Fakirs are religious mendicants who, for the purpose of exciting the
charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem
impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful
tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their
indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make
believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to
that of common mortals.
In the Indies, these fakirs visit all the great markets, all religious
fetes, and usually all kinds of assemblages, in order to exhibit,
themselves. If one of them exhibits some new peculiarity, some curious
deformity, a strange posture, or, finally, any physiological curiosity
whatever that surpasses those of his confreres, he becomes the
attraction of the fete, and the crowd surrounds him, and small coin and
rupees begin to fall into his bowl.
Fakirs, like all persons who voluntarily torture themselves, are curious
examples of the modifications that will, patience, and, so to speak,
"art" can introduce into human nature, and into the sensitiveness and
functions of the organs. If these latter are capable of being improved,
of having their functions developed and of acquiring more strength (as,
for example, the muscles of boxers, the breast of foot racers, the voice
of singers, etc.), these same organs, on the contrary, can be atrophied
or modified, and their functions be changed in nature. It is in such
degradation and such degeneration of human nature that fakirs excel, and
it is from such a point of view that they are worth studying.
We may, so to speak, class these individuals according to the grades of
punishments that they inflict upon themselves, or according to the
deformities that they have caused themselves to undergo. But, as we have
already said, the number of both of these is extremely varied, each
fakir striving in this respect to eclipse his fellows. It is only
necessary to open a book of Indian travel to find descriptions of fakirs
in abundance; and such descriptions might seem exaggerated or unlikely
were they not so concordant. The following are a few examples:
_Immovable fakirs_.--The number of these is large. They remain immovable
in the spot they have selected, and that too for an exceedingly long
period of time. An example of one of these is cited who remained
standing for twelve years, his arms crossed upon his breast, without
moving and without lying or sitting down. In such cases charitable
persons always take it upon themselves to prevent the fakir from dying
of starvation. Some remain sitting, immovable, and apparently lifeless,
while others, who lie stretched out upon the ground, look like corpses.
It may be easily imagined what a state one of these beings is in after a
few months or years of immobility. He is extremely lean, his limbs are
atrophied, his body is black with filth and dust, his hair is long and
dishevelled, his beard is shaggy, his finger and toe nails have become
genuine claws, and his aspect is frightful. This, however, is a
character common to all fakirs.
We may likewise class among the immovables those fakirs who cause
themselves to be interred up to the neck, and who remain thus with their
head sticking out of the ground either during the entire time the fair
or fete lasts or for months and years.
_Anchylotic Fakirs_.--The number of fakirs who continue to hold one or
both arms outstretched is very large in India. The following description
of one of them is given by a traveler: "He was a goussain--a religious
mendicant--who had dishevelled hair and beard, and horrible tattooings
upon his face, and, what was most hideous, was his left arm, which,
withered and anchylosed, stuck up perpendicularly from the shoulder. His
closed hand, surrounded by straps, had been traversed by the nails,
which, continuing to grow, had bent like claws on the other side.
Finally, the hollow of this hand, which was filled with earth, served as
a pot for a small sacred myrtle."
Other fakirs hold their two arms above their head, the hands crossed,
and remain perpetually in such a position. Others again have one or both
arms extended. Some hang by their feet from the limb of a tree by means
of a cord, and remain head downward for days at a time, with their face
uncongested and their voice clear, counting their beads and mumbling
prayers.
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of fakirs is the faculty that
certain of them possess of remaining entirely buried in vaults and
boxes, and inclosed in bags, etc., for weeks and months, and, although
there is a certain deceit as regards the length of their absolute
abstinence, it nevertheless seems to be a demonstrated fact that, after
undergoing a peculiar treatment, they became plunged into a sort of
lethargy that allows them to remain for several days or weeks without
taking food. Certain fakirs that have been interred under such
conditions have, it appears, passed ten months or a year in their grave.
_Tortured Fakirs_.--Fakirs that submit themselves to tortures are very
numerous. Some of them perform exercises analogous to those of the
Aissaoua. Mr. Rousselet, in his voyage to the Indies, had an opportunity
of seeing some of these at Bhopal, and the following is the picturesque
description that he gives of them: "I remarked some groups of religious
mendicants of a frightfully sinister character. They were Jogins, who,
stark naked and with dishevelled hair, were walking about, shouting, and
dancing a sort of weird dance. In the midst of their contortions they
brandished long, sharp poniards, of a special form, provided with steel
chains. From time to time, one of these hallucinated creatures would
drive the poniard into his body (principally into the sides of his
chest), into his arms, and into his legs, and would only desist when, in
order to calm his apparent fury, the idlers who were surrounding him
threw a sufficient number of pennies to him."
At the time of the feast of the Juggernaut one sees, or rather one _did_
see before the English somewhat humanized this ceremony, certain fakirs
suspended by their flesh from iron hooks placed along the sides of the
god's car. Others had their priests insert under their shoulder blades
two hooks, that were afterward fixed to a long pole capable of pivoting
upon a post. The fakirs were thus raised about thirty feet above ground,
and while being made to spin around very rapidly, smilingly threw
flowers to the faithful. Others, again, rolled over mattresses garnished
with nails, lance-points, poniards, and sabers, and naturally got up
bathed in blood. A large number cause 120 gashes (the sacred number) to
be made in their back and breast in honor of their god. Some pierce
their tongue with a long and narrow poniard, and remain thus exposed to
the admiration of the faithful. Finally, many of them are content to
pass points of iron or rods made of reed through folds in their skin. It
will be seen from this that fakirs are ingenious in their modes of
exciting the compassion and charity of the faithful.
Elsewhere, among a large number of savage tribes and half-civilized
peoples, we find aspirants to the priesthood of the fetiches undergoing,
under the direction of the members of the religious caste that they
desired to enter, ordeals that are extremely painful. Now, it has been
remarked for a long time that, among the neophytes, although all are
prepared by the same hands, some undergo these ordeals without
manifesting any suffering, while others cannot stand the pain, and so
run away with fright. It has been concluded from this that the object of
such ordeals is to permit the caste to make a selection from among their
recruits, and that, too, by means of anesthetics administered to the
chosen neophytes.
In France, during the last two centuries, when torturing the accused was
in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most
fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of
somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the hands of the executioner.
What are the processes that permit of such results being reached?
Evidently, we cannot know them all. A certain number are caste, sect, or
family secrets. Many are known, however, at least in a general way. The
processes naturally vary, according to the object to be attained. Some
seem to consist only in an effort of the will. Thus, those fakirs who
remain immovable have no need of any special preparation to reach such a
result, and the same is the case with those who are interred up to the
neck, the will alone sufficing. Fakirs probably pass through the same
phases that invalids do who are forced to keep perfectly quiet through a
fracture or dislocation. During the first days the organism revolts
against such inaction, the constraint is great, the muscles contract by
starts, and then the patient gets used to it; the constraint becomes
less and less, the revolt of the muscles becomes less frequent, and the
patient becomes reconciled to his immobility. It is probable that after
passing several months or years in a state of immobility fakirs no
longer experience any desire to change their position, and even did they
so desire, it would be impossible owing to the atrophy of their muscles
and the anchylosis of their joints.
Those fakirs who remain with one or several limbs immovable and in an
abnormal position have to undergo a sort of preparation, a special
treatment; they have to enter and remain two or three mouths in a sort
of cage or frame of bamboo, the object of which is to keep the limb that
is to be immobilized in the position that it is to preserve. This
treatment, which is identical with the one employed by surgeons for
curing affections of the joints, has the effect of soldering or
anchylosing the articulation. When such a result is reached, the fakir
remains, in spite of himself and without fatigue, with outstretched
arms, and, in order to cause them to drop, he would have to undergo a
surgical operation.
As for those voluntary tortures that cause an effusion of blood, the
insensibility of those who are the victims of it is explainable when we
reflect that _India_ is _the_ country _par excellence_ of anæsthetic
plants. It produces, notably, Indian hemp and poppy, the first of which
yields hashish and the other opium. Now it is owing to these two
narcotics, taken in a proper dose, either alone or combined according to
a formula known to Hindoo fakirs and jugglers, but ignored by the lower
class, that the former are able to become absolutely insensible
themselves or make their adepts so.
[Illustration: INDIAN FAKIRS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS.]
There is, especially, a liquor known in the Indian pharmacopoeia under
the name of _bang_, that produces an exciting intoxication accompanied
with complete insensibility. Now the active part of bang consists of a
mixture of opium and hashish. It was an analogous liquor that the
Brahmins made Indian widows take before leading them to the funeral
pile. This liquor removed from the victims not only all consciousness of
the act that they were accomplishing, but also rendered them insensible
to the flames. Moreover, the dose of the anæsthetic was such that if, by
accident, the widow had escaped from the pile (something that more than
once happened, thanks to English protection), she would have died
through poisoning. Some travelers in Africa speak of an herb called
_rasch_, which is the base of anæsthetic preparations employed by
certain Arabian jugglers and sorcerers.
It was hashish that the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect
of Assassins, had recourse to for intoxicating his adepts, and it was,
it is thought, by the use of a virulent solanaceous plant--henbane,
thornapple, or belladonna--that he succeeded in rendering them
insensible. We have unfortunately lost the recipe for certain
anæsthetics that were known in ancient times, some of which, such as the
_Memphis stone_, appear to have been used in surgical operations. We are
also ignorant of what the wine of myrrh was that is spoken of in the
Bible.
We are likewise ignorant of the composition of the anæsthetic soap, the
use of which became so general in the 15th and 16th centuries that,
according to Taboureau, it was difficult to torture persons who were
accused. The stupefying recipe was known to all jailers, who, for a
consideration, communicated it to prisoners. It was this use of
anæsthetics that gave rise to the rule of jurisprudence according to
which partial or general insensibility was regarded as a certain sign of
sorcery. We may cite a certain number of preparations, which vary
according to the country, and to which is attributed the properly of
giving courage and rendering persons insensible to wounds inflicted by
the enemy. In most cases alcohol forms the base of such beverages,
although the _maslach_ that Turkish soldiers drink just before a battle
contains none of it, on account of a religious precept. It consists of
different plant-juices, and contains, especially, a little opium.
Cossacks and Tartars, just before battle, take a fermented beverage in
which has been infused a species of toadstool (_Agaricus muscarius_),
and which renders them courageous to a high degree.
As well known, the old soldiers of the First Empire taught the young
conscripts that in order to have courage and not feel the blows of the
enemy, it was only necessary to drink a glass of brandy into which
gunpowder had been poured.--_La Nature_.
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[SCHOOL OF MINES QUARTERLY.]