In the foregoing pages I have attempted to trace Magic and Religion to
a common root. We have found them inextricably intertwined very low
down in culture; {129} we have seen the difficulty of distinguishing
them by way of scientific definition, and have been forced back upon
ordinary usage. Both alike are concerned with the supernatural and the
uncanny; but the one deals with it by compulsion, by the direct
exertion of human _orenda_ upon the objects sought to be constrained,
the other by the indirect method of appeal to mightier powers than
human to exercise their _orenda_ upon those objects, in order to
obtain the result desired. And I have contended that the opposition of
Magic and Religion, on which writers of authority like Professor
Frazer and the late Sir Alfred Lyall have so much insisted, is so far
from being essential that it is a result of their concurrent
development and of the general advance of civilization, and is even
yet imperfectly accomplished. The argument seems to require some
further illustrations.
First, let me observe that the definition of magic here adopted does
by no means coincide with that of Professor Frazer, though, like his,
it rests upon the method of compulsion as the distinguishing
characteristic. That, however, is not because of any faith by primeval
man in the invariable order of nature or in the inevitable sequence of
cause and effect. The compulsion of magic, as I understand it, is
wielded by, and dependent upon, the personal _orenda_ of the magician,
either directly or through the medium of the powerful and uncanny
beings whom he succeeds in bringing into play.
The idea of a god in our minds is associated with a reverential
attitude that is very far from being universally adopted. In a later
essay we shall see that threats of bodily injury, even (in the
legends) actual hand-to-hand combats, and (in fact) chastisement of
the material representatives of divinity, are often regarded as quite
appropriate measures to be taken in dealing with beings {130} who are
ordinarily the objects of worship. I have already referred to the
constraining power attributed to sacrifice and other rites in some of
the more advanced religions. Where ritual has undergone a long term of
development, where it has been subjected for many ages to continuous
thought, and to elaboration in order to provide for new needs or
against unforeseen contingencies, there it is apt to acquire a
proportionate value of its own, independent of the merits of the
performer. The sacrifice which is a gift to the gods imperiously
demands its looked-for repayment, and will not be denied. The penance,
whether it be in the nature of a sacrifice or a spell, carries with
it, like the Hindu rite of _dharna_, an implied curse if not responded
to. In either case the deity to whom it is directed has no choice but
to comply.
The constraining influence may take a variety of forms, and is by no
means confined to one plane of civilization, or to one cultural area.
Sometimes it is expressed in knots to which is widely attributed what
we call magical power. In Morocco, where civilization has rather
deteriorated than progressed for many ages, the cult of the dead is
largely prevalent. Professor Westermarck records that a Berber servant
of his told him that once when in prison he invoked a certain great
female saint whose tomb was in a neighbouring district, and tied his
turban, saying: “I am tying thee, Lälla Rah’ma Yusf, and I am not
going to open the knot till thou hast helped me.” And a person in
distress will sometimes go to her grave and knot the leaves of some
palmetto growing in its vicinity, with the words: “I tied thee here, O
saint, and I shall not release thee unless thou releasest me from the
toils in which I am at present.”[130.1]
This perhaps also is, as Professor Westermarck suggests, {131} a
conditional curse. Now a curse, like other magical proceedings before
referred to, is primarily a relief of overcharged feelings. Uttered
with all the strength of those feelings by an aggrieved or baffled
adversary, it evokes even in our breasts to-day shuddering and horror.
Much more then in days when the man’s _orenda_ was deemed to go out in
speech with immediate result upon the object to which he directed it.
When gods came to be adopted and worshipped, strength was added to the
curse by invocation of the god. The god’s name added to the curse was
an addition of the god himself. For the name is a part, and an
important part, of the god, and cannot be used without effect. The god
is bound to respond to it, and to act in accordance with the votary’s
demand. For this reason the real names of gods were kept secret.
Mystery thus attached to the name of the God of the Hebrews: hence the
express prohibition to “take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Almost all over the world this belief in efficacy of the uttered name
as a means of compulsion is responsible not merely for taboos on the
names of gods, and of men living or dead, but also for the form and
potency of magical formulæ. If you know the name of a spirit and
utter it, or sometimes even threaten to utter it, you compel the
owner’s attention to your wants. Or you may pretend to be some great
personage, such as (wherever the Mohammedan tradition has penetrated)
King Solomon or the angel Gabriel; and in that name you may issue your
commands. Or, as among Christians, you call for the obedience of a
spirit in the great name of God or the Lord Jesus Christ. In India to
repeat the divine name aloud, or even by way of meditation, “is the
most usual way of acquiring religious merit.… So much importance is
given to this mode of meditation that Tulsidas in {132} his _Ramayan_
lays down that the name of Rama is greater than Rama himself.” In
other words, its utterance compels him. “It is said of a certain Hindu
who had notoriously lived a life of impiety that he obtained salvation
by calling on his deathbed for his son by his name, which happened to
be Nârâyan.”[132.1] The name Nârâyan is sacred. It was originally
a title of Brahmâ, but is now usually applied to Vishnu, and is that
under which he was first worshipped.[132.2]
The curse, if curse it were, involved in the rite practised by
Professor Westermarck’s servant was not of the kind dependent on the
utterance of a name. It was rather of that in which the curse is
conveyed by a sign or figure deriving its power from the _orenda_ of
the magician himself. I have already referred to one species of such
curses intended for the protection of property by marking it as taboo
to the owner.[132.3] In this form they are chiefly used by the
Malayo-Polynesian and Melanesian peoples and on the eastern side of
Central Africa, though they have their analogues elsewhere.[132.4]
The leaden tablets of _defixiones_ employed by the ancient Greeks, of
which numerous examples are known, show a similar practice founded on
similar ideas. The tablet is inscribed with the name of the person
intended to be injured, and it is then “defixed,” or bound, with a
nail. The ceremony was doubtless accompanied by some words expressive
of the intention. Indeed the expression of the intention was in course
of time recorded on the tablet. A further stage in development was
reached when the gods were invoked, {133} beginning with Hermes and
Ge, and going on to other chthonic divinities. Later, apparently
towards the end of the third century B.C., the custom began of
devoting to various gods lost property and the thief who had stolen
it. Such tablets affixed to the walls of temples doubtless served the
purpose of our advertisements for the recovery of lost or stolen
property. The difference is that, whereas we offer material rewards,
the Greeks invoked the help of the gods and threatened the thief or
receiver with supernatural vengeance.[133.1] The use of _defixiones_
spread into Italy, and has lasted into quite modern times, or, it may
be truer to say, was revived under the influence of learned men who at
the close of the Middle Ages became imbued with the astrology and
magic of earlier days. One of these learned men, Cornelius Agrippa of
Nettesheim, who attained high judicial office under the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, but afterwards got into trouble for his occult
studies, wrote a book on Occult Philosophy, which was translated into
English in the middle of the seventeenth century. At that time the
study of magic was falling into disrepute. Agrippa’s book was left to
charlatans who preyed upon the ignorant. Some of the results have been
found up and down the country in the form of leaden tablets inscribed
with curses, mystical numbers and signs, names of the spirits invoked
to make the curses effectual and of the victims against whom the
curses were intended to operate.[133.2] In these modern cases {134}
the powers appealed to are no longer beings recognized by the dominant
religion. They are relics of religions passed away, or figments of the
pedantic imagination. Magic, in short, has for purposes of private
vengeance been ousted from religion and has set up for itself.
At any rate the Moroccan rite involves a threat; and a threat is near
akin to a curse. Much may be done with gods, as with men, by means of
a little judicious bluff. A certain Malay robber kept six tame
spirits, to whom he made an offering from time to time. When he did so
he called them by name, bidding them: “Come here! Eat my offering!
Take you care that my body is not affected, that the flow of my blood
is not stayed! Likewise with the bodies of my wife and children. (If
not) I’ll turn the earth and the sky the wrong way round!” He was
fully convinced of the power of these spirits and apparently of the
value of his terrible threat, though, as Mr Annandale, who reports the
case, points out, the spirits had been unable to save him from being
convicted and imprisoned for his crimes.[134.1]
In ancient Egypt magic was practised in connection with religion from
prehistoric times. Magic and religion “were two products of one and
the same _Weltanschauung_, not disparate either in their methods or in
their psychological basis. Nor were they differently estimated from
the ethical point of view: magic was deemed permissible, so long as it
was turned to no evil purpose. It follows that the classification of
Egyptian superstitious practices as (_a_) religious, (_b_) magical,
must be a purely external mode of classification: the distinction
between religion {135} and magic in Egypt has not, and cannot be made
to have, any deeper significance.”[135.1] The scholar from whom I
quote these words, so far from exaggerating the close relationship
between magic and religion, may be said to understate it. Magic was an
integral part of religion. The priests of the gods were magicians.
Magic was employed in the ritual of worship. It enabled the great god
Ra to overcome the serpent Apep.[135.2] Magical ceremonies performed
by the priests over the mummy, or over a statuette representing the
deceased, were the means by which his success in passing the necessary
tests and his lasting happiness after death were secured. The means
employed were those universally known to magic: amulets, waxen and
other figures, pictures, spells and words of power, the knowledge of
names, rites imitating the results desired, and so forth. Concerning
the dead we are told: “Few were those who remained for ever with the
Sun, and they were not necessarily the great ones of the earth, nor
yet the very good, but those who possessed the most minute information
as to the next world, and who were best versed in magic. Thus the
whole doctrine is based on a belief in the power of magic.”[135.3]
“In the next world a correct knowledge of magic words and formulas was
absolutely essential. There no door would open to him who knew not its
name; no demon would allow the passage of the dead who did not call
upon him correctly, nor would any god come to his help unless invoked
by the right name; no food could be had so long as the exactly
prescribed prayers were not uttered with the true intonations. But the
dead who {136} knew these formulas, and who knew how to speak them
correctly at the proper moment, who was _maâ kherû_
(right-speaking), might rest assured of immortality and of eternal
blessedness.”[136.1] This led of course to the multiplication of
spells, to the elaboration of ritual, during the long ages of Egyptian
history, until at last they must have become extremely burdensome.
Moreover, sorcery was not only expended by man in the service of the
gods and of the dead: it was used by the gods themselves. “Only by
means of conjurations could Ra himself pass through” the divisions
between the twelve hourly spaces of the night.[136.2] By the power of
his name Neb-er-tcher or Khepera, often identified with certain
aspects of Ra, the Sun, evolved himself and created the world.[136.3]
The secret name of Ra was a word of might. Isis set herself with all
her arts to learn it, that she might possess the world in heaven and
upon earth as Ra did (that is, become a goddess); and when she had
extorted it from the august divinity, she turned the weapon without
hesitation upon himself.[136.4] By examples like these men were
authorized to have recourse to magic in their own secular concerns,
their loves and hates, their sickness, their social and business
relations, their private enterprizes, their competitions and
resentments. Kings consulted the soothsayers on public affairs; they
employed magical processes to vanquish their enemies; {137} with the
aid of soothsayers and magicians they governed their realm. It was
only when sorcery was directed against the king’s life, when it aimed
at the overthrow of his power, or the injury or death of others, that
it was reckoned a crime, or even reprehended on moral grounds.
Nor did the magician hesitate to compel even the gods to perform his
wishes, and to threaten them, like the Malay robber, with dire
disaster to themselves and the universe as a punishment of their
obstinacy. In one papyrus preserved to us, for example, a woman in
labour declares herself to be Isis and summons the gods to her help.
If they refuse to come, “Then shall ye be destroyed, ye nine gods; the
heaven shall no longer exist, the earth shall no longer exist, the
five days over and above the year shall cease to be, offerings shall
no longer be made to the gods, the lords of Heliopolis. The firmament
of the south shall fail, and disaster shall break forth from the sky
of the north. Lamentations shall resound from the graves, the midday
sun shall no longer shine, the Nile shall not bestow its waters of
inundation at the appointed time.”[137.1] Such bombastic menaces as
these continued to be part of the practitioner’s stock-in-trade in the
Roman Empire to the downfall of paganism.
Among the ancient Greeks in Plato’s time there were soothsayers and
medicine-men who professed to have power over the gods, so that they
could compel them to do their bidding, even though it were to injure
another person.[137.2] I am not aware whether any of their spells
have been preserved.[137.3]
{138}
Cases like these display the religion of the community applied to the
private advantage of the individual. More interesting is the authority
which Mr Hodson attributes to the _khullakpa_, or village priest, of
the Naga tribes of Manipur. The khullakpa is to be distinguished from
the _maiba_, or medicine-man, who is doctor and magician in one. The
maiba is called in to deal with individual cases; the khullakpa plays
the leading part when a village _genna_ is held. It is he who offers
the sacrifices and performs the rites. The term _genna_ means
forbidden. A genna extending to the whole village excludes strangers
from entering, and prohibits the inhabitants from going out and from
doing any work while the genna lasts; it may also prescribe fasting,
continence, and other observances. In short, “the ordinary routine of
life is profoundly modified, if not broken off altogether.” A genna
may be either periodical, as for the sake of the crops or the hunting;
or it may be occasional, as at a death, or against epidemic sickness,
or at an earthquake or eclipse. A sacrifice is invariably a part of
the ritual. The khullakpa “acts,” says Mr Hodson, “whenever a rite is
performed which requires the whole force of the community behind it,
and this force finds its operation through him. These village gennas
seem in many cases to be inspired by the belief that man, _the man_,
the {139} khullakpa, when fortified by the whole strength and will of
the village, is able to control and constrain forces which are beyond
his control if unaided.”[139.1] If this inference, made by an acute
observer, be correct, it is a remarkable example of the corporate
strength of the society applied by means of religious rites to the
coercion of the gods and other supernatural beings.
Not a little significant of the intimate relations of religion and
magic is the fact that many peoples have expressly ascribed the
authorship and practice of magic to their gods. In New South Wales the
figure of Baiame, the idealized headman just developing into a god, is
modelled upon that of a magician. He is described by one of the tribes
in so many words as “mightiest and most famous of _Wirreenun_,” or
magicians.[139.2] The Arawâk of British Guiana tell of a similar
personage in a semi-deified position, named Arawânili or Orowâma, to
whom the mysteries of sorcery were revealed by an _orehu_. The orehu
is a sort of mermaid who is an important figure in the mythology of
these Indians. She haunts the rivers, a capricious, mischievous, not
always malicious and cruel, but sometimes benevolent figure. In one of
her kindlier moments she met Arawânili brooding over the condition to
which men were reduced by the evil doings of the _yauhahu_, downright
malignant beings, the authors of sickness and death. To combat their
depredations she gave him the sorcerer’s rattle and instructed him how
to use it. “He followed her directions and thus became the founder of
that system which has since prevailed among all the Indian tribes.”
According to Arawâk belief Arawânili did not die like other men, but
“went up,” that is to say, disappeared or departed in the manner of
other American {140} culture-heroes. We have no evidence, however,
that he is actually worshipped.[140.1]
The coast-dwellers of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Pomerania, whose
effective belief is in spirits, both _manes_ and spirits non-human in
origin, presuppose in their witchcraft the existence of these spirits.
Sickness and other ills are caused by evil-disposed spirits, and are
combated by magic. But this magic is due to the superior might of
well-disposed spirits. It is they who reveal the spells by which human
ailments may be vanquished and human desires gratified. Among these
spirits are especially to be named the Inal, a spirit with wings like
a bird’s and face like an owl’s, inhabiting a great _giao_-tree
(_Ficus prolixa_), and the Kaya, a gigantic python with human face,
worshipped by certain of the natives as ancestor. From the ascription
to spirits of all spells made use of by the sorcerers, Father Meier,
to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the native beliefs,
infers that the belief in spirits preceded witchcraft.[140.2] Whether
the inference be right or wrong, there can be no doubt of the fact
that this belief and witchcraft are now inseparable.
Among the Lushai-Kuki of Assam, Pathian the creator, a quasi-supreme
and benevolent being, was acquainted with, but is not definitely
stated to have been the author of, witchcraft. It was taught by his
daughter, as a ransom for her life, to Vahrika, who had caught her
stealing water from his private supply. Vahrika is described as
“something like” Pathian--a purely mythological figure. He in turn
taught it all to others.[140.3] In Japan, Jimmu {141} Tennō, the
deified legendary founder of the empire, is said to have first taught
the use of magical formulæ; while the gods Ohonamochi and
Sukunabikona are credited with the invention of medicine and
magic.[141.1] The ancient Egyptians held Thoth, the god of writing
and guardian of law, “to have written the most sacred books and
formulas with his own hand, and therein to have set down his knowledge
of magic, in which art Isis was his only rival. His pre-eminence in
magic naturally led to his becoming the god of medicine, for magic was
fully as important to the medical practitioners of the Nile Valley as
knowledge of remedies.”[141.2] In other words, medicine was not yet
separated from magic, the physician was a sorcerer, who may have been
versed in simples, but whose practice was essentially mysterious and
derived its effect rather from what we call supernatural than natural
modes of action. Hence to recognize Thoth as god of medicine was
equivalent to recognizing him as god of magic, a character peculiarly
suitable to a god of letters.
Finally, not to lengthen the list, if we may trust the Ynglinga-saga,
Odin was the author of those crafts which men have long since plied,
and among them of magic. He “was wise in that craft wherewith went
most might, which is called spell-craft; and this he himself followed.
Wherefore he had might to know the fate of men and things not yet come
to pass; yea, or how to work for men bane or illhap or ill-heal, and
to take wit or strength from men and give them unto others.” He was a
notorious shape-shifter. “He knew how by words alone to slake the fire
or still the sea, and how to turn {142} the wind to whichso way he
would.” He could “wake up dead men from the earth.” He “knew of all
buried treasures where they were hidden; and he knew lays whereby the
earth opened before him, and mountains and rocks and mounds, and how
to bind with words alone whoso might be found dwelling therein; and he
would go in and take thence what he would. From all this craft he
became exceeding famed, and his foes dreaded him, but his friends put
their trust in him, and had faith in his craft and himself; but he
taught the more part of his cunning to the temple-priests, and they
were next to him in all wisdom and cunning: albeit many others got to
them much knowledge thereof, and thence sorcery spread far and wide
and endured long.”[142.1] Although the opening chapters of the
Ynglinga-saga, from which I have extracted these particulars, are a
late and euhemerized version of the Scandinavian mythology, the
account of Odin’s magical powers contains little that does not appear
in the early poems, or cannot be inferred from them. Whatever may have
been the primitive form of this renowned god, there can be no doubt
that he was before the close of the pagan age regarded as a god of
magic and sorcery. His reputation as god of poetry, and probably as
war-god, is bound up with this. The magical value attached to verse is
very common among peoples in an archaic stage of culture; and it was
shared to the full by the ancient Norsemen. Many of them--at least in
Viking days, and it is by no means unlikely much earlier--combined in
their own persons the warrior with the poet and the sorcerer. Nor
shall we go far astray if we conclude that these various strands had
been long interwoven to form the character of the Lord of the Anses.
The intimate relation existing among the Norse between {143} religion
and magic is further indicated by the superior magical knowledge and
powers ascribed to them and stated to be originally derived from Odin.
Thus, on the one hand, we find constraint of the higher powers for
public or private ends; on the other hand, the invention of spells and
practice of magic are attributed to the gods themselves. We may think
that constraint of the gods is inconsistent with worship. This is not
the notion of peoples among which magic and religion are thus
interwoven. The object of religion is to acquire benefits for the
individual or the community. With this end men deem themselves
justified in applying any means likely to secure it; and they treat
their gods as they would powerful fellow-men, seeking favours where
favours are to be had for the asking or in return for favours,
enforcing compliance with their wishes where prayers will not avail,
or cheating them where they get the chance. The repetition of a divine
name may be either a favour to the god, or may be compulsion. The
votary cares not to distinguish. In either case it brings about the
gratification of his wishes. The village _genna_ practised by the
Nagas is compulsion. It is none the less worship. Many of the magical
texts of ancient Egypt are directed to assisting the gods to overcome
their enemies, thus rendering them a favour which they were bound to
return. The ritual of the Scapegoat, familiar to us in its Hebrew
form,[143.1] but in fact found in many other quarters of the globe,
presents another form of these magical practices. The sins of which
men have been guilty, the evils from which they have been suffering
are laden on the head of the unfortunate victim, who is forthwith put
to death or driven away forever from society. {144} Whether in the
earliest form of the rite the victim was regarded as divine may be
doubted: it is certain that it has been taken up into the cult of the
gods in many religions, and has been deemed a pious act, a work of
obligation, for the wellbeing of the joint community of gods and men.
Divine beings may even be made accomplices in Black or antisocial
Magic without any compulsion. The white-headed carrion-hawk
(_Haliaster intermedius_) is the most important bird of omen observed
by the Kenyahs of Borneo. Under the name of Bali Flaki he is looked
upon as messenger and intermediary between themselves and Bali
Penyalong, the Supreme Being. Apparently every individual hawk is such
a messenger, but his sacred character appears in his title Bali: a
word probably derived from the Sanskrit and sometimes translated
_holy_, but having the force of “an adjectival equivalent of the
_mana_ of the Melanesians, or of the _wakanda_ or _orenda_ of North
American tribes, words which seem to connote all power other than
purely mechanical.”[144.1] Bali Flaki is appealed to publicly on
behalf of the community on various occasions, as on sowing or
harvesting the rice-crop, making war or peace, or in fact before any
undertaking or decision. His aid may also “be sought privately by any
man who wishes to injure another. For this purpose a man makes a rough
wooden image in human form, and retires to some quiet spot on the
river-bank, where he sets up a _tegulun_, a horizontal pole supported
about a yard above the ground by a pair of vertical poles. He lights a
small fire beside the _tegulun_, and taking a fowl in one hand, he
sits on the ground behind it, so as to see through it a square patch
of sky, and so waits until a hawk becomes visible upon the patch. As
{145} soon as a hawk appears he kills the fowl, and with a frayed
stick smears its blood on the wooden image, saying: ‘Put fat in his
mouth.’” This appears to be addressed to the hawk. In the description
of what is in effect the same rite as practised among some of the
Klemantans of the same island, we are definitely told it is so
addressed. The expression means, “Let his head be taken”; for the
people are head-hunters, and fat is put in the mouth of every head
taken. Messrs Hose and M‘Dougall, whom I am quoting, proceed: “And he
puts a bit of fat in the mouth of the image. Then he strikes at the
breast of the image with a wooden spear, and throws it into a pool of
water reddened with red earth, and then takes it out and buries it in
the ground,” in the manner in which only persons dying by violence or
some much feared disease are buried. “While the hawk is visible he
waves it towards the left; for he knows that if it flies to the left
he will prevail over his enemy, but that if it goes to the right his
enemy is too strong for him.” In the Klemantan rite, as described for
us, he also shouts to the hawk to go to the left. When it has gone in
the desired direction he addresses a prayer beginning “O Bali Flaki,
go your way, let this man (naming him) die; go and put him in the lake
of blood, O Bali Flaki; stab him in the chest, Bali Flaki,” and so on,
invoking all sorts of evil deaths upon him.[145.1] Now here we have a
well-known rite of antisocial magic. But to make it effectual the
coöperation of the divine power is requisite. That power is called
upon. There is no attempt to coerce Bali Flaki, who, if not himself a
god, is at least a messenger and intermediary of the great god Bali
Penyalong. Yet there is confidence that he can perform the request,
and that he shows by his flight that he will do so.
{146}
So on the mainland of India, in the Nilgiri Hills, the Toda sorcerer,
having procured some human hair--not that of the person to be injured,
for it would be impossible to get it--ties together by its means five
small stones, and with a piece of cloth makes a bundle of them. Over
them thus tied up he utters his incantation. It begins by calling on
his gods; and whether the opening clauses be precisely rendered or not
in the following free translation, it is clear that the gods are
invoked. Indeed, Dr Rivers, after careful enquiry, expresses the
opinion that “in the formulæ used in Toda sorcery appeal to the gods
is even more definite than in the prayers of the dairy ritual,” the
most important of the religious ceremonies. “In them,” he says, “the
names of four most important gods are mentioned, and it seems quite
clear that the sorcerer believes he is effecting his purpose through
the power of the gods.” The spell runs something like this: “For the
sake of Pithioteu, Ön, Teikirzi and Tirshti; by the power of the
gods, if there be power; by the gods’ country, if there be a country;
may his calves perish; as birds fly away, may his buffaloes go when
the calves come to suck; as I drink water, may he have nothing but
water to drink; as I am thirsty, may he also be thirsty; as I am
hungry, may he also be hungry; as my children cry, so may his children
cry; as my wife wears only a ragged cloth, so may his wife wear only a
ragged cloth.” The bundle thus enchanted he hides in the thatch of the
victim’s hut.[146.1]
Another example of the complicity in hostile magic of a supernatural
being, who perhaps can hardly be pronounced a god in the strict sense
of the term, though {147} powerful for good and ill, may be cited,
this time from the continent of Africa. The religion of the Boloki
(Bangala) on the Upper Congo, we are told, “has its basis in their
fear of those numerous invisible spirits which surround them on every
side, and are constantly trying to compass their sickness, misfortune
and death; and the Boloki’s sole object in practising their religion
is to cajole or appease, cheat, or conquer and kill those spirits that
trouble them--hence their _nganga_ [medicine-man], their rites, their
ceremonies and their charms. If there were no evil spirits to be
circumvented, there would be no need of their medicine-men and their
charms.” Among these various spirits is one called _Ejo_, the spirit
of wealth. “A man who wants to become rich pays a large fee to _nganga
ya bwaka_ [the most feared and respected of all the classes of
medicine-men], who then uses his influence with _Ejo_ on behalf of his
client, who must in all future gains set apart a portion for _Ejo_,
and should he fail to do so, _Ejo_ has the power to punish him.…
When a person has received the _mono mwa ejo_ (_ejo_ medicine or
charm), and has become wealthy by his luck-giving power, he takes the
nail-parings and hair-cuttings of a woman and makes medicine with
them; and the woman soon dies and her spirit goes to _Ejo_ as an
offering for its help. He is said to _lekia nkali_ (to pass her on as
a gift or sacrifice to _Ejo_).”[147.1] It is difficult to distinguish
a transaction like this from the ordinary relations of a man to his
god. The votary pays tithe of his gains obtained by favour of the
spirit; and over and above the tithe, he is under the necessity of
providing a human sacrifice from time to time for the spirit. But the
means by which the sacrifice is provided are the exercise of
witchcraft, and that with the full knowledge and assistance {148} of
the supernatural being who is to be kept in good humour thereby.
An example of the intermingling of religion and magic in a different
way may also be taken from the same people. “Physical phenomena (as
heavy storms), when taking place about the time that a person dies, or
is being buried, are regarded as caused by the deceased person; hence
when a storm threatens to break during the funeral festivities of a
man, the people present will call the beloved child of the deceased,
and, giving him a lighted ember from the hearth with a vine twined
round it, they will ask him to stop the rain. The lad steps forward
and waves the vine-encircled ember towards the horizon where the storm
is rising, and says: ‘Father, let us have fine weather during your
funeral ceremonies.’ The son, after this rite, must not drink water
(he may drink sugar-cane wine), nor put his feet in water for one day.
Should he not observe this custom, the rain will at once
fall.”[148.1] The boy’s father, having died, has become a _mongoli_,
that is to say, an ancestral spirit of indefinite powers, who watches
over the perpetuation of his family, haunts the forest or the river,
inspires mediums to deliver oracles, and visits the village at times
in the material form of a crocodile or a hippopotamus to receive
offerings of sugar-cane wine and food. His favourite son has influence
with him to change his purposes, and exercises that influence by
prayer. But to make the prayer effectual in staying the storm, he must
use a widely diffused charm against rain--the waving of a brand and
abstinence from water.
It is probable, as we have seen, that the early stages of ritual were
vague and inchoate. It was adaptable to {149} interpretation as
culture progressed, as new beliefs were evolved or imported. Such an
example of adaptability has been pointed out by Miss Werner in a rite
practised by the Anyanja of British Central Africa when rain is
wanted. It is complete in itself, but is now prefaced by an appeal to
Mpambe, a quasi-supreme being. “The principal part was taken by a
woman--the chief’s sister. She began by dropping _ufa_ [maize-flour]
on the ground, slowly and carefully, till it formed a cone, and in
doing this called out in a high-pitched voice, ‘_Imva Mpambe! Adza
mvula_’ (Hear thou, O God, and send rain!), and the assembled people
responded, clapping their hands softly and intoning--they always
intone their prayers--‘_Imva Mpambe_.’ The beer was then poured out as
a libation, and the people, following the example of the woman, threw
themselves on their backs and clapped their hands (a form of
salutation to superiors), and finally danced round the chief where he
sat on the ground.” Then followed the rite in question. “The dance
ceased; a large jar of water was brought and placed before the chief.
First Mbudzi (his sister) washed her hands, arms and face; then water
was poured over her by another woman; then all the women rushed
forward with calabashes in their hands, and, dipping them into the
jar, threw the water into the air with loud cries and wild
gesticulations.” This is obviously a rain-charm, but, as Miss Werner
says, it “might be taken as prayer and not magic, if we are to
understand the water to be thrown into the air as a sign that water is
wanted.” She adds: “Sometimes people smear themselves with mud and
charcoal to show that they want washing. If the rain still does not
come, they go and wash themselves in the rivers and streams.”[149.1]
The women’s action and cries may {150} be interpreted as addressed to
someone or something, though possibly originating merely in excessive
emotion and now become traditional. It would be only necessary for the
cries to become articulate and the name of Mpambe, or some other name,
to be pronounced, to form a genuine invocation, as has happened in the
Boloki rite just described. Actually the invocation forms the
preliminary of the rite: that may be what, for want of better
knowledge, we should call an accident. That it is comparatively recent
is shown by the employment of maize-flour. The evolution might easily
have taken another course.
Turning to another continent, we may find an example of adaptability
of a more elaborate ceremony. The Navaho are in the main an Athapascan
people who have wandered down to the sterile plains of New Mexico and
Arizona. There, ages ago, they came into contact with the more settled
Pueblo tribes. The researches of American anthropologists show the
practical identity of certain of their religious rituals with those of
their Pueblo neighbours. It would seem that these rituals have been
taken over from the latter. This is only natural, seeing that the
Navaho came down from the north with an undeveloped culture and
organization into a country where new needs were experienced and a
higher civilization was met with. But in taking over the rituals they
have applied them to purposes different from those of their original
performers. The chief aim of the ceremonies as used among the Pueblo
tribes is to obtain fertility, and the condition of fertility is rain.
This is clear from the use made of corn-meal and corn-pollen. “Pollen
is the symbol of fertility, and the rite at bottom is for rain. The
Navaho took over the use of the corn and the pollen together with the
other features; but the corn no longer served its previous {151}
purpose as a prayer for rain and the ripening of the crops: it was
used for the cure of disease.”[151.1] The Dene or Athapascans, of
which stem the Navaho are a branch, are a people of migratory hunters.
Agriculture would be foreign to them. Their principal ceremonies are
concerned with the conjuration of evil spirits and the cure of
diseases, which are usually ascribed to the spirits. It was natural
that when they borrowed the ceremonies of a settled agricultural
community they should imbue them with their own ideas. In their hands
the cure of disease “became the fundamental feature of the borrowed
rites. A ceremony intended for rain-making would naturally need some
alteration in order to serve as a cure of disease.”[151.2] And it has
received it. The fact that they have been able so to adapt the rites
probably points to some want of definiteness in the form of the rites
at the time they were borrowed.
Another illustration of adaptability is seen in the rites at wells or
rocks common all over Europe. What may have been the original cause of
the sacredness of a well or a rock, what may have been the original
intention of the processions, the dances and the decorations we have
of course no means of knowing. We may guess that some peculiarity in
the shape of the rock, the sweet or healing waters of the fountain, or
some sudden and unexplained or untoward incident first called and
concentrated popular attention, and that a precise, intelligible
meaning may hardly have been attached to the few and simple ceremonies
first performed. In course of time, we may conjecture, ritual and
belief were elaborated and defined. However this may be, we know that
before the end of paganism--at {152} least in those countries of the
west where inscriptions have been preserved--a spirit or god was
believed to haunt the place and to preside over the rites of which it
was the scene. To him they were addressed, and it was his favour they
sought to conciliate. Christianity came and diverted the rites to new
objects, not altogether forbidding, but baptizing them, in accordance
with the policy enunciated in Pope Gregory’s famous letter to the
Abbot Mellitus. All these changes necessitate adaptations of practice.
That which at first was formless receives a definite form. That which
may have been an indeterminate expression of awe and reverence becomes
distinctly worship, though not without elements, often retained to the
last, that we should call magical. And the changes in the nominal
objects of worship are accompanied by progressive changes in the
details of the ritual. Lastly when, as in many cases, official
recognition of the ritual is abandoned, and it is left to the unguided
superstition of the peasant, it tends to slip back into its original
indeterminate condition. Acts are performed or avoided, and ceremonies
undertaken, not as worship of a power known and resident on the
hallowed spot, but for benefits sometimes precise, more often for luck
mysterious, impersonal, half-credited, or from fear of something
equally mysterious, but for that reason all the more terrible. Beyond
this, the practices linger into a stage, unknown to the savages who
began them, where they are performed for pleasure, or else in the hope
of monetary gain, by children and adolescents, and die away gradually
under the stress of modern life and the influence of the schoolmaster.
The earlier stages of this round may, as we have seen, be observed
occasionally in the rites of peoples still in the lower culture. Close
observation, accurate analysis and {153} comparison would probably
result in finding them more frequently. Meanwhile let us turn to
another question.
If I have been right in insisting throughout these essays on the
fundamental organic unity of Magic and Religion, I have not denied
their gradual separation and opposition at a later stage. They have
their common root in the same attitude toward the environment, social
and physical. Rite and belief have been elaborated and organized
together. For ages during this process magic and religion must have
been integral parts of one another, as they are now in many parts of
the world. Except in regard to antisocial magic, they have not yet
among many peoples begun to feel opposition. But this unity, as
civilization progresses, becomes more and more unstable. Where, as is
said to be the case in Morocco, civilization has recoiled, magic comes
more and more to the front. Though it does so not without protests on
the part of those who retain any consciousness of the higher
development of religion, still on the whole it is successful in
overlaying religion and pushing it into the background. Another people
whose religion is in process of degeneration, if Dr Rivers’ opinion be
correct, is the Todas. There the magic of the dairy ritual has thrust
aside the worship of the gods. In this case, however, the opposition
is not open and avowed. The history of the Todas is a blank. We cannot
put our finger on one period and say: Here the gods were worshipped
and the dairy magic was unknown. We have no records. We can only
conclude from an examination of the internal evidence that the gods
once played a more prominent part in the life of the community than
they do now, but that Toda culture had not so far progressed that
magic was not an inseparable part of religion, and that any growth of
magic at the expense of religion would have {154} been viewed without
misgiving or even consciousness. Even religions where the opposition
is most pronounced are themselves by no means pure from magic. All the
subtlety, all the rhetoric of theologians may well be needed to rebut
the charge of magic against the seven sacraments of the Church. I at
least have no intention to risk the curse levelled by the Council of
Trent at him who denies their efficacy _ex opere operato_, and whether
or not the minister may be in a state of mortal sin.
In denouncing witchcraft the Christian Church has followed the lead of
the Hebrew religion. The Hebrew law against witchcraft was
unambiguous, pitiless. “Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to
live”[154.1] is the grim direction of the oldest Hebrew writing. It
is expanded by the Deuteronomist: “When thou art come into the land
which Yahwè thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the
abominations of those nations. There shall not be found with thee
anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
one that useth divination, one that practiseth augury, or an
enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar
spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whosoever doeth these
things is an abomination unto Yahwè; and because of these
abominations Yahwè thy God doth drive them out from before
thee.”[154.2] This is pretty comprehensive. Yet it left many
practices within the national religion, recognized as part of it,
though essentially magical. The scapegoat I have already mentioned.
The ordeal of the water of bitterness, to which a woman suspected by
her husband of infidelity was compelled to submit, is equally a
magical proceeding.[154.3] Both are sanctioned, not to say
prescribed, by Yahwè; though in their present form the prescriptions
may be late. Divination {155} is prohibited, and consultation with
familiar spirits or the ghosts of the dead, augury, and the taking of
omens. Nevertheless, the children of Israel enquired of Yahwè, and he
answered them by dreams; and the high priest divined by means of Urim
and Thummim. Teraphim seem to have been amulets--one might almost say
fetishes. They are referred to more than once in the Hebrew books. As
late as the prophet Hosea they were not merely tolerated but regarded
as necessities to the prosperity of the people. “For the children of
Israel shall abide many days without king and without prince, and
without sacrifice and without pillar (_massebah_), and without ephod
or teraphim. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek
the Lord their God and David their king, and shall come with fear unto
the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.”[155.1] The use of
the ephod was probably connected with divination, and Yahwè, speaking
through the prophet, expressly countenanced not only this, but also
the use of teraphim. With growing monotheism they were, however,
eventually repressed.
Indeed, a comparison of the passages in which reference is made to
various magical practices will suggest that the real reason of the
hostility to them arose from their connection with heathenism. They
were representative practices of a rival religion. They hindered the
concentration of worship on Yahwè at his sole shrine on Mount Zion.
On the other hand, the casting out of evil spirits continued unabated
and unreproved into New Testament times, and the wearing of personal
amulets in the shape of phylacteries persists among the uneducated
classes of Jews to the present day and has full rabbinical sanction.
Both these practices are uncontrovertibly magical.
{156}
Similar considerations inspired mediæval hostility to witchcraft, and
continued it with little decrease of intensity into the eighteenth
century. Witchcraft was rebellion against the established religion. It
was identified with heresy. It involved contempt of the omnipotent
priesthood, derogating thus not merely from its reputation, but also
its gains. It was believed even to set up a rival god. This belief was
an inheritance from primitive Christianity, which looked upon the
heathen gods as devils. Every miracle which imposed on the credulity
of those ages, if performed by a Christian, was attributed to divine
interference; if performed, on the contrary, by a pagan, was with as
little hesitation ascribed to Satan and his underlings. In either case
nobody doubted the fact of the occurrence, or thought it worth while
minutely to examine the evidence. The hostility of the Church to
witchcraft had, however, the excuse that the heathen rites were in a
large measure magical, and that magic, other than Black Magic, was
avowedly practised during pagan times and regarded with toleration, if
not complacency. Heathenism died a hard death. Somewhat changed in
form it survived for centuries; and many of the heretical sects were
more or less impregnated with it.
But all this does not fully account for the horror and hatred felt
against magic alike by churchmen and the laity. What gave intensity to
the opposition was the dread that magical powers would be used to the
disadvantage, the injury, the death of all against whom the magician
had a grudge. So persistently did this dread take hold of the
imagination that the practice of magic was finally identified with
Black Magic, and to be accused of witchcraft meant to be charged with
the attempt to injure, and perhaps to slay, one’s neighbours {157} by
mysterious, and because mysterious, horrible means. Against
proceedings of this kind there was no protection but in hunting out
and putting an end to the magicians. This feeling had manifested
itself even in pagan times. Both in Greece and at Rome the laws
condemned magicians to death.
It is, in fact, the tendency to individualism rather than magic itself
that has awakened hostility everywhere. But this tendency is inherent
in magic. In the lower stages of civilization magic is undistinguished
not only from religion but from medicine, from astronomy, from
engineering, from literary learning, from the practice of industries
other than the simplest and of art. Consequently everyone who
possesses a little more skill than ordinary, or is credited with a
knowledge surpassing that of the vulgar, faces the inevitable risk of
being reputed a magician, and the suspicion of using his advantages to
the detriment of others. Nor is the suspicion unfounded. Human nature
being what it is, power, of whatever kind, is utilized for the benefit
of its possessor, frequently without regard to the claims of others or
the public good. The shaman or the wizard who is called in to the aid
of the sick is often the depositary of knowledge of healing herbs and
of poisons. The powers that are at the disposal of beneficence are
equally applied to baleful ends. The healing of disease, whether it be
effected by suggestion or by physical remedies, may be a social good:
primarily and directly it is an individual benefit. To put the public
foe under a spell excites the approval of the community. To lay a
private enemy low is a very different matter. But the same expert by
the exercise of the same skill performs both. Moreover, he subserves
the ends of private gain and private revenge with equal indifference,
and, it is {158} believed, by the same mysterious means. In all these
instances the professor of magic places his skill, knowledge,
experience, and the terror of his name and incantations--in one word,
his _orenda_--at the service of his clients without distinction. As
civilization advances, and religion and religious ministers begin to
be differentiated from the wizard or medicine-man, the latter is
probably called on less and less to perform rites on behalf of the
public, and more and more on behalf of individuals. The portions of
magic that can be disposed for the purposes of the community are taken
up into religion. What remains when this is done becomes specifically
the method and practice of the magician. Small wonder then that the
only magic recognized as such is antisocial magic.
On the other hand, so great is the terror inspired by magic, and so
instinctively gregarious is mankind, that mere eccentricity, the
failure to follow the crowd, is often of itself sufficient to start
the cry of witchcraft. The slavery of man in the lower culture to
custom is a commonplace of anthropology. That custom is religious to
the core, for religion is only one aspect of the social polity.
Everyone observes it, because upon it depends the weal of all alike.
Everyone’s eye too is upon his neighbour; and a departure from custom
is sure to be noticed, and equally sure to be resented as something
sinister. At the least it is viewed with suspicion and concern. Done
innocently, it will bring misfortune on the doer and all connected
with him. Done with a purpose, it is abhorred and punished as evil
magic. Happily the fear of witchcraft is not everywhere an obsession.
Where it is, as almost all over Africa, it has become the most
powerful cause of the stagnation of culture. Mr Weeks, a missionary of
long {159} experience, and an admirable observer, speaking of the
Bangala on the Upper Congo, says the native “has a wonderful power of
imitation, but he lacks invention and initiative; but this lack is
undoubtedly due to suppression of the inventive faculty. For
generations it has been the custom to charge with witchcraft anyone
who commenced a new industry or discovered a new article of barter.
The making of anything out of the ordinary has brought on the maker a
charge of witchcraft that again and again has resulted in death by the
ordeal. To know more than others, to be more skilful than others, more
energetic, more acute in business, more smart in dress, has often
caused a charge of witchcraft and death. Therefore the native, to save
his life and live in peace, has smothered his inventive faculty, and
all spirit of enterprise has been driven out of him.”[159.1]
This deplorable result is attributable to the suspicion of antisocial
ends. It is this kind of magic which alone is reprobated in the lower
culture. Death is very generally regarded as unnatural. If not caused
by open violence, it must be due to spirits or to magic. Magic indeed
is often deemed responsible for deaths by violence, or deaths credited
to the immediate action of the spirits. Magic sets both causes in
motion. Hence at a death, however occasioned, an inquest is commonly
held to ascertain who is responsible; the accused is required to
undergo an ordeal, and is punished if found guilty--as he usually is.
But it is not the practice of magic that is condemned; it is the
application of magic to the injury of the community. The chieftain of
a tribe of Bantu “smells out” and puts to death the witch who has
slain his father. The same chieftain will habitually practise magic on
another chief before fighting with him. He {160} will make rain, or
employ a wizard for the purpose. His sacrifices and acts of worship
are inextricably mingled with magic. Even when the schism between
magic and religion has attained much wider dimensions than anywhere
among the Bantu, it is rather magic in its antisocial aspect than in
itself that is reprobated and punished. The departure from established
custom and established belief involves a severance from the community
and an imputation of antisocial ends. The pursuit of individual
desires and hatreds at odds with the general interest is what arouses
the anger of society. Practices essentially magical may be
incorporated in religious rites and exercised for what is believed to
be the public good; and they will continue to be exercised with
general assent, even in the highest forms of religion.