To sum up briefly the general theory to which the foregoing facts have

thus far led us, I would say that just as the _intichiuma_ rites of

the Australians are, for the most part, magical ceremonies intended to

secure the reimbodiment of the spirits of edible animals and plants, so

their initiatory rites may perhaps be regarded as magical ceremonies

designed mainly to ensure the reincarnation of human souls. Now the

motive for procuring the rebirth of animals and plants is simply the

desire to eat them. May not this have been one motive for attempting

to resuscitate the human dead? It would seem so, for all the tribes on

the Gulf of Carpentaria who have been examined by Spencer and Gillen

eat their dead,​[360] and the ceremonies and traditions of the Arunta

indicate that their ancestors also ate the bodies of their fellow

tribesmen.​[361] In this respect the practice of the Binbinga tribe

is particularly instructive. For among them the bodies of the dead

are cut up and eaten, not by men of the same tribal subclass as the

deceased, but by men belonging to the subclasses which compose the

other intermarrying half of the tribe.​[362] This is exactly analogous

to the practice which at present prevails as to the eating of the totem

animal or plant among all these central and northern tribes. Among them

each clan that has an edible animal or plant for its totem is supposed

to provide that animal or {p107} plant for all the other clans to eat;

and similarly among the Binbinga the men of any particular subclass

do actually provide their own bodies for the members of the other

intermarrying half of the tribe to devour. And just as in the far past

the members of a totem clan appear to have subsisted regularly (though

not exclusively, and perhaps not even mainly) on their totem animal

or plant,​[363] so at a remote time they seem regularly to have eaten

each other. Thus the Wild Dog clan of the Arunta has many traditions

that their ancestors killed and ate Wild Dog men and women.​[364]

Such traditions probably preserve a true reminiscence of a state of

things still more savage than the present practice of the Binbinga. At

that more or less remote time, if we may trust the scattered hints of

custom and legend which are the only evidence we have to go upon, the

men and women of a totem clan, in defiance of the customs of a later

age, regularly cohabited with each other,​[365] ate their totems,

and devoured each other’s dead bodies. In such a state of things

there was no sharp line of distinction drawn, either in theory or in

practice, between a man and his totem; and this confusion is again

confirmed by the legends, from which it is often difficult to make out

whether the totemic ancestor spoken of is a man or an animal.​[366]

And if measures were taken to resuscitate both, it may well have been

primarily in order that both might be eaten again. The system was

thoroughly practical in its aim; only the means it took to compass

its ends were mistaken. It was in no sense a religion, unless we are

prepared to bestow the name of religion on the business of the grazier

and the market-gardener; for these savages certainly bred animals and

plants, and perhaps bred men, for much the same reasons that a grazier

and a market-gardener breed cattle and vegetables. {p108} But whereas

the methods of the grazier and market-gardener rest upon the laws of

nature, and therefore do really produce the effects they aim at, the

methods of these savages are based on a mistaken conception of natural

law, and therefore totally fail to bring about the intended result.

Only they do not perceive their failure. Kindly nature, if we may

personify her for a moment, draws a veil before their eyes, and herself

works behind the veil those wonders of reproduction which the poor

savage vainly fancies that he has wrought by his magical ceremonies

and incantations. In short, totemism, as it exists at present among

these tribes, appears to be mainly a crude, almost childlike attempt

to satisfy the primary wants of man, especially under the hard

conditions to which he is subject in the deserts of Central Australia,

by magically creating everything that a savage stands in need of,

and food first of all. But to say so is not to affirm that this has

been the purpose, and the only purpose, of Australian totemism from

the beginning. That beginning lies far behind us in the past, and is

therefore necessarily much more obscure and uncertain than the function

of totemism as a fully developed system, to which alone the preceding

remarks are applicable.

Our examination of the magical rites performed by the Australians for

the maintenance of the food supply has led us into this digression. It

is time to pass to ceremonies practised for the same purpose and on the

same principles by peoples in other parts of the world.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.]

The Indians of British Columbia live largely upon the fish which abound

in their seas and rivers. If the fish do not come in due season,

and the Indians are hungry, a Nootka wizard will make an image of a

swimming fish and put it into the water in the direction from which the

fish generally appear. This ceremony, accompanied by a prayer to the

fish to come, will cause them to arrive at once.​[367] The islanders

of Torres Straits use models of dugong and turtles to charm dugong

and turtle to their destruction.​[368] {p109} The Toradjas of Central

Celebes believe that things of the same sort attract each other by

means of their indwelling spirits or vital ether. Hence they hang up

the jawbones of deer and wild pigs in their houses, in order that the

spirits which animate these bones may draw the living creatures of the

same kind into the path of the hunter.​[369] In the island of Nias,

when a wild pig has fallen into the pit prepared for it, the animal

is taken out and its back is rubbed with nine fallen leaves, in the

belief that this will make nine more wild pigs fall into the pit, just

as the nine leaves fell from the tree.​[370] In the East Indian islands

of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, when a fisherman is about to

set a trap for fish in the sea, he looks out for a tree, of which the

fruit has been much pecked at by birds. From such a tree he cuts a

stout branch and makes of it the principal post in his fish-trap; for

he believes that just as the tree lured many birds to its fruit, so the

branch cut from that tree will lure many fish to the trap.​[371]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.

Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.]

The western tribes of British New Guinea employ a charm to aid the

hunter in spearing dugong or turtle. A small beetle, which haunts

coco-nut trees, is placed in the hole of the spear-haft into which the

spear-head fits. This is supposed to make the spear-head stick fast in

the dugong or turtle, just as the beetle sticks fast to a man’s skin

when it bites him.​[372] When a Cambodian hunter has set his nets and

{p110} taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off, then

strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be caught

in it, and cries, “Hillo! what’s this? I’m afraid I’m caught.” After

that the net is sure to catch game.​[373] A pantomime of the same sort

has been acted within living memory in our Scottish Highlands. The Rev.

James Macdonald, now of Reay in Caithness, tells us that in his boyhood

when he was fishing with companions about Loch Aline and they had had

no bites for a long time, they used to make a pretence of throwing

one of their fellows overboard and hauling him out of the water, as

if he were a fish; after that the trout or silloch would begin to

nibble, according as the boat was on fresh or salt water.​[374] Before

a Carrier Indian goes out to snare martens, he sleeps by himself for

about ten nights beside the fire with a little stick pressed down on

his neck. This naturally causes the fall-stick of his trap to drop down

on the neck of the marten.​[375] Among the Galelareese, who inhabit a

district in the northern part of Halmahera, a large island to the west

of New Guinea, it is a maxim that when you are loading your gun to go

out shooting, you should always put the bullet in your mouth before

you insert it in the gun; for by so doing you practically eat the game

that is to be hit by the bullet, which therefore cannot possibly miss

the mark.​[376] A Malay who has baited a trap for crocodiles, and is

awaiting results, is careful in eating his curry always to begin by

swallowing three lumps of rice successively; for this helps the bait to

slide more easily down the crocodile’s throat. He is equally scrupulous

not to take any bones out of his curry; for, if he {p111} did, it seems

clear that the sharp-pointed stick on which the bait is skewered would

similarly work itself loose, and the crocodile would get off with the

bait. Hence in these circumstances it is prudent for the hunter, before

he begins his meal, to get somebody else to take the bones out of his

curry, otherwise he may at any moment have to choose between swallowing

a bone and losing the crocodile.​[377]

[Sidenote: Negative magic or taboo.]

This last rule is an instance of the things which the hunter abstains

from doing lest, on the principle that like produces like, they should

spoil his luck. For it is to be observed that the system of sympathetic

magic is not merely composed of positive precepts; it comprises a very

large number of negative precepts, that is, prohibitions. It tells you

not merely what to do, but also what to leave undone. The positive

precepts are charms: the negative precepts are taboos. In fact the

whole doctrine of taboo, or at all events a large part of it, would

seem to be only a special application of sympathetic magic, with its

two great laws of similarity and contact.​[378] Though these laws {p112}

are certainly not formulated in so many words nor even conceived in

the abstract by the savage, they are nevertheless implicitly believed

by him to regulate the course of nature quite independently of human

will. He thinks that if he acts in a certain way, certain consequences

will inevitably follow in virtue of one or other of these laws; and

if the consequences of a particular act appear to him likely to prove

disagreeable or dangerous, he is naturally careful not to act in that

way lest he should incur them. In other words, he abstains from doing

that which, in accordance with his mistaken notions of cause and

effect, he falsely believes would injure him; in short, he subjects

himself to a taboo. Thus taboo is so far a negative application of

practical magic. Positive magic or sorcery says, “Do this in order that

so and so may happen.” Negative magic or taboo says, “Do not do this,

lest so and so should happen.” The aim of positive magic or sorcery is

to produce a desired event; the aim of negative magic or taboo is to

avoid an undesirable one. But both consequences, the desirable and the

undesirable, are supposed to be brought about in accordance with the

laws of similarity and contact. And just as the desired consequence is

not really effected by the observance of a magical ceremony, so the

dreaded consequence does not really result from the violation of a

taboo. If the supposed evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the

taboo would not be a taboo but a precept of morality or common sense.

It is not a taboo to say, “Do not put your hand in the fire”; it is

a rule of common sense, because the forbidden action entails a real,

not an imaginary evil. In short, those negative precepts which we call

taboo are just as vain and futile as those positive precepts which we

call sorcery. The two things are merely opposite sides or poles of one

great disastrous fallacy, a mistaken conception of the association of

ideas. Of that fallacy, sorcery is the positive, and taboo the negative

pole. If we give the general name of magic to the whole erroneous

system, both theoretical and practical, then taboo may be defined as

the negative side of practical magic. To put this in tabular form:—

{p113}

Magic

Theoretical (Magic as a pseudo-science)

Practical (Magic as a pseudo-art)

Positive Magic or Sorcery

Negative Magic or Taboo

[Sidenote: Taboos to be observed in fishing and hunting on the

principle of sympathetic magic.

Spinning tabooed in certain cases on the principle of homoeopathic

magic.

Taboos observed in the search for camphor on the principle of

homoeopathic magic.

Taboos observed by hunters on the principle of homoeopathic magic.]

I have made these remarks on taboo and its relations to magic because

I am about to give some instances of taboos observed by hunters,

fishermen, and others, and I wished to shew that they fall under the

head of Sympathetic Magic, being only particular applications of that

general theory. Thus, it is a rule with the Galelareese that when you

have caught fish and strung them on a line, you may not cut the line

through, or next time you go a-fishing your fishing-line will be sure

to break.​[379] Among the Esquimaux of Baffin Land boys are forbidden

to play cat’s cradle, because if they did so their fingers might in

later life become entangled in the harpoon-line.​[380] Here the taboo

is obviously an application of the law of similarity, which is the

basis of homoeopathic magic: as the child’s fingers are entangled

by the string in playing cat’s cradle, so they will be entangled by

the harpoon-line when he is a man and hunts whales. Again, among the

Huzuls, who inhabit the wooded north-eastern slopes of the Carpathian

Mountains, the wife of a hunter may not spin while her husband is

eating, or the game will turn and wind like the spindle, and the hunter

will be unable to hit it.​[381] Here again the taboo is clearly derived

from the law of similarity. So, too, in most parts of ancient Italy

women were forbidden by law to spin on the highroads as they walked,

or even to carry their spindles openly, because any such action was

believed to injure the crops.​[382] Probably the notion was that the

{p114} twirling of the spindle would twirl the corn-stalks and prevent

them from growing straight. So, too, among the Ainos of Saghalien a

pregnant woman may not spin nor twist ropes for two months before her

delivery, because they think that if she did so the child’s guts might

be entangled like the thread.​[383] For a like reason in Bilaspore, a

district of India, when the chief men of a village meet in council,

no one present should twirl a spindle; for they think that if such a

thing were to happen, the discussion, like the spindle, would move in

a circle and never be wound up.​[384] In the East Indian islands of

Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, any one who comes to the house

of a hunter must walk straight in; he may not loiter at the door, for

were he to do so, the game would in like manner stop in front of the

hunter’s snares and then turn back, instead of being caught in the

trap.​[385] For a similar reason it is a rule with the Toradjas of

Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter on the ladder of a

house where there is a pregnant woman, for such delay would retard the

birth of the child;​[386] and in various parts of Sumatra the woman

herself in these circumstances is forbidden to stand at the door or on

the top rung of the house-ladder under pain of suffering hard labour

for her imprudence in neglecting so elementary a precaution.​[387]

Malays engaged in the search for camphor eat their food dry and take

care not to pound their salt fine. The reason is that the camphor

occurs in the form of small grains {p115} deposited in the cracks of

the trunk of the camphor-tree. Accordingly it seems plain to the Malay

that if, while seeking for camphor, he were to eat his salt finely

ground, the camphor would be found also in fine grains; whereas by

eating his salt coarse he ensures that the grains of the camphor will

also be large.​[388] Camphor hunters in Borneo use the leathery sheath

of the leaf-stalk of the Penang palm as a plate for food, and during

the whole of the expedition they will never wash the plate, for fear

that the camphor might dissolve and disappear from the crevices of

the tree.​[389] Apparently they think that to wash their plates would

be to wash out the camphor crystals from the trees in which they are

imbedded. In Laos, a province of Siam, a rhinoceros hunter will not

wash himself for fear that as a consequence the wounds inflicted on the

rhinoceros might not be mortal, and that the animal might disappear

in one of the caves full of water in the mountains.​[390] The chief

product of some parts of Laos is lac. This is a resinous gum exuded

by a red insect on the young branches of trees, to which the little

creatures have to be attached by hand. All who engage in the business

of gathering the gum abstain from washing themselves and especially

from cleansing their heads, lest by removing the parasites from their

hair they should detach the other insects from the boughs.​[391] Some

of the Brazilian Indians would never bring a slaughtered deer into

their hut without first hamstringing it, believing that if they failed

to do so, they and their children would never be able to run down their

enemies.​[392] Apparently they thought that by hamstringing the animal

they at the same stroke deprived their foemen of the use of their legs.

No Arikara Indian would break a marrow bone in a hut; for {p116} they

think that were he to do so their horses would break their legs in

the prairie.​[393] Again, a Blackfoot Indian who has set a trap for

eagles, and is watching it, would not eat rosebuds on any account; for

he argues that if he did so, and an eagle alighted near the trap, the

rosebuds in his own stomach would make the bird itch, with the result

that instead of swallowing the bait the eagle would merely sit and

scratch himself. Following this train of thought the eagle hunter also

refrains from using an awl when he is looking after his snares; for

surely if he were to scratch with an awl, the eagles would scratch him.

The same disastrous consequence would follow if his wives and children

at home used an awl while he is out after eagles, and accordingly they

are forbidden to handle the tool in his absence for fear of putting him

in bodily danger.​[394]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic taboos and contagious taboos.]

All the foregoing taboos being based on the law of similarity may be

called homoeopathic taboos. The Cholones, an Indian tribe of eastern

Peru, make use of poisoned arrows in the chase, but there are some

animals, such as armadillos, certain kinds of falcons, and a species of

vulture, which they would on no account shoot at with these weapons.

For they believe that between the poisoned arrows which they use and

the supply of poison at home there exists a sympathetic relation of

such a sort that if they shot at any of these creatures with poisoned

shafts, all the poison at home would be spoilt, which would be a great

loss to them.​[395] Here the exact train of thought is not clear; but

we may suppose that the animals in question are believed to possess a

power of counteracting and annulling the effect of the poison, and that

consequently if they are touched by it, all the poison, including the

store of it at home, would be robbed of its virtue. However that may

be, it is plain that the superstition rests on the law of contact, on

the notion, namely, that things which have once been in contact remain

sympathetically in contact with each other always. The poison with

which the hunter wounds an animal has once {p117} been in contact with

the store of poison at home; hence if the poison in the wound loses its

venom, so necessarily will all the poison at home. These may be called

contagious taboos.

[Sidenote: Foods tabooed on the principle of homoeopathic magic.

Malagasy taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic magic.

Caffre and Zulu taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic

magic.]

Among the taboos observed by savages none perhaps are more numerous

or important than the prohibitions to eat certain foods, and of such

prohibitions many are demonstrably derived from the law of similarity

and are accordingly examples of negative magic. Just as the savage

eats many animals or plants in order to acquire certain desirable

qualities with which he believes them to be endowed, so he avoids

eating many other animals and plants lest he should acquire certain

undesirable qualities with which he believes them to be infected. In

eating the former he practises positive magic; in abstaining from the

latter he practises negative magic. Many examples of such positive

magic will meet us later on;​[396] here I will give a few instances

of such negative magic or taboo. For example, in Madagascar soldiers

are forbidden to eat a number of foods lest on the principle of

homoeopathic magic they should be tainted by certain dangerous or

undesirable properties which are supposed to inhere in these particular

viands. Thus they may not taste hedgehog, “as it is feared that this

animal, from its propensity of coiling up into a ball when alarmed,

will impart a timid shrinking disposition to those who partake of it.”

Again, no soldier should eat an ox’s knee, lest like an ox he should

become weak in the knees and unable to march. Further, the warrior

should be careful to avoid partaking of a cock that has died fighting

or anything that has been speared to death; and no male animal may on

any account be killed in his house while he is away at the wars. For it

seems obvious that if he were to eat a cock that had died fighting, he

would himself be slain on the field of battle; if he were to partake

of an animal that had been speared, he would be speared himself; if

a male animal were killed in his house during his absence, he would

himself be killed in like manner and perhaps at the same instant.

Further, the Malagasy soldier must eschew kidneys, because in the

Malagasy language the word for kidney is the same as that {p118} for

“shot”; so shot he would certainly be if he ate a kidney.​[397] Again,

a Caffre has been known to refuse to eat two mice caught at the same

time in one trap, alleging that were he to do so his wife would give

birth to twins; yet the same man would eat freely of mice if they were

caught singly.​[398] Clearly he imagined that if he ate the two mice

he would be infected with the virus of doublets and would communicate

the infection to his wife. Amongst the Zulus there are many foods which

are similarly forbidden on homoeopathic principles. It may be well to

give some specimens of these prohibitions as they have been described

by the Zulus themselves. “There is among the black men,” they say,

“the custom of abstaining from certain foods. If a cow has the calf

taken from her dead, and the mother too dies before the calf is taken

away, young people who have never had a child abstain from the flesh

of that cow. I do not mean to speak of girls; there is not even a

thought of whether they can eat it; for it is said that the cow will

produce a similar evil among the women, so that one of them will be

like the cow when she is in childbirth, be unable to give birth, like

the cow, and die together with her child. On this account, therefore,

the flesh of such a cow is abstained from. Further, pig’s flesh is not

eaten by girls on any account; for it is an ugly animal; its mouth is

ugly, its snout is long; therefore girls do not eat it, thinking if

they eat it, a resemblance to the pig will appear among their children.

They abstain from it on that account. There are many things which are

abstained from among black people through fear of bad resemblance; for

it is said there was a person who once gave birth to an elephant, and a

horse; but we do not know if that is true; but they are now abstained

from on that account, through thinking that they will produce an evil

resemblance if eaten; and the elephant is said to produce an evil

resemblance, for when it is killed many parts of its body resemble

those of a female; its breasts, for instance, are just like those of a

woman. Young people, {p119} therefore, fear to eat it; it is only eaten

on account of famine, when there is no food; and each of the young

women say, ‘It is no matter if I do give birth to an elephant and live;

that is better than not to give birth to it, and die of famine.’ So it

is eaten from mere necessity. Another thing which is abstained from is

the entrails of cattle. Men do not eat them, because they are afraid

if they eat them, the enemy will stab them in the bowels. Young men do

not eat them; they are eaten by old people. Another thing which is not

eaten is the under lip of a bullock; for it is said, a young person

must not eat it, for it will produce an evil resemblance in the child;

the lip of the child will tremble continually, for the lower lip of a

bullock moves constantly. They do not therefore eat it; for if a child

of a young person is seen with its mouth trembling, it is said, ‘It

was injured by its father, who ate the lower lip of a bullock.’ Also

another thing which is abstained from is that portion of the paunch of

a bullock which is called _umtala_; for the _umtala_ has no _villi_, it

has no pile; it is merely smooth and hard. It is therefore said, if it

is eaten by young people, their children will be born without hair, and

their heads will be bare like a man’s knee. It is therefore abstained

from.”​[399]

[Sidenote: Magical telepathy]

The reader may have observed that in some of the foregoing examples of

taboos the magical influence is supposed to operate at considerable

distances; thus among the Blackfeet Indians the wives and children of

an eagle hunter are forbidden to use an awl during his absence, lest

the eagles should scratch the distant husband and father;​[400] and

again no male animal may be killed in the house of a Malagasy soldier

while he is away at the wars, lest the killing of the animal should

entail the killing of the man.​[401] This belief in the sympathetic

influence exerted on each other by persons or things at a distance

is of the essence of magic. Whatever doubts science may entertain as

to the possibility of action at a distance, magic has none; faith in

telepathy is one of its first principles. A modern advocate of the

influence of mind upon mind at a distance would have no difficulty in

{p120} convincing a savage; the savage believed in it long ago, and

what is more, he acted on his belief with a logical consistency such as

his civilised brother in the faith has not yet, so far as I am aware,

exhibited in his conduct. For the savage is convinced not only that

magical ceremonies affect persons and things afar off, but that the

simplest acts of daily life may do so too. Hence on important occasions

the behaviour of friends and relations at a distance is often regulated

by a more or less elaborate code of rules, the neglect of which by the

one set of persons would, it is supposed, entail misfortune or even

death on the absent ones. In particular when a party of men are out

hunting or fighting, their kinsfolk at home are often expected to do

certain things or to abstain from doing certain others, for the sake

of ensuring the safety and success of the distant hunters or warriors.

I will now give some instances of this magical telepathy both in its

positive and in its negative aspect.

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Dyaks, Chams, Hottentots,

etc.]

In Laos when an elephant hunter is starting for the chase, he warns his

wife not to cut her hair or oil her body in his absence; for if she cut

her hair the elephant would burst the toils, if she oiled herself it

would slip through them.​[402] When a Dyak village has turned out to

hunt wild pigs in the jungle, the people who stay at home may not touch

oil or water with their hands during the absence of their friends; for

if they did so, the hunters would all be “butter-fingered” and the prey

would slip through their hands.​[403] In setting out to look for the

rare and precious eagle-wood on the mountains, Cham peasants enjoin

their wives, whom they leave at home, not to scold or quarrel in their

absence, for such domestic brawls would lead to their husbands being

rent in pieces by bears and tigers.​[404] A Hottentot woman whose

husband is out hunting must do one of two things all the time he is

away. Either she must light a fire and keep it burning till he comes

back; or if she does not choose to do that, she must go to the water

{p121} and continue to splash it about on the ground. When she is tired

with throwing the water about, her place may be taken by her servant,

but the exercise must in any case be kept up without cessation. To

cease splashing the water or to let the fire out would be equally fatal

to the husband’s prospect of a successful bag.​[405] In Yule Island,

Torres Straits, when the men are gone to fetch sago, a fire is lit and

carefully kept burning the whole time of their absence; for the people

believe that if it went out the voyagers would fare ill.​[406] At the

other end of the world the Lapps similarly object to extinguish a brand

in water while any members of the family are out fishing, since to do

so would spoil their luck.​[407]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Koniags, Esquimaux and

Californian Indians.]

Among the Koniags of Alaska a traveller once observed a young woman

lying wrapt in a bearskin in the corner of a hut. On asking whether

she were ill, he learned that her husband was out whale-fishing, and

that until his return she had to lie fasting in order to ensure a good

catch.​[408] Among the Esquimaux of Alaska similar notions prevail.

The women during the whaling season remain in comparative idleness, as

it is considered not good for them to sew while the men are out in the

boats. If during this period any garments should need to be repaired,

the women must take them far back out of sight of the sea and mend them

there in little tents in which just one person can sit. And while the

crews are at sea no work should be done at home which would necessitate

pounding or hewing or any kind of noise; and in the huts of men who

are away in the boats no work of any kind whatever should be carried

on.​[409] When the Esquimaux of Aivilik and Iglulik are away hunting on

the ice, the bedding may not be raised up, because they think that to

do so would cause the ice to crack and drift off, and so the men might

be lost. And among these people in the winter, {p122} when the new moon

appears, boys must run out of the snow-house, take a handful of snow,

and put it into the kettle. It is believed that this helps the hunter

to capture the seal and to bring it home.​[410] When the Maidu Indians

of California were engaged in driving deer into the snares which they

had prepared for them, and which consisted of fences stretched from

tree to tree, the women and children who were left behind in the

village had to observe a variety of regulations. The women had to keep

quiet and spend much of the time indoors, and children might not romp,

shout, jump over things, kick, run, fall down, or throw stones. If

these rules were broken, it was believed that the deer would become

unmanageable and would jump the fence, so that the whole drive would be

unsuccessful.​[411]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Gilyaks, Jukagirs, etc.]

While a Gilyak hunter is pursuing the game in the forest, his children

at home are forbidden to make drawings on wood or on sand; for they

fear that if the children did so, the paths in the forest would become

as perplexed as the lines in the drawings, so that the hunter might

lose his way and never return. A Russian political prisoner once taught

some Gilyak children to read and write; but their parents forbade them

to write when any of their fathers was away from home; for it seemed

to them that writing was a peculiarly complicated form of drawing, and

they stood aghast at the idea of the danger to which such a drawing

would expose the hunters out in the wild woods.​[412] Among the

Jukagirs of north-eastern Siberia, when a young man is out hunting, his

unmarried sister at home may not look at his footprints nor eat certain

parts of the game killed by him. If she leaves the house while he is

absent at the chase, she must keep her eyes fixed on the ground, and

may not speak of the chase nor ask any questions about it.​[413] When

a Nuba of north-eastern Africa goes to El Obeid for the first time, he

tells his wife not to wash or oil herself and not to wear pearls {p123}

round her neck during his absence, because by doing so she would draw

down on him the most terrible misfortunes.​[414] When Bushmen are out

hunting, any bad shots they may make are set down to such causes as

that the children at home are playing on the men’s beds or the like,

and the wives who allow such things to happen are blamed for their

husbands’ indifferent marksmanship.​[415]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting: supposed disastrous effect of wife’s

infidelity.]

Elephant-hunters in East Africa believe that, if their wives prove

unfaithful in their absence, this gives the elephant power over his

pursuer, who will accordingly be killed or severely wounded. Hence if

a hunter hears of his wife’s misconduct, he abandons the chase and

returns home.​[416] If a Wagogo hunter is unsuccessful, or is attacked

by a lion, he attributes it to his wife’s misbehaviour at home, and

returns to her in great wrath. While he is away hunting, she may not

let any one pass behind her or stand in front of her as she sits; and

she must lie on her face in bed.​[417] The Moxos Indians of eastern

Bolivia thought that if a hunter’s wife was unfaithful to him in his

absence he would be bitten by a serpent or a jaguar. Accordingly, if

such an accident happened to him, it was sure to entail the punishment,

and often the death, of the woman, whether she was innocent or

guilty.​[418] An Aleutian hunter of sea-otters thinks that he cannot

kill a single animal if during his absence from home his wife should be

unfaithful or his sister unchaste.​[419]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in the search for the sacred cactus.]

The Huichol Indians of Mexico treat as a demi-god a species of cactus

which throws the eater into a state of ecstasy. The plant does not

grow in their country, and has to be fetched every year by men who

make a journey of forty-three days for the purpose. Meanwhile the

wives at home contribute to the safety of their absent husbands by

never walking fast, much less running, while the men are on the road.

They also do their best to ensure the benefits which, in the shape of

rain, {p124} good crops, and so forth, are expected to flow from the

sacred mission. With this intention they subject themselves to severe

restrictions like those imposed upon their husbands. During the whole

of the time which elapses till the festival of the cactus is held,

neither party washes except on certain occasions, and then only with

water brought from the distant country where the holy plant grows.

They also fast much, eat no salt, and are bound to strict continence.

Any one who breaks this law is punished with illness, and, moreover,

jeopardises the result which all are striving for. Health, luck, and

life are to be gained by gathering the cactus, the gourd of the God of

Fire; but inasmuch as the pure fire cannot benefit the impure, men and

women must not only remain chaste for the time being, but must also

purge themselves from the taint of past sin. Hence four days after the

men have started the women gather and confess to Grandfather Fire with

what men they have been in love from childhood till now. They may not

omit a single one, for if they did so the men would not find a single

cactus. So to refresh their memories each one prepares a string with

as many knots as she has had lovers. This she brings to the temple,

and, standing before the fire, she mentions aloud all the men she has

scored on her string, name after name. Having ended her confession,

she throws the string into the fire, and when the god has consumed it

in his pure flame, her sins are forgiven her and she departs in peace.

From now on the women are averse even to letting men pass near them.

The cactus-seekers themselves make in like manner a clean breast of all

their frailties. For every peccadillo they tie a knot on a string, and

after they have “talked to all the five winds” they deliver the rosary

of their sins to the leader, who burns it in the fire.​[420]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in the search for camphor.

Telepathy in hunting, fishing, and trading.

Telepathy in New Guinea.

Telepathy in the Kei Islands.]

Many of the indigenous tribes of Sarawak are firmly persuaded that

were the wives to commit adultery while their husbands are searching

for camphor in the jungle, the camphor obtained by the men would

evaporate.​[421] {p125} Husbands can discover, by certain knots in

the tree, when their wives are unfaithful; and it is said that in

former days many women were killed by jealous husbands on no better

evidence than that of these knots. Further, the wives dare not touch

a comb while their husbands are away collecting the camphor; for if

they did so, the interstices between the fibres of the tree, instead

of being filled with the precious crystals, would be empty like the

spaces between the teeth of a comb.​[422] While men of the Toaripi

or Motumotu tribe of eastern New Guinea are away hunting, fishing,

fighting, or on any long journey, the people who remain at home must

observe strict chastity, and may not let the fire go out. Those of them

who stay in the men’s club-houses must further abstain from eating

certain foods and from touching anything that belongs to others. A

breach of these rules might, it is believed, entail the failure of the

expedition.​[423] Among the tribes of Geelvink Bay, in north-western

New Guinea, when the men are gone on a long journey, as to Ceram

or Tidore, the wives and sisters left at home sing to the moon,

accompanying the lay with the booming music of gongs. The singing takes

place in the afternoons, beginning two or three days before the new

moon, and lasting for the same time after it. If the silver sickle of

the moon is seen in the sky, they raise a loud cry of joy. Asked why

they do so, they answer, “Now we see the moon, and so do our husbands,

and now we know that they are well; if we did not sing, they would be

sick or some other misfortune would befall them.”​[424] On nights when

the moon is at the full the natives of Doreh, in north-western New

Guinea, go out fishing on the lagoons. Their mode of proceeding is to

poison the water with the pounded roots of a certain plant which has

a powerful narcotic effect; the fish are stunned by it, and so easily

caught. While the men are at work on the moonlit water, the people on

the shore must {p126} keep as still as death with their eyes fixed on

the fishermen; but no woman with child may be among them, for if she

were there and looked at the water, the poison would at once lose its

effect and the fish would escape.​[425] In the Kei Islands, to the

south-west of New Guinea, as soon as a vessel that is about to sail

for a distant port has been launched, the part of the beach on which

it lay is covered as speedily as possible with palm branches, and

becomes sacred. No one may thenceforth cross that spot till the ship

comes home. To cross it sooner would cause the vessel to perish.​[426]

Moreover, all the time that the voyage lasts three or four young girls,

specially chosen for the duty, are supposed to remain in sympathetic

connexion with the mariners and to contribute by their behaviour to the

safety and success of the voyage. On no account, except for the most

necessary purpose, may they quit the room that has been assigned to

them. More than that, so long as the vessel is believed to be at sea

they must remain absolutely motionless, crouched on their mats with

their hands clasped between their knees. They may not turn their heads

to the left or to the right or make any other movement whatsoever. If

they did, it would cause the boat to pitch and toss; and they may not

eat any sticky stuff, such as rice boiled in coco-nut milk, for the

stickiness of the food would clog the passage of the boat through the

water. When the sailors are supposed to have reached their destination,

the strictness of these rules is somewhat relaxed; but during the whole

time that the voyage lasts the girls are forbidden to eat fish which

have sharp bones or stings, such as the sting-ray, lest their friends

at sea should be involved in sharp, stinging trouble.​[427]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war.

Telepathy in war among the Dyaks.]

Where beliefs like these prevail as to the sympathetic connexion

between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above everything

else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of the deepest

and tenderest of human {p127} emotions, should quicken in the anxious

relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the

utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment

be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end so natural

and laudable, friends at home are apt to resort to devices which will

strike us as pathetic or ludicrous, according as we consider their

object or the means adopted to effect it. Thus in some districts

of Borneo, 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 always be 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.​[428] In

other parts of Borneo, when the men are away on a warlike expedition,

their mats are spread in their houses just as if they were at home, and

the fires are kept up till late in the evening and lighted again before

dawn, in order that the men may not be cold. Further, the roofing of

the house is opened before daylight to prevent the distant husbands,

brothers, and sons from sleeping too late, and so being surprised by

the enemy.​[429] While a Malay of the Peninsula is away at the wars,

his pillows and sleeping-mat at home must be kept rolled up. If any

one else were to use them, the absent warrior’s courage would fail and

disaster would befall him. His wife and children may not have their

hair cut in his absence, nor may he himself have his hair shorn.​[430]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Sea Dyaks.]

Among the Sea Dyaks of Banting in Sarawak the women strictly observe an

elaborate code of rules while the men are away fighting. Some of the

rules are negative and some are positive, but all alike are based on

the principles of magical homoeopathy and telepathy. Amongst them are

the following. The women must wake very early in the morning and open

the windows as soon as it is light; otherwise their absent husbands

will oversleep themselves. The women may not oil their hair, or the

men will slip. The women may neither sleep nor doze by day, {p128} or

the men will be drowsy on the march. The women must cook and scatter

popcorn on the verandah every morning; so will the men be agile in

their movements. The rooms must be kept very tidy, all boxes being

placed near the walls; for if any one were to stumble over them, the

absent husbands would fall and be at the mercy of the foe. At every

meal a little rice must be left in the pot and put aside; so will the

men far away always have something to eat and need never go hungry. On

no account may the women sit at the loom till their legs grow cramped,

otherwise their husbands will likewise be stiff in their joints and

unable to rise up quickly or to run away from the foe. So in order to

keep their husband’s joints supple the women often vary their labours

at the loom by walking up and down the verandah. Further, they may not

cover up their faces, or the men would not be able to find their way

through the tall grass or jungle. Again, the women may not sew with a

needle, or the men will tread on the sharp spikes set by the enemy in

the path. Should a wife prove unfaithful while her husband is away, he

will lose his life in the enemy’s country. Some years ago all these

rules and more were observed by the women of Banting, while their

husbands were fighting for the English against rebels. But alas! these

tender precautions availed them little; for many a man, whose faithful

wife was keeping watch and ward for him at home, found a soldier’s

grave.​[431]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Shans, the Timorese, and the

Toradjas.]

Among the Shans of Burma the wife of an absent warrior has to observe

certain rules. Every fifth day she rests and does no work. She fills an

earthen goblet with water to the brim and puts flowers into it every

day. If the water sinks or the flowers fade, it is an omen of death.

Moreover, she may not sleep on her husband’s bed during his absence,

but she sweeps the bedding clean and lays it out every night.​[432] In

the island of Timor, while war is being waged, the high-priest never

quits the temple; his food is brought to him or cooked inside; day and

night he must keep the fire burning, for if he were to let it die out,

disaster would befall the warriors and would continue so {p129} long as

the hearth was cold. Moreover, he must drink only hot water during the

time the army is absent; for every draught of cold water would damp the

spirits of the people, so that they could not vanquish the enemy.​[433]

Among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, when a party of men is out

hunting for heads, the villagers who stay at home, and especially the

wives of the head-hunters, have to observe certain rules in order

not to hinder the absent men at their task. In the first place, the

entrance to the _lobo_ or spirit-house is shut. For the spirits of

their fathers, who live in that house, are now away with the warriors,

watching over and guarding them; and if any one entered their house in

their absence they would hear the noise and return and be very angry at

being thus called back from the campaign. Moreover, the people at home

have to keep the house tidy: the sleeping-mats of the absent men must

be hung on beams, not rolled up as if they were to be away a long time:

their wives and next-of-kin may not quit the house at night: every

night a light burns in the house, and a fire must be kept up constantly

at the foot of the house-ladder: garments, turbans, and head-dresses

may not be laid aside at night, for if the turban or head-dress were

put off the warrior’s turban might drop from his head in the battle;

and the wives may sew no garments. When the spirit of the head-hunter

returns home in his sleep (which is the Toradja expression for a

soldier’s dream) he must find everything there in good order and

nothing that could vex him. By the observance of these rules, say the

Toradjas, the souls of the head-hunters are “covered” or protected. And

in order to make them strong, that they may not soon grow weary, rice

is strewed morning and evening on the floor of the house. The women too

go about constantly with a certain plant of which the pods are so light

and feathery that they are easily wafted by the wind, for that helps to

make the men nimble-footed.​[434] {p130}

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Galelareese and the Kei

Islanders.]

When Galelareese men are going away to war, they are accompanied down

to the boats by the women. But after the leave-taking is over, the

women, in returning to their houses, must be careful not to stumble or

fall, and in the house they may neither be angry nor lift up weapons

against each other; otherwise the men will fall and be killed in

battle.​[435] Similarly, we saw that among the Chams domestic brawls

at home are supposed to cause the searcher for eagle-wood to fall a

prey to wild beasts on the mountains.​[436] Further, Galelareese women

may not lay down the chopping knives in the house while their husbands

are at the wars; the knives must always be hung up on hooks.​[437]

The reason for the rule is not given; we may conjecture that it is

a fear lest, if the chopping knives were laid down by the women at

home, the men would be apt to lay down their weapons in the battle or

at other inopportune moments. In the Kei Islands, when the warriors

have departed, the women return indoors and bring out certain baskets

containing fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they anoint and

place on a board, murmuring as they do so, “O lord sun, moon, let the

bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and other

relations, just as raindrops rebound from these objects which are

smeared with oil.” As soon as the first shot is heard, the baskets are

put aside, and the women, seizing their fans, rush out of the houses.

Then, waving their fans in the direction of the enemy, they run through

the village, while they sing, “O golden fans! let our bullets hit,

and those of the enemy miss.”​[438] In this custom the ceremony of

anointing stones, in order that the bullets may recoil from the men

like raindrops from the stones, is a piece of pure homoeopathic or

imitative magic; but the prayer to the sun, that he will be pleased to

give effect to the charm, is a religious and perhaps later addition.

The waving of the fans seems to be a charm to direct the bullets

towards or away from their {p131} mark, according as they are discharged

from the guns of friends or foes.

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Malagasy.]

An old historian of Madagascar informs us that “while the men are at

the wars, and until their return, the women and girls cease not day

and night to dance, and neither lie down nor take food in their own

houses. And although they are very voluptuously inclined, they would

not for anything in the world have an intrigue with another man while

their husband is at the war, believing firmly that if that happened,

their husband would be either killed or wounded. They believe that

by dancing they impart strength, courage, and good fortune to their

husbands; accordingly during such times they give themselves no rest,

and this custom they observe very religiously.”​[439] Similarly a

traveller of the seventeenth century writes that in Madagascar “when

the man is in battle or under march, the wife continually dances and

sings, and will not sleep or eat in her own house, nor admit of the

use of any other man, unless she be desirous to be rid of her own; for

they entertain this opinion among them, that if they suffer themselves

to be overcome in an _intestin war_ at home, their husbands must

suffer for it, being ingaged in a _forreign expedition_; but, on the

contrary, if they behave themselves chastely, and dance lustily, that

then their husbands, by some certain sympathetical operation, will be

able to vanquish all their combatants.”​[440] We have seen that among

hunters in various parts of the world the infidelity of the wife at

home is believed to have a disastrous effect on her absent husband.

In the Babar Archipelago, and among the Wagogo of East Africa, when

the men are at the wars the women at home are bound to chastity, and

in the Babar Archipelago they must fast besides.​[441] Under similar

circumstances in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor the women and

children are forbidden to remain inside of the houses and to twine

thread or weave.​[442] {p132}

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the natives of West Africa.

Telepathy in war among the American Indians.

Telepathy in war among the Kafirs of the Hindoo Koosh.]

Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast the wives of men who

are away with the army paint themselves white, and adorn their persons

with beads and charms. On the day when a battle is expected to take

place, they run about armed with guns, or sticks carved to look like

guns, and taking green paw-paws (fruits shaped somewhat like a melon),

they hack them with knives, as if they were chopping off the heads of

the foe.​[443] The pantomime is no doubt merely an imitative charm, to

enable the men to do to the enemy as the women do to the paw-paws. In

the West African town of Framin, while the Ashantee war was raging some

years ago, Mr. Fitzgerald Marriott saw a dance performed by women whose

husbands had gone as carriers to the war. They were painted white and

wore nothing but a short petticoat. At their head was a shrivelled old

sorceress in a very short white petticoat, her black hair arranged in

a sort of long projecting horn, and her black face, breasts, arms, and

legs profusely adorned with white circles and crescents. All carried

long white brushes made of buffalo or horse tails, and as they danced

they sang, “Our husbands have gone to Ashanteeland; may they sweep

their enemies off the face of the earth!”​[444] Among the Thompson

Indians of British Columbia, when the men were on the war-path,

the women performed dances at frequent intervals. These dances

were believed to ensure the success of the expedition. The dancers

flourished their knives, threw long sharp-pointed sticks forward, or

drew sticks with hooked ends repeatedly backward and forward. Throwing

the sticks forward was symbolic of piercing or warding off the enemy,

and drawing them back was symbolic of drawing their own men from

danger. The hook at the end of the stick was particularly well adapted

to serve the purpose of a life-saving apparatus. The women always

pointed their weapons towards the enemy’s country. They painted their

faces red and sang as they danced, and they prayed to the weapons to

preserve their husbands and help them to kill many foes. Some had {p133}

eagle-down stuck on the points of their sticks. When the dance was

over, these weapons were hidden. If a woman whose husband was at the

war thought she saw hair or a piece of a scalp on the weapon when she

took it out, she knew that her husband had killed an enemy. But if she

saw a stain of blood on it, she knew he was wounded or dead.​[445] When

the men of the Yuki tribe of Indians in California were away fighting,

the women at home did not sleep; they danced continually in a circle,

chanting and waving leafy wands. For they said that if they danced all

the time, their husbands would not grow tired.​[446] Among the Haida

Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, when the men had gone to war,

the women at home would get up very early in the morning and pretend

to make war by falling upon their children and feigning to take them

for slaves. This was supposed to help their husbands to go and do

likewise. If a wife were unfaithful to her husband while he was away

on the war-path, he would probably be killed. For ten nights all the

women at home lay with their heads towards the point of the compass to

which the war-canoes had paddled away. Then they changed about, for

the warriors were supposed to be coming home across the sea. At Masset

the Haida women danced and sang war-songs all the time their husbands

were away at the wars, and they had to keep everything about them in

a certain order. It was thought that a wife might kill her husband by

not observing these customs.​[447] In the Kafir district of the Hindoo

Koosh, while the men are out raiding, the women abandon their work in

the fields and assemble in the villages to dance day and night. The

dances are kept up most of each day and the whole of each night. Sir

George Robertson, who reports the custom, more than once watched the

dancers dancing at midnight and in the early morning, and could see

by the fitful glow of the {p134} woodfire how haggard and tired they

looked, yet how gravely and earnestly they persisted in what they

regarded as a serious duty.​[448] The dances of these Kafirs are said

to be performed in honour of certain of the national gods, but when

we consider the custom in connexion with the others which have just

been passed in review, we may reasonably surmise that it is or was

originally in its essence a sympathetic charm intended to keep the

absent warriors wakeful, lest they should be surprised in their sleep

by the enemy. When a band of Carib Indians of the Orinoco had gone on

the war-path, their friends left in the village used to calculate as

nearly as they could the exact moment when the absent warriors would be

advancing to attack the enemy. Then they took two lads, laid them down

on a bench, and inflicted a most severe scourging on their bare backs.

This the youths submitted to without a murmur, supported in their

sufferings by the firm conviction, in which they had been bred from

childhood, that on the constancy and fortitude with which they bore the

cruel ordeal depended the valour and success of their comrades in the

battle.​[449]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic at making drums.

Various applications of homoeopathic magic.]

So much for the savage theory of telepathy in war and the chase.

We pass now to other cases of homoeopathic or imitative magic.

While marriageable boys of the Mekeo district in British New Guinea

are making their drums, they have to live alone in the forest and

to observe a number of rules which are based on the principle of

homoeopathic magic. The drums will be used in the dances, and in order

that they may give out a resonant sonorous note, great care must be

taken in their construction. The boys may spend from two days to a week

at the task. Having chosen a suitable piece of wood, they scrape the

outside into shape with a shell, and hollow out the inside by burning

it with a hot coal till the sides are very thin. The skin of an iguana,

made supple by being steeped in coco-nut milk, is then stretched over

the hollow and tightened with string and glue. All the time a boy is at

work on his drum, he must carefully avoid {p135} women; for if a woman

or a girl were to see him, the drum would split and sound like an old

cracked pot. If he ate fish, a bone would prick him and the skin of the

drum would burst. If he ate a red banana it would choke him, and the

drum would give a dull stifled note; if he tasted grated coco-nut, the

white ants, like the white particles of the nut, would gnaw the body

of the drum; if he cooked his food in the ordinary round-bellied pot,

he would grow fat and would not be able to dance, and the girls would

despise him and say, “Your belly is big; it is a pot!” Moreover, he

must strictly shun water; for if he accidentally touched it with his

feet, his hands, or his lips before the drum was quite hollowed out,

he would throw the instrument away, saying: “I have touched water;

my hot coal will be put out, and I shall never be able to hollow out

my drum.”​[450] A Highland witch can sink a ship by homoeopathic or

imitative magic. She has only to set a small round dish floating in

a milk-pan full of water, and then to croon her spell. When the dish

upsets in the pan, the ship will go down in the sea. They say that once

three witches from Harris left home at night after placing the milk-pan

thus on the floor, and strictly charging a serving-maid to let nothing

come near it. But while the girl was not looking a duck came in and

squattered about in the water on the floor. Next morning the witches

returned and asked if anything had come near the pan. The girl said

“No,” whereupon one of the witches said to the others, “What a heavy

sea we had last night coming round Cabag head!”​[451] If a wolf has

carried off a sheep or a pig, the Esthonians have a very simple mode of

making him drop it. They let fall anything that they happen to have at

hand, such as a cap or a glove, or, what is perhaps still better, they

lift a heavy stone and then let it go. By that act, on the principle of

homoeopathic magic, they compel the wolf to let go his booty.​[452]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic applied to make plants grow.

Magic at sowing and planting.]

Among the many beneficent uses to which a mistaken {p136} ingenuity has

applied the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic, is that of

causing trees and plants to bear fruit in due season. 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.​[453] 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.​[454]

Similarly, in ancient Mexico a festival was held in honour of the

goddess of maize, or “the long-haired mother,” as she was called. It

began at the time “when the plant had attained its full growth, and

fibres shooting forth from the top of the green ear indicated that

the grain was fully formed. During this festival the women wore their

long hair unbound, shaking and tossing it in the dances which were the

chief feature in the ceremonial, in order that the tassel of the maize

might grow in like profusion, that the grain might be correspondingly

large and flat, and that the people might have abundance.”​[455] It

is a Malay maxim to plant maize when your stomach is full, and to see

to it that your dibble is thick; for this will swell the ear of the

maize.​[456] And they say that you should sow rice also with a full

stomach, for then the ears will be full.​[457] The eminent novelist,

Mr. Thomas Hardy, was once told that the reason why certain trees in

front of his house, near Weymouth, did not thrive, was that he looked

at them before breakfast on an empty stomach.​[458] More elaborate

still are the measures taken by an Esthonian peasant woman to make her

cabbages thrive. On the day when they are {p137} sown she bakes great

pancakes, in order that the cabbages may have great broad leaves; and

she wears a dazzling white hood in the belief that this will cause the

cabbages to have fine white heads. Moreover, as soon as the cabbages

are transplanted, a small round stone is wrapt up tightly in a white

linen rag and set at the end of the cabbage bed, because in this way

the cabbage heads will grow very white and firm.​[459] Among the Huzuls

of the Carpathians, when a woman is planting cabbages, she winds many

cloths about her head, in order that the heads of the cabbages may also

be thick. And as soon as she has sown parsley, she grasps the calf of

her leg with both hands, saying, “May it be as thick as that!”​[460]

Among the Kurs of East Prussia, who inhabit the long sandy tongue of

land known as the Nehrung which parts the Baltic from a lagoon, when a

farmer sows his fields in spring, he carries an axe and chops the earth

with it, in order that the cornstalks may be so sturdy that an axe will

be needed to hew them down.​[461] For much the same reason a Bavarian

sower in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that

the corn may have a fine yellow colour.​[462] The Malagasy think that

only people with a good even set of teeth should plant maize, for

otherwise there will be empty spaces in the maize cob corresponding to

the empty spaces in the planter’s teeth.​[463]

[Sidenote: Dancing and leaping high as a charm to make the crops grow

high.]

In many parts of Europe dancing or leaping high in the air are approved

homoeopathic modes of making the crops grow high. Thus in Franche-Comté

they say that you should dance at the Carnival in order to make the

hemp grow tall.​[464] In the Vosges mountains the sower of hemp pulls

his nether garments up as far as he can, because he imagines that

the hemp he is sowing will {p138} attain the precise height to which

he has succeeded in hitching up his breeches;​[465] and in the same

region another way of ensuring a good crop of hemp is to dance on

the roof of the house on Twelfth Day.​[466] In Swabia and among the

Transylvanian Saxons it is a common custom for a man who has sown hemp

to leap high on the field, in the belief that this will make the hemp

grow tall.​[467] All over Baden till recently it was the custom for

the farmer’s wife to give the sower a dish of eggs or a cake baked

with eggs either before or after sowing, in order that he might leap

as high as possible. This was deemed the best way of making the hemp

grow high. For the same purpose some people who had sown hemp used to

dance the hemp dance, as it was called, on Shrove Tuesday, and in this

dance also the dancers jumped as high as they could. In some parts

of Baden the hemp seed is thrown in the air as high as possible, and

in Katzenthal the urchins leap over fires in order that the hemp may

grow tall.​[468] Similarly in many other parts of Germany and Austria

the peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or

leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table; the higher the leap

the taller will the flax be that year. The special season for thus

promoting the growth of flax is Shrove Tuesday, but in some places

it is Candlemas or Walpurgis Night (the eve of May Day). The scene

of the performance is the flax field, the farmhouse, or the village

tavern.​[469] In {p139} some parts of Eastern Prussia the girls dance

one by one in a large hoop at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The hoop is

adorned with leaves, flowers, and ribbons, and attached to it are a

small bell and some flax. Strictly speaking, the hoop should be wrapt

in white linen handkerchiefs, but the place of these is often taken by

many-coloured bits of cloth, wool, and so forth. While dancing within

the hoop each girl has to wave her arms vigorously and cry “Flax grow!”

or words to that effect. When she has done, she leaps out of the hoop,

or is lifted out of it by her partner.​[470] In Anhalt, when the sower

had sown the flax, he leaped up and flung the seed-bag high in the air,

saying, “Grow and turn green! You have nothing else to do.” He hoped

that the flax would grow as high as he flung the seed-bag in the air.

At Quellendorff, in Anhalt, the first bushel of seed-corn had to be

heaped up high in order that the corn-stalks should grow tall and bear

plenty of grain.​[471] When Macedonian farmers have done digging their

fields, they throw their spades up into the air, and catching them

again, exclaim, “May the crop grow as high as the spade has gone!”​[472]

[Sidenote: Plants and trees influenced homoeopathically by a person’s

act or state.

Fertilising influence supposed to be exercised on plants by pregnant

women or by women who have borne many children.

Barren women supposed to make the fruit-trees barren.]

The notion that a person can influence a plant homoeopathically by

his act or condition comes out clearly in a remark made by a Malay

woman. Being asked why she stripped the upper part of her body naked in

reaping the rice, she explained that she did it to make the rice-husks

{p140} thinner, as she was tired of pounding thick-husked rice.​[473]

Clearly, she thought that the less clothing she wore the less husk

there would be on the rice. Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra, when a

rice barn has been built a feast is held, of which a woman far advanced

in pregnancy must partake. Her condition will obviously help the rice

to be fruitful and multiply.​[474] Among the Zulus a pregnant woman

sometimes grinds corn, which is afterwards burnt among the half-grown

crops in order to fertilise them.​[475] For a similar reason in Syria

when a fruit-tree does not bear, the gardener gets a pregnant woman to

fasten a stone to one of its branches; then the tree will be sure to

bear fruit, but the woman will run a risk of miscarriage,​[476] having

transferred her fertility, or part of it, to the tree. The practice

of loading with stones a tree which casts its fruit is mentioned by

Maimonides,​[477] though the Rabbis apparently did not understand it.

The proceeding was most probably a homoeopathic charm designed to load

the tree with fruit.​[478] In Swabia they say that if a fruit-tree does

not bear, you should keep it loaded with a heavy stone all summer, and

next year it will be sure to bear.​[479] The custom of tying stones

to fruit-trees in order to ensure a crop of fruit is followed also

in Sicily.​[480] The magic virtue of a pregnant woman to communicate

fertility is known to Bavarian and Austrian peasants, who {p141} think

that if you give the first fruit of a tree to a woman with child to

eat, the tree will bring forth abundantly next year.​[481] In Bohemia

for a similar purpose the first apple of a young tree is sometimes

plucked and eaten by a woman who has borne many children, for then the

tree will be sure to bear many apples.​[482] In the Zürcher Oberland,

Switzerland, they think that a cherry-tree will bear abundantly if its

first fruit is eaten by a woman who has just given birth to her first

child.​[483] In Macedonia the first fruit of a tree should not be eaten

by a barren woman but by one who has many children.​[484] The Nicobar

Islanders think it lucky to get a pregnant woman and her husband to

plant seed in gardens.​[485] The Greeks and Romans sacrificed pregnant

victims to the goddesses of the corn and of the earth, doubtless in

order that the earth might teem and the corn swell in the ear.​[486]

When a Catholic priest remonstrated with the Indians of the Orinoco on

allowing their women to sow the fields in the blazing sun, with infants

at their breasts, the men answered, “Father, you don’t understand

these things, and that is why they vex you. You know that women are

accustomed to bear children, and that we men are not. When the women

sow, the stalk of the maize bears two or three ears, the root of the

yucca yields two or three {p142} basketfuls, and everything multiplies

in proportion. Now why is that? Simply because the women know how to

bring forth, and know how to make the seed which they sow bring forth

also. Let them sow, then; we men don’t know as much about it as they

do.”​[487] For the same reason, probably, the Tupinambas of Brazil

thought that if a certain earth-almond were planted by the men, it

would not grow.​[488] Among the Ilocans of Luzon the men sow bananas,

but the sower must have a young child on his shoulder, or the bananas

will bear no fruit.​[489] When a tree bears no fruit, the Galelareese

think it is a male; and their remedy is simple. They put a woman’s

petticoat on the tree, which, being thus converted into a female, will

naturally prove prolific.​[490] On the other hand the Baganda believe

that a barren wife infects her husband’s garden with her own sterility

and prevents the trees from bearing fruit; hence a childless woman is

generally divorced.​[491] For a like reason, probably, the Wajagga of

East Africa throw away the corpse of a childless woman, with all her

belongings, in the forest or in any other place where the land is never

cultivated; moreover her body is not carried out of the door of the

hut, but a special passage is broken for it through the wall,​[492] no

doubt to prevent her dangerous ghost from finding its way back.​[493]

[Sidenote: Taboos based on the belief that persons can influence

vegetation homoeopathically by their acts or states.]

Thus on the theory of homoeopathic magic a person can influence

vegetation either for good or for evil according to the good or the bad

character of his acts or states: for example, a fruitful woman makes

plants fruitful, a barren woman makes them barren. Hence this belief

in the noxious and infectious nature of certain personal qualities or

accidents {p143} has given rise to a number of prohibitions or rules

of avoidance: people abstain from doing certain things lest they

should homoeopathically infect the fruits of the earth with their

own undesirable state or condition. All such customs of abstention

or rules of avoidance are examples of negative magic or taboo.​[494]

Thus, for example, arguing from what may be called the infectiousness

of personal acts or states, the Galelareese say that you ought not to

shoot with a bow and arrows under a fruit-tree, or the tree will cast

its fruit even as the arrows fall to the ground;​[495] and that when

you are eating water-melon you ought not to mix the pips which you

spit out of your mouth with the pips which you have put aside to serve

as seed; for if you do, though the pips you spat out may certainly

spring up and blossom, yet the blossoms will keep falling off just as

the pips fell from your mouth, and thus these pips will never bear

fruit.​[496] Precisely the same train of thought leads the Bavarian

peasant to believe that if he allows the graft of a fruit-tree to fall

on the ground, the tree that springs from that graft will let its

fruit fall untimely.​[497] The Indians of Santiago Tepehuacan suppose

that if a single grain of the maize which they are about to sow were

eaten by an animal, the birds and the wild boars would come and devour

all the rest, and nothing would grow. And if any of these Indians has

ever in his life buried a corpse, he will never be allowed to plant

a fruit-tree, for they say that the tree would wither. And they will

not let such a man go fishing with them, for the fish would flee from

him.​[498] Clearly these Indians imagine that anybody who has buried

a corpse is thereby tainted, so to say, with an infection of death,

which might prove fatal to fruits and fish. In Nias, the day after a

man has made preparations for planting rice he may not use fire, or the

crop would be parched; he may not spread his mats on the ground, or the

young plants would droop towards the earth.​[499] {p144} When the Chams

of Cochinchina are sowing their dry rice-fields and desire that no

rain should fall, they eat their rice dry instead of moistening it, as

they usually do, with the water in which vegetables and fish have been

boiled. That prevents rain from spoiling the rice.​[500]

[Sidenote: Persons influenced homoeopathically by plants.

People supposed to be influenced homoeopathically by the nature of the

timber of which their houses are built.]

In the foregoing cases a person is supposed to influence vegetation

homoeopathically. He infects trees or plants with qualities or

accidents, good or bad, resembling and derived from his own. But on the

principle of homoeopathic magic the influence is mutual: the plant can

infect the man just as much as the man can infect the plant. In magic,

as I believe in physics, action and reaction are equal and opposite.

The Cherokee Indians are adepts in practical botany of the homoeopathic

sort. Thus wiry roots of the catgut plant or devil’s shoestring

(_Tephrosia_) are so tough that they can almost stop a ploughshare in

the furrow. Hence Cherokee women wash their heads with a decoction

of the roots to make the hair strong, and Cherokee ball-players wash

themselves with it to toughen their muscles. To help them to spring

quickly to their feet when they are thrown to the ground, these Indian

ball-players also bathe their limbs with a decoction of the small rush

(_Juncus tenuis_), which, they say, always recovers its erect position,

no matter how often it is trampled down. To improve a child’s memory

the Cherokees beat up burs in water which has been fetched from a

roaring waterfall. The virtue of the potion is threefold. The voice

of the Long Man or river-god is heard in the roar of the cataract;

the stream seizes and holds things cast upon its surface; and there

is nothing that sticks like a bur. Hence it seems clear that with the

potion the child will drink in the lessons taught by the voice of the

waters, will seize them like the stream, and stick fast to them like

a bur. For a like reason the Cherokee fisherman ties the plant called

Venus’ flytrap (_Dionaea_) to his fishtrap, and he chews the plant and

spits it on the bait. That will be sure to make the trap and the bait

catch fish, just as Venus’ flytrap catches and digests the insects

which alight on it.​[501] {p145} The Kei islanders think that certain

creepers which adhere firmly to the trunks of trees prevent voyagers at

sea from being wafted hither and thither at the mercy of the wind and

the waves; the adhesive power of the plants enables the mariners to go

straight to their destination.​[502] It is a Galelareese belief that

if you eat a fruit which has fallen to the ground, you will yourself

contract a disposition to stumble and fall; and that if you partake

of something which has been forgotten (such as a sweet potato left in

the pot or a banana in the fire), you will become forgetful.​[503] The

Galelareese are also of opinion that if a woman were to consume two

bananas growing from a single head she would give birth to twins.​[504]

The Guarani Indians of South America thought that a woman would become

a mother of twins if she ate a double grain of millet.​[505] In Vedic

times a curious application of this principle supplied a charm by

which a banished prince might be restored to his kingdom. He had to

eat food cooked on a fire which was fed with wood which had grown out

of the stump of a tree which had been cut down. The recuperative power

manifested by such a tree would in due course be communicated through

the fire to the food, and so to the prince, who ate the food which

was cooked on the fire which was fed with the wood which grew out

of the tree.​[506] Among the Lkuñgen Indians of Vancouver Island an

infallible means of making your hair grow long is to rub it with fish

oil and the pulverised fruit of a particular kind of poplar (_Populus

trichocarpa_). As the fruit grows a long way up the tree, it cannot

fail to make your hair grow long too.​[507] At Allumba, in Central

Australia, there is a tree to {p146} which the sun, in the shape of a

woman, is said to have travelled from the east. The natives believe

that if the tree were destroyed, they would all be burned up; and that

were any man to kill and eat an opossum from this tree, the food would

burn up all his inward parts so that he would die.​[508] The Sundanese

of the Indian Archipelago regard certain kinds of wood as unsuitable

for use in house-building, especially such trees as have prickles or

thorns on their trunks. They think that the life of people who lived

in a house made of such timber would be thorny and full of trouble.

Again, if a house is built of trees that have fallen, or lost their

leaves through age, the inmates would die soon or would be hard put to

it to earn their bread. Again, wood from a house that has been burnt

down should never be used in building, for it would cause a fire to

break out in the new house.​[509] In Java some people would not build a

house with the wood of a tree that has been uprooted by a storm, lest

the house should fall down in like manner; and they take care not to

construct the upright and the horizontal parts (the standing and lying

parts, as they call them) of the edifice out of the same tree. The

reason for this precaution is a belief that if the standing and lying

woodwork was made out of the same tree, the inmates of the house would

constantly suffer from ill health; no sooner had one of them got up

from a bed of sickness than another would have to lie down on it; and

so it would go on, one up and another down, perpetually.​[510] Before

Cherokee braves went forth to war the medicine-man used to give each

man a small charmed root which made him absolutely invulnerable. On the

eve of battle the warrior bathed in a running stream, chewed a portion

of the root and spat the juice on his body in order that the bullets

might slide from his skin like the drops of water. Some of my readers

perhaps doubt whether this really made the men bomb-proof. There is a

barren and paralysing spirit of scepticism abroad at {p147} the present

day which is most deplorable. However, the efficacy of this particular

charm was proved in the Civil War, for three hundred Cherokees served

in the army of the South; and they were never, or hardly ever, wounded

in action.​[511] Near Charlotte Waters, in Central Australia, there is

a tree which sprang up to mark the spot where a blind man died. It is

called the Blind Tree by the natives, who think that if it were cut

down all the people of the neighbourhood would become blind. A man

who wishes to deprive his enemy of sight need only go to the tree by

himself and rub it, muttering his wish and exhorting the magic virtue

to go forth and do its baleful work.​[512]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the dead.

Homoeopathic magic of the dead employed by burglars for the purpose of

concealment.]

In this last example the infectious quality, though it emanates

directly from a tree, is derived originally from a man—namely, the

blind man—who was buried at the place where the tree grew. Similarly,

the Central Australians believe that a certain group of stones at

Undiara are the petrified boils of an old man who long ago plucked them

from his body and left them there; hence any man who wishes to infect

his enemy with boils will go to these stones and throw miniature spears

at them, taking care that the points of the spears strike the stones.

Then the spears are picked up, and thrown one by one in the direction

of the person whom it is intended to injure. The spears carry with

them the magic virtue from the stones, and the result is an eruption

of painful boils on the body of the victim. Sometimes a whole group

of people can be afflicted in this way by a skilful magician.​[513]

These examples introduce us to a fruitful branch of homoeopathic magic,

namely to that department of it which works by means of the dead; for

just as the dead can neither see nor hear nor speak, so you may on

homoeopathic principles render people blind, deaf, and dumb by the use

of dead men’s bones or anything else that is tainted by the infection

of death. Thus among the Galelareese, when a young man goes a-wooing

at night, he takes a little earth from a grave and strews it on the

{p148} roof of his sweetheart’s house just above the place where her

parents sleep. This, he fancies, will prevent them from waking while he

converses with his beloved, since the earth from the grave will make

them sleep as sound as the dead.​[514] Burglars in all ages and many

lands have been patrons of this species of magic, which is very useful

to them in the exercise of their profession. Thus a South Slavonian

housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead man’s

bone over the house, saying, with pungent sarcasm, “As this bone may

waken, so may these people waken”; after that not a soul in the house

can keep his or her eyes open.​[515] Similarly, in Java the burglar

takes earth from a grave and sprinkles it round the house which he

intends to rob; this throws the inmates into a deep sleep.​[516] With

the same intention a Hindoo will strew ashes from a pyre at the door

of the house;​[517] Indians of Peru scatter the dust of dead men’s

bones;​[518] and Ruthenian burglars remove the marrow from a human

shin-bone, pour tallow into it, and having kindled the tallow, march

thrice round the house with this candle burning, which causes the

inmates to sleep a death-like sleep. Or the Ruthenian will make a flute

out of a human leg-bone and play upon it; whereupon all persons within

hearing are overcome with drowsiness.​[519] The Indians of Mexico

employed for this maleficent purpose the left fore-arm of a woman who

had died in giving birth to her first child; but the arm had to be

stolen. With it they beat the ground before they entered the house

which they designed to plunder; this caused every one in the house to

lose all power of speech and motion; they were as dead, hearing and

seeing everything, but perfectly powerless; some of them, however,

really slept and even snored.​[520] In Europe similar properties were

{p149} ascribed to the Hand of Glory, which was the dried and pickled

hand of a man who had been hanged. If a candle made of the fat of a

malefactor who had also died on the gallows was lighted and placed

in the Hand of Glory as in a candlestick, it rendered motionless all

persons to whom it was presented; they could not stir a finger any

more than if they were dead.​[521] Sometimes the dead man’s hand is

itself the candle, or rather bunch of candles, all its withered fingers

being set on fire; but should any member of the household be awake,

one of the fingers will not kindle. Such nefarious lights can only be

extinguished with milk.​[522] Often it is prescribed that the thief’s

candle should be made of the finger of a new-born or, still better,

unborn child; sometimes it is thought needful that the thief should

have one such candle for every person in the house, for if he has one

candle too little somebody in the house will wake and catch him. Once

these tapers begin to burn, there is nothing but milk that will put

them out. In the seventeenth century robbers used to murder pregnant

women in order thus to extract candles from their wombs.​[523] An

ancient Greek robber or burglar thought he could silence and put to

flight the fiercest watchdogs by carrying with him a brand plucked from

a funeral pyre.​[524]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the dead employed for various

purposes.]

Again, Servian and Bulgarian women who chafe at the restraints of

domestic life will take the copper coins from the eyes of a corpse,

wash them in wine or water, and give the liquid to their husbands

to drink. After swallowing it, the husband will be as blind to his

wife’s peccadilloes as the dead man was on whose eyes the coins were

laid.​[525] When a {p150} Blackfoot Indian went out eagle-hunting,

he used to take a skull with him, because he believed that the skull

would make him invisible, like the dead person to whom it had belonged,

and so the eagles would not be able to see and attack him.​[526] The

Tarahumares of Mexico are great runners, and parties of them engage in

races with each other. They believe that human bones induce fatigue;

hence before a race the friends of one side will bury dead men’s bones

in the track, hoping that the runners of the other side will pass over

them and so be weakened. Naturally they warn their own men to shun the

spot where the bones are buried.​[527] The Belep of New Caledonia think

that they can disable an enemy from flight by means of the leg-bone of

a dead foe. They stick certain plants into the bone, and then smash it

between stones before the skulls of their ancestors. It is easy to see

that this breaks the leg of the living enemy and so hinders him from

running away. Hence in time of war men fortify themselves with amulets

of this sort.​[528] The ancient Greeks seem to have thought that to

set a young male child on a tomb would be to rob him of his manhood by

infecting him with the impotence of the dead.​[529] And as there is no

memory in the grave the Arabs think that earth from a grave can make a

man forget his griefs and sorrows, especially the sorrow of an unhappy

love.​[530]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of animals.]

Again, animals are often conceived to possess qualities or properties

which might be useful to man, and homoeopathic or imitative magic

seeks to communicate these properties to human beings in various ways.

Thus some Bechuanas wear a ferret as a charm, because, being very

tenacious of life, it will make them difficult to kill.​[531] Others

{p151} wear a certain insect, mutilated, but living, for a similar

purpose.​[532] Yet other Bechuana warriors wear the hair of a hornless

ox among their own hair, and the skin of a frog on their mantle,

because a frog is slippery, and the ox, having no horns, is hard to

catch; so the man who is provided with these charms believes that he

will be as hard to hold as the ox and the frog.​[533] Again, it seems

plain that a South African warrior who twists tufts of rats’ hair among

his own curly black locks will have just as many chances of avoiding

the enemy’s spear as the nimble rat has of avoiding things thrown at

it; hence in these regions rats’ hair is in great demand when war is

expected.​[534] In Morocco a fowl or a pigeon may sometimes be seen

with a little red bundle tied to its foot; the bundle contains a charm,

and it is believed that as the charm is kept in constant motion by

the bird, a corresponding restlessness is kept up in the mind of him

or her against whom the charm is directed.​[535] When a Galla sees a

tortoise, he will take off his sandals and step on it, believing that

the soles of his feet are thereby made hard and strong like the shell

of the animal.​[536] The Wajaggas of Eastern Africa think that if they

wear a piece of the wing-bone of a vulture tied round their leg they

will be able to run and not grow weary, just as the vulture flies

unwearied through the sky.​[537] The Esquimaux of Baffin Land fancy

that if part of the intestines of a fox is placed under the feet of a

baby boy, he will become active and skilful in walking over thin ice,

like a fox.​[538] One of the ancient books of India prescribes that

when a sacrifice is offered for victory, the earth out of which the

altar is to be made should be taken from a place where a boar has been

wallowing, since the strength of the boar will be in that earth.​[539]

{p152} When you are playing the one-stringed lute, and your fingers are

stiff, the thing to do is to catch some long-legged field spiders and

roast them, and then rub your fingers with the ashes; that will make

your fingers as lithe and nimble as the spiders’ legs—at least so think

the Galelareese.​[540] As the sea-eagle is very expert at seizing fish

in its talons, the Kei islanders use its claws as a charm to enable

them to make great gain on their trading voyages.​[541] The children

of the Baronga on Delagoa Bay are much troubled by a small worm which

burrows under their skin, where its meanderings are visible to the eye.

To guard her little one against this insect pest a Baronga mother will

attach to its wrist the skin of a mole which burrows just under the

surface of the ground, exactly as the worm burrows under the infant’s

skin.​[542] To bring back a runaway slave an Arab of North Africa will

trace a magic circle on the ground, stick a nail in the middle of it,

and attach a beetle by a thread to the nail, taking care that the sex

of the beetle is that of the fugitive. As the beetle crawls round and

round it will coil the thread about the nail, thus shortening its

tether and drawing nearer to the centre at every circuit. So by virtue

of homoeopathic magic the runaway slave will be drawn back to his

master.​[543] The Patagonian Indians kill a mare and put a new-born boy

in its body, believing that this will make him a good horseman.​[544]

The Lkuñgen Indians of Vancouver’s Island believe that the ashes of

wasps rubbed on the faces of warriors going to battle will render the

men as pugnacious as wasps, and that a decoction of wasps’ nests or of

flies administered internally to barren women will make them prolific

like the insects.​[545]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of snakes and other animals.]

Among the western tribes of British New Guinea, a {p153} man who has

killed a snake will burn it and smear his legs with the ashes when

he goes into the forest; for no snake will bite him for some days

afterwards.​[546] The Baronga of Delagoa Bay carry the powdered ashes

of a serpent in a little bag as a talisman which guards them from

snake-bites.​[547] Among the Arabs of Moab a woman will give her infant

daughter the ashes of a scorpion mixed with milk to drink in order to

protect her against the stings of scorpions.​[548] The Cholones of

eastern Peru think that to carry the poison tooth of a serpent is a

protection against the bite of a serpent, and that to rub the cheek

with the tooth of an ounce is an infallible remedy for toothache and

face-ache.​[549] In order to strengthen her teeth some Brazilian

Indians used to hang round a girl’s neck at puberty the teeth of an

animal which they called _capugouare_, that is “grass-eating.”​[550]

When a thoroughbred mare has drunk at a trough, an Arab woman will

hasten to drink any water that remains in order that she may give birth

to strong children.​[551] If a South Slavonian has a mind to pilfer and

steal at market, he has nothing to do but to burn a blind cat, and then

throw a pinch of its ashes over the person with whom he is higgling;

after that he can take what he likes from the booth, and the owner

will not be a bit the wiser, having become as blind as the deceased

cat with whose ashes he has been sprinkled. The thief may even ask

boldly “Did I pay for it?” and the deluded huckster will reply, “Why,

certainly.”​[552] Equally simple and effectual is the expedient adopted

by natives of Central Australia who desire to cultivate their beards.

They prick the chin all over with a pointed bone, and then stroke it

carefully with a magic stick or stone, which represents a kind of rat

that has very long whiskers. The virtue of these whiskers naturally

passes into the representative stick or {p154} stone, and thence by an

easy transition to the chin, which, consequently, is soon adorned with

a rich growth of beard.​[553] When a party of these same natives has

returned from killing a foe, and they fear to be attacked by the ghost

of the dead man in their sleep, every one of them takes care to wear

the tip of the tail of a rabbit-kangaroo in his hair. Why? Because the

rabbit-kangaroo, being a nocturnal animal, does not sleep of nights;

and therefore a man who wears a tip of its tail in his hair will

clearly be wakeful during the hours of darkness.​[554] The Unmatjera

tribe of Central Australia use the tip of the tail of the same animal

for the same purpose, but they draw out the sympathetic chain one link

farther. For among them, when a boy has undergone subincision and is

leading a solitary life in the bush, it is not he but his mother who

wears the tip of the nocturnal creature’s tail in order that he may

be watchful at nights, lest harm should befall him from snakes and so

forth.​[555] The ancient Greeks thought that to eat the flesh of the

wakeful nightingale would prevent a man from sleeping; that to smear

the eyes of a blear-sighted person with the gall of an eagle would

give him the eagle’s vision; and that a raven’s eggs would restore the

blackness of the raven to silvery hair. Only the person who adopted

this last mode of concealing the ravages of time had to be most careful

to keep his mouth full of oil all the time he applied the eggs to his

venerable locks, else his teeth as well as his hair would be dyed raven

black, and no amount of scrubbing and scouring would avail to whiten

them again.​[556] The hair-restorer was in fact a shade too powerful,

and in applying it you might get more than you bargained for.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of animals among the Cherokees and other

American Indians.]

The Huichol Indians of Mexico admire the beautiful markings on the

backs of serpents. Hence when a Huichol woman is about to weave or

embroider, her husband catches a large serpent and holds it in a

cleft stick, while the woman strokes the reptile with one hand down

the whole length of its back; then she passes the same hand over her

forehead {p155} and eyes, that she may be able to work as beautiful

patterns in the web as the markings on the back of the serpent.​[557]

Among the Tarahumares of Mexico men who run races tie deer-hoofs to

their backs in the belief that this will make them swift-footed like

the deer.​[558] Cherokee ball-players rub their bodies with eel-skins

in order to make themselves as slippery and hard to hold as eels; and

they also apply land-tortoises to their legs in the hope of making

them as thick and strong as the legs of these animals. But they are

careful not to eat frogs, lest the brittleness of the frog’s bones

should infect their own bones. Moreover, they will not eat the flesh

of the sluggish hog-sucker, lest they should lose their speed, nor the

flesh of rabbits, lest, like the rabbit, they should become confused

in running. On the other hand, their friends sprinkle a soup made of

rabbit hamstrings along the path to be taken by their rivals, in order

to make these rivals timorous in action. Moreover, the ball-players

will not wear the feathers of the bald-headed buzzard, for fear of

themselves becoming bald, nor turkey feathers, lest they should suffer

from a goitrous growth on the throat like the red appendage on the

throat of a turkey.​[559] The flesh of the common grey squirrel is

forbidden to Cherokees who suffer from rheumatism, because the squirrel

eats in a cramped position, which would clearly aggravate the pangs of

the rheumatic patient.​[560] And a Cherokee woman who is with child

may not eat the flesh of the ruffed grouse, because that bird hatches

a large brood, but loses most of them before maturity. Strict people,

indeed, will not allow a woman to taste of the bird till she is past

child-bearing.​[561] When a Cherokee is starting on a journey on a

cold winter morning he rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and

sings four verses by means of which he can set the cold at defiance,

like the wolf, the deer, the fox, and the opossum, whose feet, so the

Indians think, are never frost-bitten. After each verse he imitates

the cry and action of the animal, thus homoeopathically identifying

himself with the creature. The {p156} song he sings may be rendered,

“I become a real wolf, a real deer, a real fox, and a real opossum.”

After stating that he has become a real wolf, the songster utters a

prolonged howl and paws the ground like a wolf with his feet. After

giving notice that he has become a real deer, he imitates the call and

jumping of a deer. And after announcing his identification, for all

practical purposes, with a fox and an opossum, he mimicks the barking

and scratching of a fox and the cry of an opossum when it is driven to

bay, also throwing his head back just as an opossum does when it feigns

death.​[562] Some Cherokees are said to drink tea made of crickets in

order to become good singers like the insects.​[563] If the eyes of a

Cherokee child be bathed with water in which a feather of an owl has

been soaked, the child will be able, like the owl, to keep awake all

night. The mole-cricket has claws with which it burrows in the earth,

and among the Cherokees it is reputed to be an excellent singer.

Hence when children are long of learning to speak, their tongues are

scratched with the claw of a live mole-cricket in order that they may

soon talk as distinctly as the insect. Grown persons also, who are

slow of speech, may acquire a ready flow of eloquence, if only the

inside of their throat be scratched on four successive mornings with

a mole-cricket.​[564] The negroes of the Maroni river in Guiana have

a somewhat similar cure for stammering. Day and night the shrieks of

a certain species of ape resound through the forest. Hence when the

negroes kill one of these pests, they remove its larynx and make a

cup out of it. If a stammering child drinks out of such a cup for

a few months, it ceases to stammer.​[565] Cherokee parents scratch

the hands of their children with the pincers of a live red crawfish,

resembling a lobster, in order to give the infants a strong grip, like

that of the crawfish.​[566] This may help us to understand why on

the fifth day after birth a Greek child used to receive presents of

octopuses and cuttle-fish from its friends and relations.​[567] For the

numerous arms, legs, and tentacles of {p157} these creatures seem well

calculated to strengthen the grip of a baby’s hands and to impart the

power of toddling to its little toes.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of inanimate things.]

On the principle of homoeopathic magic, inanimate things, as well

as plants and animals, may diffuse blessing or bane around them,

according to their own intrinsic nature and the skill of the wizard to

tap or dam, as the case may be, the stream of weal or woe. Thus, for

example, the Galelareese think that when your teeth are being filed you

should keep spitting on a pebble, for this establishes a homoeopathic

connexion between you and the pebble, by virtue of which your teeth

will henceforth be as hard and durable as a stone. On the other hand,

you ought not to comb a child before it has teethed, for if you do,

its teeth will afterwards be separated from each other like the teeth

of a comb.​[568] Nor should children look at a sieve, otherwise they

will suffer from a skin disease, and will have as many sores on their

bodies as there are holes in the sieve.​[569] In Samaracand women

give a baby sugar candy to suck and put glue in the palm of its hand,

in order that, when the child grows up, his words may be sweet and

precious things may stick to his hands as if they were glued.​[570]

The Greeks thought that a garment made from the fleece of a sheep that

had been torn by a wolf would hurt the wearer, setting up an itch or

irritation in his skin. They were also of opinion that if a stone which

had been bitten by a dog were dropped in wine, it would make all who

drank of that wine to fall out among themselves.​[571] Among the Arabs

of Moab a childless woman often borrows the robe of a woman who has had

many children, hoping with the robe to acquire the fruitfulness of its

owner.​[572] The Caffres of Sofala, in East Africa, had a great dread

of being struck with anything hollow, such as a reed or a straw, and

greatly preferred being thrashed with a good thick cudgel or an iron

bar, even though it hurt very much. For they thought that if a man

{p158} were beaten with anything hollow, his inside would waste away

till he died.​[573] In eastern seas there is a large shell which the

Buginese of Celebes call the “old man” (_kadjâwo_). On Fridays they

turn these “old men” upside down and place them on the thresholds of

their houses, believing that whoever then steps over the threshold

of the house will live to be old.​[574] Again, the Galelareese think

that, if you are imprudent enough to eat while somebody is sharpening

a knife, your throat will be cut that same evening, or next morning at

latest.​[575] The disastrous influence thus attributed, under certain

circumstances, to a knife in the East Indies, finds its counterpart in

a curious old Greek story. A certain king had no child, and he asked a

wise man how he could get one. The wise man himself did not know, but

he thought that the birds of the air might, and he undertook to enquire

of them. For you must know that the sage understood the language of

birds, having learned it through some serpents whose life he had saved,

and who, out of gratitude, had cleansed his ears as he slept. So he

sacrificed two bulls, and cut them up, and prayed the fowls to come and

feast on the flesh; only the vulture he did not invite. When the birds

came, the wise man asked them what the king must do to get a son; but

none of them knew. At last up came the vulture, and he knew all about

it. He said that once when the king was a child his royal father was

gelding rams in the field, and laid down the bloody knife beside his

little son; nay, he threatened the boy with it. The child was afraid

and ran away, and the father stuck the knife in a tree, either a sacred

oak or a wild pear-tree. Meanwhile, the bark of the tree had grown

round the knife and hidden it. The vulture said that if they found the

knife, scraped the rust off it, and gave the rust, mixed with wine,

to the king to drink for ten days, he would beget a son. They did so,

and it fell out exactly as the vulture had said.​[576] In this story a

knife {p159} which had gelded rams is supposed to have deprived a boy

of his virility merely by being brought near his person. Through simple

proximity it infected him, so to say, with the same disability which it

had already inflicted on the rams; and the loss he thus sustained was

afterwards repaired by administering to him in a potion the rust which,

having been left on the blade by the blood of the animals, might be

supposed to be still imbued with their generative faculty.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of iron.

Homoeopathic magic of stones.

Oaths upon stones.]

The strengthening virtue of iron is highly appreciated by the Toradjas

of Central Celebes, only they apply it externally, not internally, as

we do in Europe. For this purpose the people of a village assemble

once a year in the smithy. The master of the ceremonies opens the

proceedings by carrying a little pig and a white fowl round the

smithy, after which he kills them and smears a little of their blood

on the forehead of every person present. Next he takes a doit, a

chopping-knife, and a bunch of leaves in his hand, and strikes with

them the palm of the right hand of every man, woman, and child, and

ties a leaf of the _Dracaena terminalis_ to every wrist. Then a little

fire is made in the furnace and blown up with the bellows. Every one

who feels sick or unwell now steps up to the anvil, and the master of

the ceremonies sprinkles a mixture of pigs’ blood, water, and herbs on

the joints of his body, and finally on his head, wishing him a long

life. Lastly, the patient takes the chopping-knife, heats it in the

furnace, lays it on the anvil, and strikes it seven times with the

hammer. After that he has only to cool the knife in water and the iron

cure is complete. Again, on the seventh day after a birth the Toradjas

hold a little feast, at which the child is carried down the house

ladder and its feet set on a piece of iron, in order to strengthen its

feeble soul with the strong soul of the iron.​[577] At critical times

the Mahakam Dyaks of Central Borneo seek to strengthen their souls

{p160} by biting on an old sword or setting their feet upon it.​[578]

At initiation a Brahman boy is made to tread with his right foot on

a stone, while the words are repeated, “Tread on this stone; like a

stone be firm”;​[579] and the same ceremony is performed, with the

same words, by a Brahman bride at her marriage.​[580] In Madagascar

a mode of counteracting the levity of fortune is to bury a stone at

the foot of the heavy house-post.​[581] The common custom of swearing

upon a stone may be based partly on a belief that the strength and

stability of the stone lend confirmation to an oath. Thus the old

Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells us that “the ancients, when

they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stones planted in

the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to foreshadow from

the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting.”​[582]

There was a stone at Athens on which the nine archons stood when they

swore to rule justly and according to the laws.​[583] A little to the

west of St. Columba’s tomb in Iona “lie the black stones, which are so

called, not from their colour, for that is grey, but from the effects

that tradition says ensued upon perjury, if any one became guilty of it

after swearing on these stones in the usual manner; for an oath made on

them was decisive in all controversies. Mac-Donald, king of the isles,

delivered the rights of their lands to his vassals in the isles and

{p161} continent, with uplifted hands and bended knees, on the black

stones; and in this posture, before many witnesses, he solemnly swore

that he would never recall those rights which he then granted: and this

was instead of his great seal. Hence it is that when one was certain

of what he affirmed, he said positively, I have freedom to swear this

matter upon the black stones.”​[584] Again, in the island of Arran

there was a green globular stone, about the size of a goose’s egg, on

which oaths were taken. It was also endowed with healing virtue, for it

cured stitches in the sides of sick people if only it was laid on the

affected part. They say that Macdonald, the Lord of the Isles, carried

this stone about with him, and that victory was always on his side when

he threw it among the enemy.​[585] Once more, in the island of Fladda

there was a round blue stone, on which people swore decisive oaths, and

it too healed stitches in the side like the green stone of Arran.​[586]

When two Bogos of eastern Africa have a dispute, they will sometimes

settle it at a certain stone, which one of them mounts. His adversary

calls down the most dreadful curses on him if he forswears himself, and

to every curse the man on the stone answers “Amen!”​[587] In Laconia

an unwrought stone was shewn which, according to the legend, relieved

the matricide Orestes of his madness as soon as he had sat down on

it;​[588] and Zeus is said to have often cured himself of his love for

Hera by sitting down on a certain rock in the island of Leucadia.​[589]

In these cases it may have been thought that the wayward and flighty

impulses of love and madness were counteracted by the steadying

influence of a heavy stone.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of special kinds of stones.]

But while a general magical efficacy may be supposed {p162} to reside in

all stones by reason of their common properties of weight and solidity,

special magical virtues are attributed to particular stones, or kinds

of stone, in accordance with their individual or specific qualities of

shape and colour. For example, a pot-hole in a rocky gorge of Central

Australia contains many rounded boulders which, in the opinion of the

Warramunga tribe, represent the kidneys, heart, tail, intestines, and

so forth of an old euro, a species of kangaroo. Hence the natives jump

into the pool, and after splashing the water all over their bodies rub

one another with the stones, believing that this will enable them to

catch euros.​[590] Again, not very far from Alice Springs, in Central

Australia, there is a heap of stones supposed to be the vomit of two

men of the eagle-hawk totem who had dined too copiously on eagle-hawk

men, women, and children. The natives think that if any person caught

sight of these stones he would be taken very sick on the spot; hence

the heap is covered with sticks, to which every passer-by adds one

in order to prevent the evil magic from coming out and turning his

stomach.​[591] The Indians of Peru employed certain stones for the

increase of maize, others for the increase of potatoes, and others

again for the increase of cattle. The stones used to make maize grow

were fashioned in the likeness of cobs of maize, and the stones

destined to multiply cattle had the shape of sheep.​[592]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of stones in New Caledonia.]

No people perhaps employ stones more freely for the purposes of

homoeopathic magic than the natives of New Caledonia. They have stones

of the most diverse shapes and colours to serve the most diverse

ends—stones for sunshine, rain, famine, war, madness, death, fishing,

sailing, and so forth. Thus in order to make a plantation of taro

thrive they bury in the field certain stones resembling taros, praying

to their ancestors at the same time. A stone marked with black lines

like the leaves of the coco-nut palm helps to produce a good crop of

coco-nuts. To make bread-fruit grow they use two stones of different

sizes representing the unripe and the ripe fruit respectively. {p163}

As soon as the fruit begins to form, they bury the small stone at the

foot of the tree; and later on, when the fruit approaches maturity,

they replace the small stone by the large one. The yam is the chief

crop of the New Caledonians; hence the number of stones used to foster

its growth is correspondingly great. Different families have different

kinds of stones which, according to their diverse shapes and colours,

are supposed to promote the cultivation of the various species of

yams. Before the stones are buried in the yam field they are deposited

beside the ancestral skulls, wetted with water, and wiped with the

leaves of certain trees. Sacrifices, too, of yams and fish are offered

to the dead, with the words, “Here are your offerings, in order that

the crop of yams may be good.” Again, a stone carved in the shape of

a canoe can make a voyage prosperous or the reverse according as it

is placed before the ancestral skulls with the opening upwards or

downwards, the ceremony being accompanied with prayers and offerings

to the dead. Again, fish is a very important article of diet with the

New Caledonians, and every kind of fish has its sacred stone, which is

enclosed in a large shell and kept in the graveyard. In performing the

rite to secure a good catch, the wizard swathes the stone in bandages

of various colours, spits some chewed leaves on it, and, setting it up

before the skulls, says, “Help us to be lucky at the fishing.”​[593]

In these and many similar practices of the New Caledonians the magical

efficacy of the stones appears to be deemed insufficient of itself to

accomplish the end in view; it has to be reinforced by the spirits of

the dead, whose help is sought by prayer and sacrifice. Moreover, the

stones are regularly kept in the burial-grounds, as if to saturate them

with the powerful influence of the ancestors; they are brought from

the cemetery to be buried in the fields or at the foot of trees for

the sake of quickening the fruits of the earth, and they are restored

to the cemetery when they {p164} have discharged this duty. Thus in New

Caledonia magic is blent with the worship of the dead.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of stones in Melanesia.]