times seen a pig’s liver
used in Borneo for the same purpose (28, 336, 354). In these instances
the message, as indicated by the state of the particular viscus, was
obtained from a deity. Other examples and varieties of divination are
given by Tylor (71, i. 123).
V. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MAGIC
Magic may be employed for public purposes or for private ends. In the
former case it is almost invariably for the public weal, in the latter it
is most frequently nefarious.
A. Public Magic.
Among some totemic peoples the men of a totem group perform magical
ceremonies for the benefit of the community. The best examples of this
=communal magic=, as it might be termed, are those described by Messrs.
Baldwin Spencer and Gillen (64, 179-183) as practised by the Arunta tribe
of Central Australia at the =intichiuma= ceremonies. For example, the
headman of a local group of the Emu totem and some other Emu men opened a
vein and allowed their blood to stream on a patch of smooth ground, until
about three yards were saturated. On the hard surface of the clotted
blood the sacred design of the Emu totem was painted with white, yellow,
red, and black. It represented certain parts of the emu; two large
patches of yellow indicated lumps of fat, of which the natives are very
fond, but the greater part represented, by means of circles and circular
patches, the eggs in various states of development, some before and some
after laying. Various sinuous lines indicated parts of the intestine.
Throughout the ceremony the headman was treated with the greatest
deference, and no one spoke to him except in a whisper. The sacred wooden
slabs (_churinga_) were placed on one side of the painting. In the
intervals of a monotonous chant the headman explained the drawing. Three
men wore a headdress which represented the long neck and small head of
the emu; with a curious gliding movement they approached the spectators,
occasionally stopping and moving only their heads, imitating the aimless
gazing about of the bird.
The witchetty grub _intichiuma_ ceremony (64, 170-179) is performed at a
special cave, where lies a large block of quartzite surrounded by small
rounded stones. The former represents the perfect insect, and the latter
its eggs. The headman and his associates tap the large stone and chant
songs, the burden of which is an invitation to the insect to lay eggs;
the headman strikes each man with one of the small stones, saying, ‘You
have eaten much food.’ Later they go to a large rock which they tap, and
invite the animal to come from all directions and lay eggs. After various
symbolic ceremonies they enter a long narrow booth made of bushes, which
represents the chrysalis case from which the perfect insect emerges, and
there they sing of the animal in its various stages and of the sacred
stones.
There are many similar ceremonies which the men of a totem group make in
order to increase or produce their particular totem; thus, taking the
tribe as a whole, the object of these ceremonies is that of increasing
the total food supply (64, 315-319). Among the Arunta and Ilpirra only
the men of the totem are allowed to be present or to take part in the
actual ceremony. During its progress there is always some ceremony,
such as that of allowing the blood of young men of the totem to flow
over the stone which is associated with the ancestors of the totem. The
idea of this is to send the spirits of the animals out of the stone to
replenish the stock of the totemic animal. After the ceremony, when, as
a consequence, the animal or plant has become abundant, the men of all
classes and totems go out and bring supplies into the main camp. No one
as yet may eat it. The headman of the totem, in the presence of all in
camp, solemnly eats a little and hands the remainder over to the men of
the other totems, telling them to eat freely. If the headman did not eat
a little he would lose the power of performing _intichiuma_ successfully.
In other tribes to the north similar ceremonies exist, but they are less
elaborate and sometimes of the simplest description. The headman of the
white cockatoo totem group and his son spent the whole of one night
‘singing’ the cockatoo. In the Wara tribe on the shore of the Gulf of
Carpentaria a man of the rain-group goes to a pool, and, taking care
that no women or strangers are in sight, bends down over and ‘sings’ the
water; then he takes some up in his hands, drinks it, and spits it out
in various directions. After that he throws water all over himself, and
after scattering some all round he returns quietly to his camp, and rain
is supposed to follow (64, 314). There is very little difference between
this act and ordinary individual magic, the essential distinction being
that the man in this case makes rain by virtue of rain being his totem,
it being a function of human male members of the totem group to increase
their totem.
When the totemic system falls into decay there seems to be a tendency for
the old magical ceremonies which had for their purport the increase of
the totem, to be performed by certain families, rather than by groups of
men; this appears to be associated with the growth of property in land,
so that in time the performance of certain ceremonies is restricted to
a single man, who transmits the right to his son, and they alone of the
community have this duty. There is nothing to distinguish men with these
rights from ordinary sorcerers who practise definite departments of magic.
A very large number of examples of public magical ceremonies, undertaken
for the good of the community, have been collected by Dr. Frazer in
his _Golden Bough_; of especial interest are those connected with
the production of abundant harvests, and the active participation of
women in such customs is very significant. I here give an example
recently published by Miss Mary Owen (56, 60). The Corn-planting dance
of the Musquakie or Fox Indians takes place in April, though the real
corn-planting commences about the 1st of May. It is danced by men only;
they trot at sunrise along the east side of a cornfield selected by the
shaman, going in single file with their rattles and little tambourines
or prayer drums, while a young maiden goes into the field and plants
a few grains from a perfect ear handed to her by the Honourable Women
(women who have borne sons). If the harvest of the year before was
scant the dancers may go entirely round the field. Afterwards there is
some eating and drinking, but not an elaborate feast. Formerly the real
planting of the field followed the ceremonial, and no food was eaten
until the women had finished planting. Another old custom was to have the
maid who did the planting given a husband, who went with her into the
field. Later a prophet had a revelation that this custom should cease.
The day is at the present time a favourite one for weddings.
B. Private Magic.
Individuals frequently practise magic for private ends, of which the
objects to be attained may be perfectly legitimate or even praiseworthy,
but more frequently recourse is had to magical practices for harmful
purposes.
=Folk remedies= for sickness and pains are very frequently of a purely
magical character. For example, a common cure for warts is to rub them
with a piece of raw meat, which must then be buried; as the meat decays
so will the warts disappear: to be effective the meat should be stolen.
A woman in Islay was cured of toothache by a man driving a nail into the
upper lintel of the kitchen door; he told her to keep it there, and,
should it become loose at any time, to tap it a little with a hammer
until it had a grip, and he assured her she would be free from toothache.
She never again suffered from toothache (49, 158).
Any variety or combination of varieties of sympathetic magic may be
employed in the manufacture or practice of =love-charms=; frequently
they are fortified by the subtle association of scent. Doubtless certain
scents have a direct stimulating effect, but, apart from this, should any
scent be definitely worn when young men wish to attract girls, there can
be no doubt that the suggestion would tend to act powerfully upon the
latter, and that ‘girl-medicine,’ as I have heard it called, would of
itself be potent even if other practices were not employed. I was told by
a Torres Straits islander that just as a snake that is in one tree can,
by swallowing its spittle, make a bird that is in another tree come to
it, so if a man chews a certain medicine and a girl sees him swallowing
the infusion in his saliva, she understands what the man means and is
constrained to go to him (29, v. 328).
Various instances of =nefarious magic= have been given in the preceding
pages. A good example came under my own observation. In Torres Straits
there is a vine-like plant that loses its leaves at a certain season of
the year, and the stem breaks up into joints, which often bear a striking
resemblance to some of the long bones of the human skeleton. This
circumstance led magicians to employ these sticks to make human beings
into similar dried and shrivelled-up objects. The dry segments of the
vine were collected and the magician gave the name of some part of the
body to each joint: for example, one would be called an ‘arm,’ another
a ‘leg,’ and so forth. The magician crouched like a fish-eagle and,
imitating the way that a bird tears flesh off bones, threw the segments
behind him without looking round. If he left the spot without turning
round to look at the sticks the patient would die; but if he did not wish
to proceed to this extremity, he turned and looked at the segments, and
subsequently he would return and pick them up and place them together and
put ‘medicine’ on them, and the patient would recover (29, v. 325).
The following account recently published by Mrs. J. Gunn (26, 98) is so
characteristic that I quote it nearly verbatim. In North Australia any
one can ‘sing magic,’ even lubras [women], but of course the wise old
magic men do it best. It never fails with them, particularly if they
‘sing’ and point one of the special ‘death-bones’ or ‘sacred stones’ of
the tribe. Generally a black fellow goes away quite by himself when he is
‘singing magic,’ but very occasionally a few men join together, as they
did in the case of ‘Goggle Eye.’ When enough magic has been ‘sung’ into
the bone, it is taken away to the camp, and very secretly pointed at the
unconscious victim. The magic spirit of the bone runs into the man who
is pointed at, and gradually kills him. Of course the man who has been
‘sung’ must be told somehow, or he will not get a fright and die. There
are many ways of managing this; one very good way is to put the bone
where he will be sure to find it, in his dilly-bag, or near his fire, or
through the handle of his spear; but the man who leaves the bone about
must, of course, be very careful to destroy his own tracks. ‘Goggle Eye,’
after he had found the bones lying about, knew exactly what was going to
happen to him, and of course it did. His throat got very sore, and he
grew so thin and weak that he could hardly stand. A man can be cured
by magic men charming the ‘bone’ away again; but ‘Goggle Eye’ was old,
and, what was worse, he was getting very cross, and too fond of ordering
people about, so the black fellows thought it would be the best plan not
to cure him, and a few more sneaked away into the bush and ‘sang’ some
more bones, and pointed them at him to make quite sure about his dying.
Poor old ‘Goggle Eye’ suffered dreadfully; no native would help him
except his blood-brother, because they were afraid of the curse coming to
them. Some said they would like to help, but that if they made ‘Goggle
Eye’s’ fire for him, their own would never burn again. Nobody could even
carry his food to him. Soon after, at ‘fowl sing out,’ or cockcrow, he
died.
VI. MAGICIANS
Most forms of magic can be performed by anybody provided he knows what
to do; but there are specialists in magic, who, by us, are variously
termed medicine-men, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, witches, wise women,
and the like. Their lore is transmitted orally to their disciples, who
may or may not be their own children. Magical powers may be due to the
mere accident of birth, as for example in the European belief in the
therapeutic gifts of the seventh son of a seventh son. In some cases
the sorcerer has to undergo a rigorous training, often being subjected
to painful or loathsome ordeals; by these means the weaklings are
eliminated, and those who persist have their character and fortitude
strengthened, and they gain increased respect from their fellow-men.
Further, in Australia and elsewhere, the medicine-man is not always a
‘doctor’; he may be a ‘rain-maker,’ ‘seer,’ or ‘spirit-medium,’ or may
practise some special form of magic.
Usually the sorcerers unite together to form a society, which may attain
great influence among backward races. According to Leland (43, 10),
‘there is actually in Tuscany a culture or worship of fetishes which are
not Catholic, _i.e._ of strange stones and many curious relics. But there
is a great deal of mystery and secrecy observed in all this cult. It has
its professors; men, but mostly women, who collect charms and spells, and
teach them to one another, and hold meetings; that is, there is a kind
of college of witches and wizards, which, for many good reasons, eludes
observation.’ The old faith, as it is termed, is pre-Christian, but not
actively anti-Christian.
VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGICAL PRACTICES
The superficial observer is apt to regard the medicine-men or sorcerers
as cheats who deliberately humbug their neighbours; but it is probable
that most of them really believe themselves to be possessed of occult
or supernormal power. Doubtless they do many things for mere effect,
in order to enhance the respect they desire to have paid to themselves
personally, as well as to put the subjects or spectators into a proper
frame of mind; but this is precisely what is deliberately done by the
organisers of all ceremonies by all peoples. Doubtless, also, many acts
are performed which are intended to impose upon the credulity of others;
but this is a device which is not unknown among cultured people, as, for
example, the liquefying of the blood of St. Januarius in Naples. There
remain, however, a large number of phenomena, which are as mysterious
to them as they are to the vast majority of mankind, and many of these
are receiving the attention of psychologists of the present day, without
their significance being understood. Mr. Podmore (55, 373) is not afraid
to say that ‘many of the alleged wonders of witchcraft and of ancient
magic in general, when disentangled from the accretions formed round them
by popular myth and superstition, present a marked resemblance to some of
the facts recorded’ in his book.
The mental equilibrium of many backward peoples is very unstable,
although they may not suffer from the same derangements of the nervous
system that affect the more highly civilised peoples. To take an example
or two of this =nervous instability=, Castren observed long ago that if
the Samoyeds were sitting around inside their skin tents in the evening,
and some one crept up and struck the tent, half of them were likely to
fall into cataleptic fits. Bogoras (5, 42) refers to the well-known
Arctic hysteria which is so widespread among the Yukaghir and Lamut
women, and to a less extent among the Chukchee, the Russianised, and
even the Russian women. This disease develops chiefly in the form of
an uncontrollable desire to repeat in a loud voice each word spoken by
somebody else, and to imitate every sudden gesture or action. This is the
same nervous disorder as the widely spread _lâtah_ of Malaysia, which has
been so admirably described by Sir F. A. Swettenham (68, 64).
The far-reaching power of =suggestion= has been perhaps the most
potent factor in upholding magical practices, especially when it is
=combined with hypnotism=. The hypnotic state, it must be remembered,
though ordinarily produced by another, can be self-induced by gazing
at an object. There is an overwhelming number of modern instances of
bad habits, various diseases, inflammations, local and general pain,
insomnia, neurasthenia, psychic paralysis, and psychic hysteria, being
cured by suggestion while the patient is in the hypnotic state (31,
607). Conversely pain, inflammations, and other organic changes can
be produced through the same means; such is the explanation of the
appearance of stigmata on the hands and feet of religious ecstatics,
who had induced auto-hypnotism by intently gazing on the Figure on the
Cross. The cataleptic and anæsthetic conditions producible by hypnotism
are well known all over the world, and have for ages been part of the
stock-in-trade of sorcerers, medicine-men, or of certain religious
enthusiasts.
=Suggestion alone=, without the aid of hypnotism, can effect wonders, and
faith-cures and Christian science are by no means a new thing under the
sun, but something very old under new names. Probably every physician has
known cases of ‘persons who died because they did not want to live or
were at least indifferent; and probably an equal number who materially
lengthened their lives by the mere determination not to die’ (67, 612).
‘The psychology of the matter,’ writes Marett (51, 143), ‘is up to a
certain point simple enough. Just as the savage is a good actor, throwing
himself like a child into his mime, so he is a good spectator, entering
into the spirit of another’s acting, herein again resembling the child,
who can be frightened into fits by the roar of what he knows to be but a
“pretended” lion. Even if the =make-believe= is more or less make-believe
to the victim, it is hardly less efficacious; for, dominating, as it
tends to do, the field of attention, it racks the emotional system, and,
taking advantage of the relative abeyance of intelligent thought and
will, sets stirring all manner of deep-lying impulses and automatisms.’