_WALKING THROUGH FIRE_
Perhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the head of
'Magic,' though in many cases the rite of passing through fire is
sanctioned by religion, and the immunity of the performers is explained
by the protection of gods. The immunity is really the curious feature.
Mr. Frazer describes the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring,
connected as it is with the widespread custom of 'renewing the fire'
at a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who must fast
for three days and observe chastity for a week; while they are taught
in the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which
is to be laid upon them. 'The fire is made in an enormous brazier of
charcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide.' The fire is gratified with salt
and rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest. Further, 'two exorcists,
barefooted, and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and
again till it is somewhat beaten down.' The procession of performers
then walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity is ascribed
to the horny consistency of the soles of their feet, and they suffer
if the fire touches their ankles.[1] Various Indian examples are given
by Mr. Frazer. Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from the
'sensational,' and thought that only girls with tender soles were
likely to suffer. A case is also quoted from Strabo, women being the
performers, and the instance of the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.[2]
Mr. Frazer is interested mainly in the religious, magical, or ritual
significance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me, on
the other hand, the immunity of the performers appears a subject worthy
of physiological inquiry.
The subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folklore, law, and
early religion, and yet nobody has thought it worth while to collect
the ancient reports and to compare them with well-authenticated modern
examples. In Mr. Tylor's celebrated work, 'Primitive Culture,' only one
or two casual allusions are made to the theme. 'They built the high
places of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons
and daughters to pass through to Moloch,' that is to pass through the
fire, 'whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.'[3] As a supposed
rite of purification the ceremony is again touched upon lightly.[4]
Again: 'The ancient ceremony of passing through a fire, or leaping over
burning brands, has been kept up vigorously in the British Isles,'[5]
namely, at the midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to
jump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would guess that a rite
of passing deliberately, and unscathed, through ovens or furnaces yet
exists in Japan, Bulgaria, the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India,
Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no
doubt, in other regions.
We must distinguish between such sportive playing with fire as
prevailed recently in our isles and the more serious Fire Ceremony
of Central Australia, which tests endurance on the one hand, and
the apparent contravention of a natural law on the other. Again, we
must discount the popular reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged
into molten metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen
to be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once more, the
theory of the application of some unknown chemical substance must be
rejected, because, as we shall prove, there are certainly cases in
which nothing of the kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted
with no substance--alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like--which
will produce the result of preventing cauterisation.[6] Sir William
Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science.
His evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I
understand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis
of a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some
such transparent trick.[7] Perhaps he adds a little 'hallucination' on
the part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of
the question in the cases which I am about to quote.
Home was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed
with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious
contemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through
her clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an
hour.[8] Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they 'meditate' on some
divine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares
of Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more
or less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent
in the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples, in which also no
kind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are
concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon, as in
the Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the sole of the boot would
be scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected;
next, the savages' feet were _not_ leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers);
thirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga
declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus
every known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity
fails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained,
or a good conjectural, 'reason why' for the phenomena.
I shall begin with the most recent and the best authenticated cases,
and work back in time, and in civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known
lexicographer of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately
sent me the twenty-ninth number of 'The Journal of the Polynesian
Society,' March 1899, Wellington, N.Z. Professors Max Müller and
Sayce were Honorary Members of the Society, which studies Polynesian
languages, customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright,
truth-telling character of the British official, who is the narrator of
his own experiment. As the journal is not widely circulated in England,
I quote the whole of the brief report.