CHAPTER VI

MAGICIANS AS KINGS

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians and their rise to the

position of chiefs or kings.

But magic is not the only road by which men have travelled to a throne.

Complexity of the social phenomena and the danger of simplifying them

unduly by our hypotheses.]

The foregoing evidence may satisfy us that in many lands and many

races magic has claimed to control the great forces of nature for the

good of man. If that has been so, the practitioners of the art must

necessarily be personages of importance and influence in any society

which puts faith in their extravagant pretensions, and it would be no

matter for surprise if, by virtue of the reputation which they enjoy

and of the awe which they inspire, some of them should attain to the

highest position of authority over their credulous fellows. In point of

fact magicians appear to have often developed into chiefs and kings.

Not that magic is the only or perhaps even the main road by which men

have travelled to a throne. The lust of power, the desire to domineer

over our fellows, is among the commonest and the strongest of human

passions, and no doubt men of a masterful character have sought to

satisfy it in many different ways and have attained by many different

means to the goal of their ambition. The sword, for example, in a

strong hand has unquestionably done for many what the magician’s wand

in a deft hand appears to have done for some. He who investigates the

history of institutions should constantly bear in mind the extreme

complexity of the causes which have built up the fabric of human

society, and should be on his guard against a subtle danger incidental

to all science, the tendency to simplify unduly the infinite variety of

the phenomena by fixing our attention on a few of them to the exclusion

of the rest. The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed

natural to the mind of man, since it is only {p333} by abstraction and

generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of

particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a

minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe. But if the

propensity is natural and even inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught

with peril, since it is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any

subject under investigation. To correct it partially—for to correct

it wholly would require an infinite intelligence—we must endeavour

to broaden our views by taking account of a wide range of facts and

possibilities; and when we have done so to the utmost of our power, we

must still remember that from the very nature of things our ideas fall

immeasurably short of the reality.

[Sidenote: This propensity to excessive simplification has done much to

discredit the study of primitive mythology and religion.]

In no branch of learning, perhaps, has this proneness to an attractive

but fallacious simplicity wrought more havoc than in the investigation

of the early history of mankind; in particular, the excesses to which

it has been carried have done much to discredit the study of primitive

mythology and religion. Students of these subjects have been far too

ready to pounce on any theory which adequately explains some of the

facts, and forthwith to stretch it so as to cover them all; and when

the theory, thus unduly strained, has broken, as was to be expected, in

their unskilful hands, they have pettishly thrown it aside in disgust

instead of restricting it, as they should have done from the outset,

to the particular class of facts to which it is really applicable.

So it fared in our youth with the solar myth theory, which after

being unreasonably exaggerated by its friends has long been quite as

unreasonably rejected altogether by its adversaries; and in more recent

times the theories of totemism, magic, and taboo, to take only a few

conspicuous examples, have similarly suffered from the excessive zeal

of injudicious advocates. This instability of judgment, this tendency

of anthropological opinion to swing to and fro from one extreme to

another with every breath of new discovery, is perhaps the principal

reason why the whole study is still viewed askance by men of sober and

cautious temper, who naturally look with suspicion on idols that are

set up and worshipped one day only to be knocked down and trampled

under foot the next. To these cool observers Max {p334} Müller and the

rosy Dawn in the nineteenth century stand on the same dusty shelf with

Jacob Bryant and Noah’s ark in the eighteenth, and they expect with a

sarcastic smile the time when the fashionable anthropological topics of

the present day will in their turn be consigned to the same peaceful

limbo of forgotten absurdities. It is not for the anthropologist

himself to anticipate the verdict of posterity on his labours; still it

is his humble hope that the facts which he has patiently amassed will

be found sufficiently numerous and solid to bear the weight of some at

least of the conclusions which he rests upon them, so that these can

never again be lightly tossed aside as the fantastic dreams of a mere

bookish student. At the same time, if he is wise, he will be forward to

acknowledge and proclaim that our hypotheses at best are but partial,

not universal, solutions of the manifold problems which confront us,

and that in science as in daily life it is vain to look for one key to

open all locks.

[Sidenote: The practice of magic explains the rise of kings in some

communities, but not in all.]

Therefore, to revert to our immediate subject, in putting forward

the practice of magic as an explanation of the rise of monarchy in

some communities, I am far from thinking or suggesting that it can

explain the rise of it in all, or, in other words, that kings are

universally the descendants or successors of magicians; and if any

one should hereafter, as is likely enough, either enunciate such a

theory or attribute it to me, I desire to enter my caveat against it

in advance. To enumerate and describe all the modes in which men have

pushed, or fought, or wormed their way by force or by fraud, by their

own courage and wisdom or by the cowardice and folly of others, to

supreme power, might furnish the theme of a political treatise such as

I have no pretension to write; for my present purpose it suffices if I

can trace the magician’s progress in some savage and barbarous tribes

from the rank of a sorcerer to the dignity of a king. The facts which

I am about to lay before the reader seem to exhibit various steps of

this development from simple conjuring up to conjuring compounded with

despotism.

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians among the aborigines of

Central Australia.]

Let us begin by looking at the lowest race of men as to whom we

possess comparatively full and accurate information, the aborigines of

Australia. These savages are ruled neither by chiefs nor kings. So far

as their tribes can be {p335} said to have a political constitution,

it is a democracy or rather an oligarchy of old and influential men,

who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance to the

practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly

answers to the senate of later times: if we had to coin a word for

such a government of elders we might call it a _gerontocracy_.​[1193]

The elders who in aboriginal Australia thus meet and direct the

affairs of their tribe appear to be for the most part the headmen of

their respective totem clans. Now in Central Australia, where the

desert nature of the country and the almost complete isolation from

foreign influences have retarded progress and preserved the natives on

the whole in their most primitive state, the headmen of the various

totem clans are charged with the important task of performing magical

ceremonies for the multiplication of the totems, and as the great

majority of the totems are edible animals or plants, it follows that

these men are commonly expected to provide the people with food by

means of magic. Others have to make the rain to fall or to render

other services to the community. In short, among the tribes of Central

Australia the headmen are public magicians. Further, their most

important function is to take charge of the sacred storehouse, usually

a cleft in the rocks or a hole in the ground, where are kept the holy

stones and sticks (_churinga_) with which the souls of all the people,

both living and dead, are apparently supposed to be in a manner bound

up. Thus while the headmen have certainly to perform what we should

call civil duties, such as to inflict punishment for breaches of tribal

custom, their principal functions are sacred or magical.​[1194]

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians among the aborigines of

South-Eastern Australia.]

Again, in the tribes of South-Eastern Australia the headman was often,

sometimes invariably, a magician. Thus in the southern Wiradjuri

tribe the headman was always a wizard or a medicine-man. There was

one for each local {p336} division. He called the people together

for the initiation ceremonies or to discuss matters of public

importance.​[1195] In the Yerkla-mining tribe the medicine-men are

the headmen; they are called _Mobung-bai_, from _mobung_, “magic.”

They decide disputes, arrange marriages, conduct the ceremonies of

initiation, and in certain circumstances settle the formalities to be

observed in ordeals of battle. “In fact, they wield authority in the

tribe, and give orders where others only make requests.”​[1196] Again,

in the Yuin tribe there was a headman for each local division, and in

order to be fitted for his office he had, among other qualifications,

to be a medicine-man; above all he must be able to perform magical

feats at the initiation ceremonies. The greatest headman of all was he

who on these occasions could bring up the largest number of things out

of his inside.​[1197] In fact the budding statesman and king must be

first and foremost a conjuror in the most literal sense of the word.

Some forty or fifty years ago the principal headman of the Dieri tribe

was a certain Jalina piramurana, who was known among the colonists as

the Frenchman on account of his polished manners. He was not only a

brave and skilful warrior, but also a powerful medicine-man, greatly

feared by the neighbouring tribes, who sent him presents even from a

distance of a hundred miles. He boasted of being the “tree of life,”

for he was the head of a totem consisting of a particular sort of

seed which forms at certain times the chief vegetable food of these

tribes. His people spoke of him as the plant itself (_manyura_) which

yields the edible seed.​[1198] Again, an early writer on the tribes

of South-Western Australia, near King George’s Sound, tells us that

“the individuals who possess most influence are the _mulgarradocks_,

or doctors. . . . A _mulgarradock_ is considered to possess the power

of driving away wind or rain, as well as bringing down lightning or

disease upon any object of their or others’ hatred,” and they also

attempted to heal the sick.​[1199] On the {p337} whole, then, it is

highly significant that in the most primitive society about which we

are accurately informed it is especially the magicians or medicine-men

who appear to have been in process of developing into chiefs.

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians in New Guinea.]

When we pass from Australia to New Guinea we find that, though the

natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian

aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still essentially

democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only in embryo.

Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New Guinea no

one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong enough to

become the despot even of a single district. “The nearest approach to

this has been the very distant one of some person becoming a renowned

wizard; but that has only resulted in levying a certain amount of

blackmail.”​[1200] To the same effect a Catholic missionary observes

that in New Guinea the _nepu_ or sorcerers “are everywhere. They boast

of their misdeeds; everybody fears them, everybody accuses them, and,

after all, nothing positive is known of their secret practices. This

cursed brood is as it were the soul of the Papuan life. Nothing happens

without the sorcerer’s intervention: wars, marriages, diseases, deaths,

expeditions, fishing, hunting, always and everywhere the sorcerer.

. . . One thing is certain for them, and they do not regard it as an

article of faith, but as a fact patent and indisputable, and that is

the extraordinary power of the _nepu_; he is the master of life and

of death. Hence it is only natural that they should fear him and obey

him in everything and give him all that he asks for. The _nepu_ is not

a chief, but he domineers over the chiefs, and we may say that the

true authority, the only effective influence in New Guinea, is that

of the _nepu_. Nothing can resist him.”​[1201] We are told that in

the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of British New Guinea chiefs have not

necessarily supernatural powers, but that a sorcerer is looked upon

as a chief. Some years ago, for example, one man of the tribe was a

chief because he was supposed to rule the sea, calming it or rousing

it to fury at his pleasure. {p338} Another owed his power to his skill

in making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, and the plantations to

bear fruit.​[1202] It is believed that the chief of Mowat in British

New Guinea, can affect the growth of crops for good or ill, and coax

the turtle and dugong to come from all parts of the sea and allow

themselves to be caught.​[1203] At Bartle Bay in British New Guinea

there are magicians (_taniwaga_) who are expected to manage certain

departments of nature for the good of the community by means of charms

(_pari_) which are known only to them. One of these men, for example,

works magic for rain, another for taro, another for wallaby, and

another for fish. A magician who is believed to control an important

department of nature may be the chief of his community. Thus the

present chief of Wedau is a sorcerer who can make rain and raise or

calm the winds. He is greatly respected by all and receives many

presents.​[1204] A chief of Kolem, on Finsch Harbour, in German New

Guinea, enjoyed a great reputation as a magician; it was supposed that

he could make wind and storm, rain and sunshine, and visit his enemies

with sickness and death.​[1205]

[Sidenote: Supposed magical or supernatural powers of chiefs in

Melanesia.]

Turning now to the natives of the Melanesian islands, which stretch

in an immense quadrant of a circle round New Guinea and Australia on

the east, we are told by Dr. Codrington that among these savages “as a

matter of fact the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief

in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with

which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks’

Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended

to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined

a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to

begin.”​[1206] According to a native Melanesian account, the origin

of the power of chiefs lies entirely in the belief that they have

communication with mighty ghosts (_tindalo_), and wield that {p339}

supernatural power (_mana_) whereby they can bring the influence of

the ghosts to bear. If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because

the people universally dreaded his ghostly power, and firmly believed

that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him.

As soon as any considerable number of his people began to disbelieve

in his influence with the ghosts, his power to levy fines was

shaken.​[1207] In Malo, one of the New Hebrides, the highest nobility

consists of those persons who have sacrificed a thousand little pigs to

the souls of their ancestors. No one ever resists a man of that exalted

rank, because in him are supposed to dwell all the souls of the ancient

chiefs and all the spirits who preside over the tribe.​[1208] In the

Northern New Hebrides the son does not inherit the chieftainship,

but he inherits, if his father can manage it, what gives him the

chieftainship, namely, his father’s supernatural power, his charms,

magical songs, stones and apparatus, and his knowledge of the way to

approach spiritual beings.​[1209] A chief in the island of Paramatta

informed a European that he had the power of making rain, wind, storm,

thunder and lightning, and dry weather. He exhibited as his magical

instrument a piece of bamboo with some parti-coloured rags attached to

it. In this bamboo, he said, were kept the devils of rain and wind, and

when he commanded them to discharge their office or to lie still, they

were obliged to obey, being his subjects and prisoners. When he had

given his orders to these captive devils, the bamboo had to be fastened

to the highest point of his house.​[1210] In the Marshall Bennet

Islands to the east of New Guinea it was the duty of each chief of a

clan to charm the gardens of his clan so as to make them productive.

The charm consisted of turning up part of the soil with a long stick

and muttering an appropriate spell. Each special crop, such as yams,

bananas, {p340} sugar-cane, and coco-nuts, had its special kind of stick

and its special spell.​[1211]

[Sidenote: Magicians as chiefs in New Britain.]

With regard to government among the Melanesians of New Britain or

the Bismarck Archipelago, I may cite the evidence of an experienced

missionary, the Rev. Dr. George Brown, who settled in the islands

at a time when no other white man was living in the group, and who

resided among the savage islanders for some five or six years. He says:

“There was no government so called in New Britain except that form of

jurisdiction or power represented by the secret societies and that

exercised by chiefs, who were supposed to possess exceptional powers of

sorcery and witchcraft. These powers were very real, owing, I think,

principally to two reasons—one of which was that the men themselves

thoroughly believed that they were the possessors of the powers which

they claimed, and the other was that the people themselves believed

that the men really possessed them. There was indeed the title of

chief (_todaru_) claimed and also given to them by the people; but

this was not the result of any election or necessarily by inheritance,

it was simply that a certain man claimed to be the possessor of these

powers and succeeded in convincing the people that he really possessed

them.”​[1212] Again, Dr. Brown tells us that in New Britain “a ruling

chief was always supposed to exercise priestly functions, that is,

he professed to be in constant communication with the _tebarans_

(spirits), and through their influence he was enabled to bring rain

or sunshine, fair winds or foul ones, sickness or health, success or

disaster in war, and generally to procure any blessing or curse for

which the applicant was willing to pay a sufficient price. If his

spells did not produce the desired effect he always had a plausible

explanation ready, which was generally accepted as a sufficient excuse.

I think much of the success which these men undoubtedly had was due to

their keen observations of natural phenomena, and to the effects of

fear upon the people.”​[1213] {p341}

[Sidenote: Dr. Turner on the power of the magical disease-makers in

Tana.]

According to Dr. Turner, “The real gods at Tana may be said to be

the disease-makers. It is surprising how these men are dreaded,

and how firm the belief is that they have in their hands the power

of life and death. There are rain-makers and thunder-makers, and

fly and mosquito-makers, and a host of other ‘sacred men,’ but the

disease-makers are the most dreaded. It is believed that these men

can create disease and death by burning what is called _nahak_.

_Nahak_, means rubbish, but principally refuse of food. Everything

of the kind they bury or throw into the sea, lest the disease-makers

should get hold of it. These fellows are always about, and consider

it their special business to pick up and burn, with certain

formalities, anything in the _nahak_ line which comes in their way. If

a disease-maker sees the skin of a banana, for instance, he picks it

up, wraps it in a leaf, and wears it all day hanging round his neck.

The people stare as they see him go along, and say to each other, ‘He

has got something; he will do for somebody by-and-by at night.’ In the

evening he scrapes some bark off a tree, mixes it up with the banana

skin, rolls all up tightly in a leaf in the form of a cigar, and then

puts the one end close enough to the fire to cause it to singe, and

smoulder, and burn away very gradually. Presently he hears a shell

blowing. ‘There,’ he says to his friends, ‘there it is; that is the

man whose rubbish I am now burning, he is ill; let us stop burning,

and see what they bring in the morning.’ When a person is taken ill he

believes that it is occasioned by some one burning his rubbish. Instead

of thinking about medicine, he calls some one to blow a shell, a large

conch or other shell, which, when perforated and blown, can be heard

two or three miles off. The meaning of it is to implore the person

who is supposed to be burning the sick man’s rubbish and causing all

the pain to stop burning; and it is a promise as well that a present

will be taken in the morning. The greater the pain the more they blow

the shell, and when the pain abates they cease, supposing that the

disease-maker has been kind enough to stop burning.” Night after night

the silence is broken by the dismal too-too-tooing of these shells; and

in the morning the friends of the sufferer repair to the disease-maker

with presents of pigs, mats, hatchets, beads, {p342} whales’ teeth, or

suchh like things.​[1214] Thus these sorcerers attain to a position of

immense power and influence and acquire wealth by purely maleficent

magic; it is not by the imaginary benefits which they confer on

the community, but by the imaginary evils which they inflict on

individuals, that they climb the steps of a throne or the ladder that

leads to heaven; for according to Dr. Turner these rascals are on the

highroad to divinity. The process which they employ to accomplish their

ends is a simple application of the principles of contagious magic:

whatever has once been in contact with a person remains in sympathetic

connexion with him always, and harm done to it is therefore harm done

to him. Side by side with the evil which this superstition produces,

on the one hand by inspiring men with baseless terrors, and on the

other by leading them to neglect effectual remedies for real evils, we

must recognise the benefit which it incidentally confers on society by

causing people to clear away and destroy the refuse of their food and

other rubbish, which if suffered to accumulate about their dwellings

might, by polluting the atmosphere, prove a real, not an imaginary

source of disease. In practice, cleanliness based on motives of

superstition may be just as effective for the preservation of health

as if it were founded on the best-ascertained principles of sanitary

science.​[1215]

[Sidenote: Evolution of chiefs or kings out of magicians, especially

out of rain-makers, in Africa.

Power of magicians among the Wambugwe, Wataturu, and Wagogo of East

Africa.

Among the Masai the supreme chief is always a powerful medicine-man.]

Still rising in the scale of culture we come to Africa, where both

the chieftainship and the kingship are fully developed; and here the

evidence for the evolution of the chief out of the magician, and

especially out of the rain-maker, is comparatively plentiful. Thus

among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of East Africa, the original form

of government was a family republic, but the enormous power of the

sorcerers, transmitted by inheritance, soon raised them to the rank

of petty lords or chiefs. Of the three chiefs living in the country

in 1894 two were much dreaded as magicians, and the wealth of cattle

they possessed came to them almost wholly in the shape of presents

bestowed for their services in that capacity. Their principal art

was that of rain-making.​[1216] The chiefs of the Wataturu, another

{p343} people of East Africa, are said to be nothing but sorcerers

destitute of any direct political influence.​[1217] Again, among the

Wagogo of German East Africa the main power of the chiefs, we are

told, is derived from their art of rain-making. If a chief cannot

make rain himself, he must procure it from some one who can.​[1218]

Again, in the powerful Masai nation of the same region the medicine-men

are not uncommonly the chiefs, and the supreme chief of the race is

almost invariably a powerful medicine-man. These _Laibon_, as they are

called, are priests as well as doctors, skilled in interpreting omens

and dreams, in averting ill-luck, and in making rain.​[1219] The head

chief or medicine-man, who has been called the Masai pope,​[1220] is

expected not only to make rain, but to repel and destroy the enemies

of the Masai in war by his magic art.​[1221] The following is Captain

Merker’s account of the Masai pope: “The most prominent clan of the

whole Masai people is the _En gidon_, because to it belong not only

the family of the chief (_ol oiboni_), but also the family of the

magicians. The designation chief is, strictly speaking, not quite

correct, since the chief (_ol oiboni_) does not govern directly and

exercises no real administrative function. He rules only indirectly;

the firm belief of his subjects in his prophetic gifts and in his

supernatural power of sorcery gives him an influence on the destinies

of the people. Despotism and cruelty, such as we find among all negro

rulers, are alien to him. He is not so much a ruler as a national saint

or patriarch. The people speak of his sacred person with shy awe, and

no man dares to appear before this mighty personage without being

summoned. The aim of his policy is to unite and strengthen the Masai.

While he allows free play to the predatory instincts of the warriors

in raids on other tribes, he guards his own people from the scourge of

civil war, to which the ceaseless quarrels of the various districts

with each other would otherwise continually give occasion. This

influence of his is rendered possible by the belief that {p344} victory

can only be achieved through the secret power of the war-medicine which

none but he can compound, and that defeat would infallibly follow if he

were to predict it. Neither he nor his nearest relatives march with the

army to war. He supplies remedies, generally in the shape of magical

medicines, for plagues and sicknesses, and he appoints festivals of

prayer in honour of the Masai god _’Ng ai_. He delivers his predictions

by means of an oracular game like the telling of beads.”​[1222] And

just as Samson’s miraculous strength went from him when his hair was

shorn, so it is believed that the head chief of the Masai would lose

his supernatural powers if his chin were shaved.​[1223] According

to one writer, the Masai pope has never more than one eye: the

father knocks out his son’s eye in order to qualify him for the holy

office.​[1224]

[Sidenote: Among the Nandi of British East Africa the principal

medicine-man is the supreme chief.]

Among the Nandi of British East Africa “the _Orkoiyot_, or principal

medicine man, holds precisely the same position as the Masai

_Ol-oiboni_, that is to say, he is supreme chief of the whole race.” He

is a diviner, and foretells the future by casting stones, inspecting

entrails, interpreting dreams, and prophesying when he is drunk. The

Nandi believe implicitly in his powers. He tells them when to begin

planting their crops: in time of drought he procures rain for them

either directly or by means of the rainmakers: he makes women and

cattle fruitful; and no war-party can expect to be successful if he

has not approved of the foray. His office is hereditary and his person

is usually regarded as absolutely sacred. Nobody may approach him with

weapons in his hand or speak in his presence unless the great man

addresses him; and it is most important that nobody should touch his

head, else it is feared that his powers of divination and so forth

would depart from him. However, one of these sacred pontiffs was

clubbed to death, being held responsible for several public calamities,

to wit, famine, sickness, and defeat in war.​[1225] The Suk and

Turkana, {p345} two other peoples of British East Africa, distinguish

between their chiefs and their medicine-men, who wield great power;

but very often the medicine-man is a chief by virtue of his skill in

medicine or the occult arts.​[1226]

[Sidenote: Rain-makers as chiefs among the tribes of the Upper Nile.

Rain-makers as chiefs among the Latuka.]

Again, among the tribes of the Upper Nile the medicine-men are

generally the chiefs.​[1227] Their authority rests above all upon

their supposed power of making rain, for “rain is the one thing which

matters to the people in those districts, as if it does not come down

at the right time it means untold hardships for the community. It

is therefore small wonder that men more cunning than their fellows

should arrogate to themselves the power of producing it, or that

having gained such a reputation, they should trade on the credulity of

their simpler neighbours.” Hence “most of the chiefs of these tribes

are rainmakers, and enjoy a popularity in proportion to their powers

to give rain to their people at the proper season. . . . Rain-making

chiefs always build their villages on the slopes of a fairly high hill,

as they no doubt know that the hills attract the clouds, and that

they are, therefore, fairly safe in their weather forecasts.” Each of

these rain-makers has a number of rain-stones, such as rock-crystal,

aventurine, and amethyst, which he keeps in a pot. When he wishes to

produce rain he plunges the stones in water, and taking in his hand

a peeled cane, which is split at the top, he beckons with it to the

clouds to come or waves them away in the way they should go, muttering

an incantation the while. Or he pours water and the entrails of a

sheep or goat into a hollow in a stone and then sprinkles the water

towards the sky. Though the chief acquires wealth by the exercise of

his supposed magical powers, he often, perhaps generally, comes to a

violent end; for in time of drought the angry people assemble and kill

him, believing that it is he who prevents the rain from falling. Yet

the office is usually hereditary and passes from father to son. Among

the tribes which cherish these beliefs and observe these customs are

the Latuka, Bari, Laluba, and Lokoiya.​[1228] Thus, {p346} for example,

with regard to the Latuka we are told that “amongst the most important

but also the most dangerous occupations of the greater chiefs is the

procuring of rain for their country. Almost all the greater chiefs

enjoy the reputation of being rainmakers, and the requisite knowledge

usually passes by inheritance from father to son. However, there are

also here and there among the natives persons who, without being

chiefs, busy themselves with rain-making. If there has been no rain in

a district for a long time and the people wish to attract it for the

sake of the sowing, they apply to their chief, bringing him a present

of sheep, goats, or, in urgent cases, cattle or a girl, and if the

present seems to him sufficient he promises to furnish rain; but if it

appears to him too little he asks for more. If some days pass without

rain, it gives the magician an opportunity for claiming fresh presents,

on the ground that the smallness of the offered gifts hinders the

coming of the rain.” When the cupidity of the rain-maker is satisfied,

he goes to work in the usual way, pouring water over two flat stones,

one called the male and the other the female, till they are covered to

a depth of three inches. The “male” stone is a common white quartz; the

“female” is brownish. If still no rain falls, he makes a smoky fire

in the open with certain herbs, and if the smoke mounts straight up,

rain is near. Although an unsuccessful rain-maker is often banished or

killed, his son always succeeds him in the dignity.​[1229] Amongst the

Bari the procedure of the rain-making chief to draw down the water of

heaven is somewhat elaborate. He has many rain-stones, consisting of

rock crystal and pink and green granite. These are deposited in the

hollows of some twenty slabs of gneiss, and across the hollows are

laid numerous iron rods of various shapes and sizes. When rain is to

be made, these iron rods are set up in a perpendicular position, and

water is poured on the crystals and stones. Then the rain-maker takes

up the stones one by one and oils them, praying to his dead father to

send the rain. One of the iron rods is {p347} provided with a hook, and

another is a two-headed spear. With the hook the rain-maker hooks and

attracts the rain-clouds; with the two-headed spear he attacks and

drives them away. In this procedure the prayer to the dead ancestor is

religious, while the rest of the ceremony is magical. Thus, as so often

happens, the savage seeks to compass his object by combining magic with

religion. The logical inconsistency does not trouble him, provided he

attains his end. Further, the rain-maker chief of the Bari is supposed

to be able to make women fruitful. For this purpose he takes an iron

rod with a hollow bulb at each end, in which are small stones. Grasping

the rod by the middle he shakes it over the would-be mother, rattling

the stones and muttering an incantation.​[1230]

[Sidenote: Magical powers of chiefs among the Bongo and Dinkas.]

Again, among the Bongo, a tribe of the same region, the influence of

the chiefs is said to rest in great part on a belief in their magical

powers; for the chief is credited with the knowledge of certain roots,

which are the only means of communicating with the dangerous spirits

of whose mischievous pranks the Bongo stand in great fear.​[1231] In

the Dinka or Denka nation, to the north-east of the Bongo, men who are

supposed to be in close communication with spirits pass for omnipotent;

it is believed that they make rain, conjure away all calamities,

foresee the future, exorcise evil spirits, know all that goes on even

at a distance, have the wild beasts in their service, and can call

down every kind of disaster on their enemies. One of these men became

the richest and most esteemed chief of the Kič tribe through his skill

in ventriloquism. He kept a cage from which the roars of imaginary

lions and the howls of imaginary hyaenas were heard to proceed; and

he gave out that these beasts guarded his house and were ready at his

bidding to rush forth on his enemies. The dread which he infused into

the tribe and its neighbours was incredible; from all sides oxen were

sent to him as presents, so that his herds were the most numerous in

the country. Another of these conjurers in the Tuič tribe had a real

tame {p348} lion and four real fat snakes, which slept in front of his

door, to the great awe of the natives, who could only attribute the

pacific demeanour of these ferocious animals to sorcery.​[1232] But it

does not appear that the real lion inspired nearly so much terror as

the imaginary one; from which we may perhaps infer that among these

people ventriloquism is a more solid basis of political power even than

lion-taming.

[Sidenote: Chiefs and kings as rain-makers in Central Africa.]

In Central Africa, again, the Lendu tribe, to the west of Lake Albert,

firmly believe that certain people possess the power of making rain.

Among them the rain-maker either is a chief or almost invariably

becomes one.​[1233] The Banyoro also have a great respect for the

dispensers of rain, whom they load with a profusion of gifts. The great

dispenser, he who has absolute and uncontrollable power over the rain,

is the king; but he can depute his power to other persons, so that the

benefit may be distributed and the heavenly water laid on over the

various parts of the kingdom.​[1234] A Catholic missionary observes

that “a superstition common to the different peoples of equatorial

Africa attributes to the petty kings of the country the exclusive power

of making the rain to fall; in extreme cases the power is ascribed to

certain kings more privileged than the rest, such as those of Huilla,

Humbé, Varé, Libebé, and others. These kings profit by the superstition

in order to draw to themselves many presents of cattle; for the rain

must fall after the sacrifice of an ox, and if it tarries, the king,

who is never at a loss for excuses to extricate himself from the

scrape, will ascribe the failure to the defects of the victim, and will

seize the pretext to claim more cattle.”​[1235] Among the Ba-Yaka, a

tribe of the Kasai district in the Congo Free State, magicians are

exempt from justice, and the chief is the principal magician;​[1236]

and among the Ba-Yanzi, another {p349} tribe of the same district,

there is, or was a few years ago, a chief who passed for the greatest

magician in the country.​[1237]

[Sidenote: Medicine-men as chiefs in Western Africa.]

In Western as well as in Eastern and Central Africa we meet with the

same union of chiefly with magical functions. Thus in the Fan tribe

the strict distinction between chief and medicine-man does not exist

The chief is also a medicine-man and a smith to boot; for the Fans

esteem the smith’s craft sacred, and none but chiefs may meddle with

it.​[1238] The chiefs of the Ossidinge district in the Cameroons have

as such very little influence over their subjects; but if the chief

happens to be also the fetish-priest, as he generally is among the

Ekois, he has not only powerful influence in all fetish matters (and

most of the vital interests of the people are bound up with fetish

worship), but he also enjoys great authority in general.​[1239] A few

years ago the head chief of Etatin on the Cross River, in Southern

Nigeria, was an old man whom the people had compelled to take office in

order that he should look after the fetishes or jujus and work magic

for the benefit of the community. In accordance with an old custom,

which is binding on the head chief, he was never allowed to leave his

compound, that is, the enclosure in which his house stands. He gave the

following account of himself to an English official, who paid him a

visit: “I have been shut up ten years, but, being an old man, I don’t

miss my freedom. I am the oldest man of the town, and they keep me here

to look after the jujus, and to conduct the rites celebrated when women

are about to give birth to children, and other ceremonies of the same

kind. By the observance and performance of these ceremonies, I bring

game to the hunter, cause the yam crop to be good, bring fish to the

fisherman, and make rain to fall. So they bring me meat, yams, fish,

etc. To make rain, I drink water, and squirt it out, and pray to our

big deities. If I were to go outside this compound, I should fall down

dead on returning to this hut. {p350} My wives cut my hair and nails,

and take great care of the parings.”​[1240]

[Sidenote: Chiefs as rain-makers in Southern Africa.]

As to the relation between the offices of chief and rain-maker in South

Africa a well-informed writer observes: “In very old days the chief

was the great Rain-maker of the tribe. Some chiefs allowed no one else

to compete with them, lest a successful Rain-maker should be chosen as

chief. There was also another reason: the Rain-maker was sure to become

a rich man if he gained a great reputation, and it would manifestly

never do for the chief to allow any one to be too rich. The Rain-maker

exerts tremendous control over the people, and so it would be most

important to keep this function connected with royalty. Tradition

always places the power of making rain as the fundamental glory of

ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems probable that it may have been

the origin of chieftainship. The man who made the rain would naturally

become the chief. In the same way Chaka [the famous Zulu despot]

used to declare that he was the only diviner in the country, for if

he allowed rivals his life would be insecure.”​[1241] These South

African rain-makers smear themselves with mud and sacrifice oxen as an

essential part of the charm; almost everything is thought to turn on

the colour of the beasts. Thus Umbandine, the old king of the Swazies,

had huge herds of cattle of a peculiar colour, which was particularly

well adapted for the production of rain. Hence deputations came to

him from distant tribes praying and bribing him to make rain by the

sacrifice of his cattle; and he used to threaten to “bind up the sky”

if they did not satisfy his demands. The power {p351} which by this

means he wielded was enormous.​[1242] Similarly Mablaan, a chief of the

Bawenda, in the north-eastern corner of the Transvaal, enjoyed a wide

reputation and was revered beyond the limits of his own tribe because

he was credited with the power of rain-making, “a greater power in the

eyes of natives than that of the assegai.” Hence he was constantly

importuned by other chiefs to exercise his power and received valuable

presents of girls, oxen, and red and green beads as inducements to turn

on the heavenly water-tap.​[1243]

[Sidenote: Power of rain-makers among the Matabeles.

The king of the Matabeles as rain-maker.]

Among the Matabeles of South Africa the witch-doctors are supposed to

be on speaking terms with spirits, and their influence is described as

tremendous; in the time of King Lo Bengula some years ago “their power

was as great as, if not greater than, the king’s.”​[1244] Similarly

speaking of the South African tribes in general, Dr. Moffat says that

“the rain-maker is in the estimation of the people no mean personage,

possessing an influence over the minds of the people superior even to

that of the king, who is likewise compelled to yield to the dictates

of this arch-official.”​[1245] In Matabeleland the rainy season falls

in November, December, January, and February. For several weeks

before the rain sets in, the clouds gather in heavy banks, dark and

lowering. Then the king is busy with his magicians compounding potions

of wondrous strength to make the labouring clouds discharge their

pent-up burden on the thirsty earth. He may be seen gazing at every

black cloud, for his people flock from all parts to beg rain from

him, “their rain-maker,” for their parched fields; and they thank and

praise him when a heavy rain has fallen.​[1246] A letter dated from

Bulawayo, the twentieth of November 1880, records that Lo Bengula, king

of the Matabeles, “arrived yesterday evening at his kraal of ‘the

White Rocks.’ He brought with him the rain to his people. For according

to the ideas of the Matabeles, it is the king who ought to ‘make the

rain {p352} and the good season’ in all senses of the word. Now Lo

Bengula had chosen well the day and the hour, for it was in the midst

of a tremendous storm that the king made his solemn entrance into his

capital.” “You must know that the arrival of the king and of the rain

gives rise every year to a little festival. For the rain is the great

benefit conferred by the king, the pledge of future harvests and of

plenty, after eight months of desolating drought.” To bring down the

needed showers the king of the Matabeles boils a magic hell-broth in a

cauldron, which sends up volumes of steam to the blue sky. But to make

assurance doubly sure, he has recourse to religion as well as to magic;

for he sacrifices twelve black oxen to the spirits of his fathers, and

prays to them: “O great spirits of my father and grandfather, I thank

you for having granted last year to my people more wheat than to our

enemies the Mashonas. This year also, in gratitude for the twelve black

oxen which I am about to dedicate to you, make us to be the best-fed

and the strongest people in the world!”​[1247] Thus the king of the

Matabeles acts not only as a magician but as a priest, for he prays and

sacrifices to the spirits of his forefathers.

[Sidenote: Thus in Africa kings have probably often been developed out

of magicians, and especially out of rain-makers.

Kings in Africa punished for drought and dearth.]

The foregoing evidence renders it probable that in Africa the king has

often been developed out of the public magician, and especially out of

the rain-maker. The unbounded fear which the magician inspires and the

wealth which he amasses in the exercise of his profession may both be

supposed to have contributed to his promotion. But if the career of a

magician and especially of a rain-maker offers great rewards to the

successful practitioner of the art, it is beset with many pitfalls into

which the unskilful or unlucky artist may fall. The position of the

public sorcerer is indeed a very precarious one; for where the people

firmly believe that he has it in his power to make the rain to fall,

the sun to shine, and the fruits of the earth to grow, they naturally

impute drought and dearth to his culpable negligence or wilful

obstinacy, and they punish him accordingly. We have seen that in Africa

the chief who fails to procure rain is often exiled or killed.​[1248]

Examples of such punishments could be multiplied. {p353} Thus, in some

parts of West Africa, when prayers and offerings presented to the king

have failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him with ropes and take

him by force to the grave of his forefathers that he may obtain from

them the needed rain.​[1249] The Banjars in West Africa ascribe to

their king the power of causing rain or fine weather. So long as the

weather is fine they load him with presents of grain and cattle. But

if long drought or rain threatens to spoil the crops, they insult and

beat him till the weather changes.​[1250] When the harvest fails or

the surf on the coast is too heavy to allow of fishing, the people of

Loango accuse their king of a “bad heart” and depose him.​[1251] On

the Grain Coast the high priest or fetish king, who bears the title of

Bodio, is responsible for the health of the community, the fertility

of the earth, and the abundance of fish in the sea and rivers; and

if the country suffers in any of these respects the Bodio is deposed

from his office.​[1252] In Ussukuma, a great district on the southern

bank of the Victoria Nyanza, “the rain and locust question is part

and parcel of the Sultan’s government. He, too, must know how to

make rain and drive away the locusts. If he and his medicine-men are

unable to accomplish this, his whole existence is at stake in times of

distress. On a certain occasion, when the rain so greatly desired by

the people did not come, the Sultan was simply driven out (in Ututwa,

near Nassa). The people, in fact, hold that rulers must have power over

Nature and her phenomena.”​[1253] Again, we are told of the natives of

the Nyanza region generally that “they are persuaded that rain only

falls as a result of magic, and the important duty of causing it to

descend devolves on the chief of the tribe. If rain does not come at

the proper time, everybody complains. More than one petty king has

been banished his country because of drought.”​[1254] Similarly {p354}

among the Antimores of Madagascar the chiefs are held responsible for

the operation of the laws of nature. Hence if the land is smitten with

a blight or devastated by clouds of locusts, if the cows yield little

milk, or fatal epidemics rage among the people, the chief is not only

deposed but stripped of his property and banished, because they say

that under a good chief such things ought not to happen.​[1255] So,

too, of the Antaimorona we read that “although the chiefs of this tribe

are chosen by the people, during their tenure of power they enjoy a

respect which borders on adoration; but if a crop of rice fails or

any other calamity happens, they are immediately deposed, sometimes

even killed; and yet their successor is always chosen from the

family.”​[1256] Among the Latukas of the Upper Nile, when the crops are

withering in the fields and all the efforts of the chief to bring down

rain have proved fruitless, the people commonly attack him by night,

rob him of all he possesses, and drive him away. But often they kill

him.​[1257]

[Sidenote: In other parts of the world kings have been punished for

failing to regulate the course of nature.]

In many other parts of the world kings have been expected to regulate

the course of nature for the good of their people and have been

punished if they failed to do so. It appears that the Scythians, when

food was scarce, used to put their king in bonds.​[1258] In ancient

Egypt the sacred kings were blamed for the failure of the crops,​[1259]

but the sacred beasts were also held responsible for the course of

nature. When pestilence and other calamities had fallen on the land, in

consequence of a long and severe drought, the priests took the animals

by night and threatened them, but if the evil did not abate they slew

the beasts.​[1260] On the coral island of Niuē or Savage Island, in the

South Pacific, there formerly reigned a line of kings. But as the kings

were also high priests, and {p355} were supposed to make the food grow,

the people became angry with them in times of scarcity and killed them;

till at last, as one after another was killed, no one would be king,

and the monarchy came to an end.​[1261] Ancient Chinese writers inform

us that in Corea the blame was laid on the king whenever too much or

too little rain fell and the crops did not ripen. Some said that he

must be deposed, others that he must be slain.​[1262] The Chinese

emperor himself is deemed responsible if the drought is at all severe,

and many are the self-condemnatory edicts on this subject published

in the pages of the venerable _Peking Gazette_. In extreme cases the

emperor, clad in humble vestments, sacrifices to heaven and implores

its protection.​[1263] So, too, the kings of Tonquin used to take

blame to themselves when the country was visited by such calamities as

scanty harvests, dearth, floods, destructive hurricanes and cholera.

On these occasions the monarch would sometimes publicly confess his

guilt and impose on himself a penance as a means of appeasing the

wrath of Heaven.​[1264] In former days it sometimes happened that when

the country suffered from drought and dearth the king of Tonquin was

obliged to change his name in the hope that this would turn the weather

to rain. But if the drought continued even after the change of name the

people would sometimes resort to stronger measures and transfer the

title of king from the legitimate monarch to his brother, son, or other

near relation.​[1265]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the North American Indians.]

Among the American Indians the furthest advance towards civilisation

was made under the monarchical and {p356} theocratic governments of

Mexico and Peru; but we know too little of the early history of these

countries to say whether the predecessors of their deified kings were

medicine-men or not. Perhaps a trace of such a succession may be

detected in the oath which the Mexican kings took when they mounted the

throne: they swore that they would make the sun to shine, the clouds

to give rain, the rivers to flow, and the earth to bring forth fruits

in abundance.​[1266] Certainly, in aboriginal America the sorcerer or

medicine-man, surrounded by a halo of mystery and an atmosphere of awe,

was a personage of great influence and importance, and he may well

have developed into a chief or king in many tribes, though positive

evidence of such a development appears to be lacking. Thus Catlin tells

us that in North America the medicine-men “are valued as dignitaries

in the tribe, and the greatest respect is paid to them by the whole

community; not only for their skill in their _materia medica_, but

more especially for their tact in magic and mysteries, in which they

all deal to a very great extent. . . . In all tribes their doctors

are conjurors—are magicians—are sooth-sayers, and I had like to have

said high-priests, inasmuch as they superintend and conduct all their

religious ceremonies; they are looked upon by all as oracles of the

nation. In all councils of war and peace, they have a seat with the

chiefs, are regularly consulted before any public step is taken, and

the greatest deference and respect is paid to their opinions.”​[1267]

Among the Loucheux of North-West America each band is “headed by a

chief and one or more medicine-men. The latter, however, do not possess

any secular power as chiefs, but they acquire an authority by shamanism

to which even the chiefs themselves are subject.” “The Loucheux

are very superstitious, and place implicit faith in the pretended

incantations of their medicine-men, for whom they entertain great fear.

. . . The power of the medicine-men is very great, and they use every

means they can to increase it by working on the fears and credulity of

the people. Their influence exceeds even that of the chiefs. The power

of the {p357} latter consists in the quantity of beads they possess,

their wealth and the means it affords them to work ill to those to

whom they may be evil-disposed; while the power of the medicine-man

consists in the harm they believe he is able to do by shamanism,

should they happen to displease him in any way. It is when sickness

prevails that the conjuror rules supreme; it is then that he fills

his bead bags and increases his riches.”​[1268] Amongst the Tinneh

Indians of the same region “the social standing of a medicine-man is,

on the whole, a desirable one; but it has also its drawbacks and its

dark side. The medicine-man is decidedly influential among his fellow

savages. He is consulted and listened to, on account of the superior

knowledge imparted to him by the spirits. He is feared, on account of

his power to do evil, viz. to cause the death of a person, to ruin

his undertakings, to render him unsuccessful in the hunt by driving

away the game from his path, to cause the loss of his property, of his

strength, of his health, of his faculties, etc. The medicine-man is

rich, because his services, when summoned, or even when accepted though

uncalled for, are generously remunerated. He is respected on account

of his continual intercourse with the supernatural world. His words,

when said in a peculiar low tone, with a momentary glow in the eyes,

which [he] seems able to control at will, or when uttered during his

sleep (real or feigned) are taken as oracles, as the very words of the

spirit. In short, for these tribes who have no chiefs, no religion, no

medical knowledge, he is the nearest approach to a chief, a priest,

and a physician.”​[1269] Similarly in California “the shaman was, and

still is, perhaps the most important individual among the Maidu. In

the absence of any definite system of government, the word of a shaman

has great weight: as a class they are regarded with much awe, and as

a rule are obeyed much more than the chief.”​[1270] As leader of the

local branch {p358} of a secret society the most noted Maidu shaman of

each district was supposed to make rain when it was needed, to ensure

a good crop of edible acorns and a plentiful supply of salmon, and

to drive away evil spirits, disease, and epidemics from the village.

Further, it was his business to inflict disease and death on hostile

villages, which he did by burning certain roots and blowing the smoke

towards the doomed village, while he said, “Over there, over there,

not here! To the other place! Do not come back this way. We are good.

Make those people sick. Kill them, they are bad people.”​[1271] Among

the Yokuts, another tribe of Californian Indians, the rain-makers

exercised great influence. One of them by his insinuating address,

eloquence, and jugglery spread his fame to a distance of two hundred

miles, and cunningly availed himself of two years of drought to levy

contributions far and wide from the trembling Indians, who attributed

to his magic the fall of the rain.​[1272] In the same tribe the wizards

drew large profits from the rattlesnake dance which they danced every

spring, capering about with rattlesnakes twined round their arms; for

after this exhibition many simpletons paid them for complete immunity

from snake-bites, which the wizards were believed able to grant for a

year.​[1273]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the South American Indians.]

In South America also the magicians or medicine-men seem to have been

on the highroad to chieftainship or kingship. One of the earliest

settlers on the coast of Brazil, the Frenchman Thevet, reports that

the Indians “hold these _pages_ (or medicine-men) in such honour and

reverence that they adore, or rather idolise them. You may see the

common folk go to meet them, prostrate themselves, and pray to them,

saying, ‘Grant that I be not ill, that I do not die, neither I nor my

children,’ or some such request. And he answers, ‘You shall not die,

you shall not be ill,’ and such like replies. But sometimes if it

happens that these _pages_ do not tell the truth, and things turn out

otherwise than they predicted, the people make no scruple of killing

them as unworthy of the title and dignity {p359} of _pages_.”​[1274]

The Indians of Brazil, says a modern writer who knew them well, “have

no priests but only magicians, who at the same time use medical help

and exorcism in order to exert influence over the superstition and the

dread of spirits felt by the rude multitude. We may perfectly compare

them with the shamans of the north-eastern Asiatic peoples. But like

the shamans they are not mere magicians, fetish-men, soothsayers,

interpreters of dreams, visionaries, and casters-out of devils; their

activity has also a political character in so far as they influence

the decisions of the leaders and of the community in public business,

and exert a certain authority, more than anybody else, as judges,

sureties, and witnesses in private affairs.”​[1275] Among the Lengua

Indians of the Gran Chaco every clan has its cazique or chief, but he

possesses little authority. In virtue of his office he has to make

many presents, so he seldom grows rich and is generally more shabbily

clad than any of his subjects. “As a matter of fact the magician is

the man who has most power in his hands, and he is accustomed to

receive presents instead of to give them.” It is the magician’s duty

to bring down misfortune and plagues on the enemies of his tribe, and

to guard his own people against hostile magic. For these services he

is well paid and by them he acquires a position of great influence and

authority.​[1276] Among the Indians of Guiana also the magician or

medicine-man (_piai_, _peaiman_) is a personage of great importance. By

his magic art he alone, it is believed, can counteract the machinations

of the great host of evil spirits, to which these savages attribute all

the ills of life. It is almost impossible, we are told, to overestimate

the dreadful sense of constant and unavoidable danger in which the

Indian would live were it not for his trust in the protecting power

of the magician. Every village has one such spiritual guardian, who

is physician, priest, and magician in one. His influence is immense.

No Indian dare refuse him anything he takes a fancy to, {p360} from a

trifle of food up to a man’s wife. Hence these cunning fellows live

in idleness on the fat of the land and acquire a large harem; their

houses are commonly full of women who serve them in the capacity of

beasts of burden as well as of wives, plodding wearily along under

the weight of the baggage on long journeys, while their lord and

master, fantastically tricked out in feathers and paint, strolls

ahead, burdened only with his magic rattle and perhaps his bow and

arrows.​[1277]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the pagan tribes of the Malay

Peninsula.]

Among the wild pagan tribes of the Malay peninsula the connexion

between the offices of magician and chief is very close; indeed the

two offices are often united in the same person. Among these savages,

“as among the Malays, the accredited intermediary between gods and men

is in all cases the medicine-man or sorcerer. In the Semang tribes the

office of chief medicine-man appears to be generally combined with that

of chief, but amongst the Sakai and Jakun these offices are sometimes

separated, and although the chief is almost invariably a medicine-man

of some repute, he is not necessarily the chief medicine-man, any

more than the chief medicine-man is necessarily the administrative

head of the tribe. In both cases there is an unfailing supply of

aspirants to the office, though it may be taken for granted that, all

else being equal, a successful medicine-man would have much the best

prospect of being elected chief, and that in the vast majority of cases

his priestly duties form an important part of a chief’s work. The

medicine-man is, as might be expected, duly credited with supernatural

powers. His tasks are to preside as chief medium at all the ceremonies,

to instruct the youth of the tribe, to ward off as well as to heal all

forms of sickness and trouble, to foretell the future (as affecting the

results of any given act), to avert when necessary the wrath of heaven,

and even when re-embodied after death in the shape of a wild beast, to

extend a benign protection to his devoted descendants. Among the Sakai

and the Jakun he is provided with a distinctive form of dress and {p361}

body-painting, and carries an emblematic wand or staff by virtue of his

office.”​[1278]

[Sidenote: Development of kings out of magicians among the Malays.]

Throughout the Malay region the rajah or king is commonly regarded

with superstitious veneration as the possessor of supernatural powers,

and there are grounds for thinking that he too, like apparently so

many African chiefs, has been developed out of a simple magician. At

the present day the Malays firmly believe that the king possesses a

personal influence over the works of nature, such as the growth of

the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees. The same prolific virtue

is supposed to reside, though in a lesser degree, in his delegates,

and even in the persons of Europeans who chance to have charge of

districts. Thus in Selangor, one of the native states of the Malay

Peninsula, the success or failure of the rice crops is often attributed

to a change of district officers.​[1279] The Toorateyas of southern

Celebes hold that the prosperity of the rice depends on the behaviour

of their princes, and that bad government, by which they mean a

government which does not conform to ancient custom, will result in a

failure of the crops.​[1280]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Dyaks in the power of the rajah to fertilise

the rice.]

The Dyaks of Sarawak believed that their famous English ruler, Rajah

Brooke, was endowed with a certain magical virtue which, if properly

applied, could render the rice-crops abundant. Hence when he visited a

tribe, they used to bring him the seed which they intended to sow next

year, and he fertilised it by shaking over it the women’s necklaces,

which had been previously dipped in a special mixture. And when he

entered a village, the women would wash and bathe his feet, first with

water, and then with the milk of a young coco-nut, and lastly with

water again, and all this water which had touched his person they

preserved for the purpose of distributing it on their farms, believing

that it ensured an abundant harvest. Tribes which were too far {p362}

off for him to visit used to send him a small piece of white cloth and

a little gold or silver, and when these things had been impregnated by

his generative virtue they buried them in their fields, and confidently

expected a heavy crop. Once when a European remarked that the

rice-crops of the Samban tribe were thin, the chief immediately replied

that they could not be otherwise, since Rajah Brooke had never visited

them, and he begged that Mr. Brooke might be induced to visit his tribe

and remove the sterility of their land.​[1281]

[Sidenote: Links between Malay rajahs and magicians.]

Among the Malays the links which unite the king or rajah with the

magician happen to be unusually plain and conspicuous. Thus the

magician shares with the king the privilege of using cloth dyed

yellow, the royal colour; he has considerable political influence,

and he can compel people to address him in ceremonial language, of

which indeed the phraseology is even more copious in its application

to a magician than to a king. Moreover, and this is a fact of great

significance, the Malay magician owns certain insignia which are said

to be exactly analogous to the regalia of the king, and even bear the

very same name (_kabĕsaran_).​[1282] Now the regalia of a Malay king

are not mere jewelled baubles designed to impress the multitude with

the pomp and splendour of royalty; they are regarded as wonder-working

talismans,​[1283] the possession of which carries with it the right to

the throne; if the king loses them, he thereby forfeits the allegiance

of his subjects. It seems, therefore, to be a probable inference that

in the Malay region the regalia of the kings are only the conjuring

apparatus of their predecessors the magicians, and that in this part

of the world accordingly the magician is the humble grub or chrysalis

which in due time bursts and discloses that gorgeous butterfly the

rajah or king.

[Sidenote: In Celebes the regalia are talismans or fetishes, the

possession of which carries with it the right to the throne.]

Nowhere apparently in the Indian Archipelago is this view of the

regalia as the true fount of regal dignity carried to such lengths

as in southern Celebes. Here the royal {p363} authority is supposed

to be in some mysterious fashion embodied in the regalia, while the

princes owe all the power they exercise, and all the respect they

enjoy, to their possession of these precious objects. In short, the

regalia reign, and the princes are merely their representatives. Hence

whoever happens to possess the regalia is regarded by the people as

their lawful king. For example, if a deposed monarch contrives to

keep the regalia, his former subjects remain loyal to him in their

hearts, and look upon his successor as a usurper who is to be obeyed

only in so far as he can exact obedience by force. And on the other

hand, in an insurrection the first aim of the rebels is to seize the

regalia, for if they can only make themselves masters of them, the

authority of the sovereign is gone. In short, the regalia are here

fetishes, which confer a title to the throne and control the fate of

the kingdom. Houses are built for them to dwell in, as if they were

living creatures; furniture, weapons, and even lands are assigned to

them. Like the ark of God, they are carried with the army to battle,

and on various occasions the people propitiate them, as if they were

gods, by prayer and sacrifice and by smearing them with blood. Some of

them serve as instruments of divination, or are brought forth in times

of public disaster for the purpose of staying the evil, whatever it may

be. For example, when plague is rife among men or beasts, or when there

is a prospect of dearth, the Boogineese bring out the regalia, smear

them with buffalo’s blood, and carry them about. For the most part

these fetishes are heirlooms of which the origin is forgotten; some

of them are said to have fallen from heaven. Popular tradition traces

the foundation of the oldest states to the discovery or acquisition of

one of these miraculous objects—it may be a stone, a piece of wood, a

fruit, a weapon, or what not, of a peculiar shape or colour. Often the

original regalia have disappeared in course of time, but their place

is taken by the various articles of property which were bestowed on

them, and to which the people have transferred their pious allegiance.

The oldest dynasties have the most regalia, and the holiest regalia

consist of relics of the bodies of former princes, which are kept in

golden caskets wrapt in silk. At Paloppo, the {p364} capital of Loowoo,

a kingdom on the coast of Celebes, two toy cannons, with barrels like

thin gas-pipes, are regalia; their possession is supposed to render

the town impregnable. Other regalia of this kingdom are veiled from

vulgar eyes in bark-cloth. When a missionary requested to see them, the

official replied that it was strictly forbidden to open the bundle;

were he to do so, the earth would yawn and swallow them up. In Bima the

principal part of the regalia or public talismans consists of a sacred

brown horse, which no man may ride. It is always stabled in the royal

palace. When the animal passes the government fort on high days and

holidays, it is saluted with the fire of five guns; when it is led to

the river to bathe, the royal spear is carried before it, and any man

who does not give way to the beast, or crosses the road in front of it,

has to pay a fine. But the horse is mortal, and when it goes the way of

all horse-flesh, another steed chosen from the same stud reigns in its

place.​[1284]

[Sidenote: Magical virtue of regalia in Egypt and Africa.

Regalia venerated in Cambodia, Scythia, and ancient Greece.]

But if in the Malay region the regalia are essentially wonder-working

talismans or fetishes which the kings appear to have derived from their

predecessors the magicians, we may conjecture that in other parts of

the world the emblems of royalty may at some time have been viewed in a

similar light and have had a similar origin. In ancient Egypt the two

royal crowns, the white and the red, were supposed to be endowed with

magical virtues, indeed to be themselves divinities, embodiments of

the sun god. One text declares: “The white crown is the eye of Horus;

the red crown is the eye of Horus.” Another text speaks of a crown as

a “great magician.” And applied to the image of a god, the crown was

supposed to confirm the deity in the possession of his soul and of his

form.​[1285] Among the Yorubas of West Africa {p365} at the present

time the king’s crown is sacred and is supposed to be the shrine of

a spirit which has to be propitiated. When the king (_Oni_) of Ife

visited Lagos some years ago, he had to sacrifice five sheep to his

crown between Ibadan and Ife, a two days’ journey on foot.​[1286] Among

the Ashantees “the throne or chair of the king or chief is believed

to be inhabited by a spirit to which it is consecrated, and to which

human sacrifices were formerly offered: at present the victims are

sheep. It is the personification of power; hence a king is not a king

and a chief is not a chief until he has been solemnly installed on

the throne.”​[1287] Among the Hos, a Ewe tribe of Togoland in German

West Africa, the king’s proper throne is small and the king does

not sit on it. Usually it is bound round with magic cords and wrapt

up in a sheep’s skin; but from time to time it is taken out of the

wrappings, washed in a stream, and smeared all over with the blood of

a sheep which has been sacrificed for the purpose. The flesh of the

sheep is boiled and a portion of it eaten by every man who has been

present at the ceremony.​[1288] In Cambodia the regalia are regarded

as a palladium on which the existence of the kingdom depends; they

are committed to Brahmans for safe keeping.​[1289] In antiquity the

Scythian kings treasured as sacred a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and

a cup, all of gold, which were said to have fallen from heaven; they

offered great sacrifices to these sacred things at an annual festival;

and if the man in charge of them fell asleep under the open sky, it

was believed that he would die within the year.​[1290] The sceptre

of king Agamemnon, or what passed for such, was worshipped as a god

at Chaeronea; a man acted as priest of the sceptre for a year at a

time, and sacrifices were offered to it daily.​[1291] The golden lamb

of Mycenae, on the possession of which, according to legend, the two

rivals Atreus and Thyestes based their claim to the throne,​[1292] may

have been a royal talisman of this sort. {p366}

[Sidenote: The belief that kings possess magical or supernatural powers

to control the course of nature for the good of their subjects seems to

have been shared by the ancestors of all the Aryan races from India to

Ireland.

Swedish and Danish kings.

Irish kings.

Magical virtue attributed to the chiefs of the Macleods.]

The belief that kings possess magical or supernatural powers by virtue

of which they can fertilise the earth and confer other benefits on

their subjects would seem to have been shared by the ancestors of all

the Aryan races from India to Ireland, and it has left clear traces

of itself in our own country down to modern times. Thus the ancient

Hindoo law-book called _The Laws of Manu_ describes as follows the

effects of a good king’s reign: “In that country where the king avoids

taking the property of mortal sinners, men are born in due time and

are long-lived. And the crops of the husbandmen spring up, each as

it was sown, and the children die not, and no misshaped offspring is

born.”​[1293] In Homeric Greece kings and chiefs were spoken of as

sacred or divine; their houses, too, were divine and their chariots

sacred;​[1294] and it was thought that the reign of a good king caused

the black earth to bring forth wheat and barley, the trees to be loaded

with fruit, the flocks to multiply, and the sea to yield fish.​[1295]

A Greek historian of a much later age tells us that in the reign of a

very bad king of Lydia the country suffered from drought, for which

he would seem to have held the king responsible.​[1296] There is a

tradition that once when the land of the Edonians in Thrace bore no

fruit, the god Dionysus intimated to the people that its fertility

could be restored by putting their king Lycurgus to death. So they

took him to Mount Pangaeum and there caused him to be torn in pieces

by horses.​[1297] When the crops failed, the Burgundians used to blame

their kings and depose them.​[1298] In the time of the Swedish king

Domalde a mighty famine broke out, which lasted several years, and

could be stayed by the blood neither of beasts nor of men. Therefore,

in a great popular {p367} assembly held at Upsala, the chiefs decided

that King Domalde himself was the cause of the scarcity and must be

sacrificed for good seasons. So they slew him and smeared with his

blood the altars of the gods. Again, we are told that the Swedes

always attributed good or bad crops to their kings as the cause. Now,

in the reign of King Olaf, there came dear times and famine, and the

people thought that the fault was the king’s, because he was sparing

in his sacrifices. So, mustering an army, they marched against him,

surrounded his dwelling, and burned him in it, “giving him to Odin as a

sacrifice for good crops.”​[1299] In the Middle Ages, when Waldemar I.,

King of Denmark, travelled in Germany, mothers brought their infants

and husbandmen their seed for him to lay his hands on, thinking that

children would both thrive the better for the royal touch, and for a

like reason farmers asked him to throw the seed for them.​[1300] It

was the belief of the ancient Irish that when their kings observed the

customs of their ancestors, the seasons were mild, the crops plentiful,

the cattle fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, and the fruit trees

had to be propped up on account of the weight of their produce. A canon

attributed to St. Patrick enumerates among the blessings that attend

the reign of a just king “fine weather, calm seas, crops abundant, and

trees laden with fruit.” On the other hand, dearth, dryness of cows,

blight of fruit, and scarcity of corn were regarded as infallible

proofs that the reigning king was bad. For example, in the reign of the

usurper king Carbery Kinncat, “evil was the state of Ireland: fruitless

her corn, for there used to be only one grain on the stalk; fruitless

her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used

to be {p368} but one acorn on the stalk.”​[1301] Superstitions of the

same sort seem to have lingered in the Highlands of Scotland down to

the eighteenth century; for when Dr. Johnson travelled in Skye it

was still held that the return of the laird to Dunvegan, after any

considerable absence, produced a plentiful capture of herring.​[1302]

The laird of Dunvegan is chief of the clan of the Macleods, and his

family still owns a banner which is called “Macleods Fairy Banner,” on

account of the supernatural powers ascribed to it. When it is unfurled,

victory in war attends it, and it relieves its followers from imminent

danger. But these virtues it can exert only thrice, and already it has

been twice unfurled. When the potato crop failed, many of the common

people desired that the magical banner should be displayed, apparently

in the belief that the mere sight of it would produce a fine crop of

potatoes. Every woman with child who sees it is taken with premature

labour, and every cow casts her calf.​[1303]

[Sidenote: A relic of this belief is the notion that English kings can

heal scrofula by their touch.

Charles II. touching for the king’s evil (scrofula).

English kings touching for scrofula.]

Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions which lingered about our

English kings was the notion that they could heal scrofula by their

touch. The disease was accordingly known as the King’s Evil. Queen

Elizabeth often exercised this miraculous gift of healing. On Midsummer

Day 1633, Charles the First cured a hundred patients at one swoop in

the chapel royal at Holyrood.​[1304] But it was under his son Charles

the Second that the practice seems to have attained its highest vogue.

In this respect the Merry Monarch did not let the grass grow under his

feet. It was the twenty-ninth of May 1660 when he was brought home in

triumph from exile amid a shouting multitude and a forest of brandished

swords, over roads strewed with flowers and through streets hung with

tapestry, while the fountains ran wine and all the bells of London

rang for joy. And it was on the sixth of July that he began to touch

for the King’s {p369} Evil. The ceremony is thus described by Evelyn,

who may have witnessed it. “His Majestie began first to _touch for

y^e evil_, according to costome, thus: His Ma^{tie} sitting under his

state in the Banquetting House, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be

brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, y^e King strokes

their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant

a chaplaine in his formalities says, ‘He put his hands upon them and

he healed them.’ This is sayd to everyone in particular. When they

have been all touch’d they come up again in the same order, and the

other chaplaine kneeling, and having angel gold strung on white ribbon

on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Ma^{tie}, who puts them

about the necks of the touched as they pass, whilst the first chaplaine

repeats, ‘That is y^e true light who came into y^e world.’ Then follows

an Epistle (as at first a Gospell) with the liturgy, prayers for the

sick, with some alteration, lastly y^e blessing; and then the Lo.

Chamberlaine and the Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer

and towell, for his Majesty to wash.”​[1305] Pepys witnessed the same

ceremony at the same place on the thirteenth of April in the following

year and he has recorded his opinion that it was “an ugly office and a

simple.”​[1306] It is said that in the course of his reign Charles the

Second touched near a hundred thousand persons for scrofula. The press

to get near him was sometimes terrific. On one occasion six or seven

of those who came to be healed were trampled to death. While the hope

of a miraculous cure attracted the pious and sanguine, the certainty

of receiving angel gold attracted the needy and avaricious, and it

was not always easy for the royal surgeons to distinguish between the

motives of the applicants. This solemn mummery cost the state little

less than ten thousand pounds a year. The cool-headed William the

Third contemptuously refused to lend himself to the hocus-pocus; and

when his palace was besieged by the usual unsavoury crowd, he ordered

them to be turned away {p370} with a dole. On the only occasion when

he was importuned into laying his hand on a patient, he said to him,

“God give you better health and more sense.” However, the practice was

continued, as might have been expected, by the dull bigot James the

Second​[1307] and his dull daughter Queen Anne. In his childhood Dr.

Johnson was touched for scrofula by the queen, and he always retained

a faint but solemn recollection of her as of a lady in diamonds with a

long black hood.​[1308] To judge by the too faithful picture which his

biographer has drawn of the doctor’s appearance in later life we may

conclude that the touch of the queen’s hand was not a perfect remedy

for the disorder; perhaps the stream of divine grace which had flowed

so copiously in the veins of Charles the Second had been dried up by

the interposition of the sceptical William.

[Sidenote: Other kings and chiefs have claimed to heal diseases by a

touch.]

The kings of France also claimed to possess the same gift of healing

by touch, which they are said to have derived from Clovis or from

St. Louis, while our English kings inherited it from Edward the

Confessor.​[1309] We may suspect that these estimates of the antiquity

of the gift were far too modest, and that the barbarous, nay savage,

predecessors both of the Saxon and of the Merovingian kings had with

the same justice claimed the same powers many ages before. Down to the

nineteenth century the West African tribe of the Walos, in Senegal,

ascribed to their royal family a like power of healing by touch.

Mothers have been seen to bring their sick children to the queen, who

touched them solemnly with her foot on the back, the stomach, the

head, and the legs, after which the women departed in peace, convinced

that {p371} their children had been made whole.​[1310] Similarly the

savage chiefs of Tonga were believed to heal scrofula and cases of

indurated liver by the touch of their feet; and the cure was strictly

homoeopathic, for the disease as well as the cure was thought to be

caused by contact with the royal person or with anything that belonged

to it.​[1311] In fact royal personages in the Pacific and elsewhere

have been supposed to live in a sort of atmosphere highly charged with

what we may call spiritual electricity, which, if it blasts all who

intrude into its charmed circle, has happily also the gift of making

them whole again by a touch.​[1312] We may conjecture that similar

views prevailed in ancient times as to the predecessors of our English

monarchs, and that accordingly scrofula received its name of the King’s

Evil from the belief that it was caused as well as cured by contact

with a king.​[1313] In Loango palsy is called the king’s disease,

because the negroes imagine it to be heaven’s punishment for treason

meditated against the king.​[1314]

[Sidenote: On the whole kings seem to have been often evolved out

of magicians, but in course of time to have exchanged magical for

religious functions, in other words, to have become priests instead of

sorcerers.]

On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in inferring that in

many parts of the world the king is the lineal successor of the old

magician or medicine-man. When once a special class of sorcerers

has been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the

discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are believed

to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power, till their

leaders blossom out into sacred kings. But the great social revolution

which thus begins with democracy and ends in despotism is attended

by an intellectual revolution which affects both the conception and

the functions of royalty. {p372} For as time goes on, the fallacy of

magic becomes more and more apparent to the acuter minds and is slowly

displaced by religion; in other words, the magician gives way to the

priest, who renouncing the attempt to control directly the processes

of nature for the good of man, seeks to attain the same end indirectly

by appealing to the gods to do for him what he no longer fancies he

can do for himself. Hence the king, starting as a magician, tends

gradually to exchange the practice of magic for the priestly functions

of prayer and sacrifice. And while the distinction between the human

and the divine is still imperfectly drawn, it is often imagined that

men may themselves attain to godhead, not merely after their death,

but in their lifetime, through the temporary or permanent possession

of their whole nature by a great and powerful spirit. No class of the

community has benefited so much as kings by this belief in the possible

incarnation of a god in human form. The doctrine of that incarnation,

and with it the theory of the divinity of kings in the strict sense of

the word, will form the subject of the following chapter.

{p373}