_THE SAVAGE RACES OF ASIA: THE SAMOJEDES; THE MONGOLS; THE OSTIAKS; IN
TIBET._
THE SAMOJEDES.
The Samojedes are a people of Arctic Asia, where they inhabit the forests
and stony tundras of Northern Russia and Western Siberia; driving their
herds of reindeer from the banks of the Chatanga to the ice-bound shores
of the White Sea, or hunting the wild beasts in the thick forests which
extend between the Obi and the Yenisei.
Their superstition is of a very coarse and degrading character. It is true
that they recognise the existence of a Supreme Deity, named
Jilibeambaertje, or Num, who resides in the air, and, like the Greek Zeus,
sends down rain and snow, thunder and lightning; and they afford a proof
of that latent capacity for poetical feeling, which some of even the most
barbarous tribes possess, in their description of the rainbow as “the hem
of his garment.” To them, however, he seems so elevated above the things
of earth, so indifferent to the woes or joys of humanity, that they regard
it as useless to seek to propitiate him either by prayer or sacrifice; and
accordingly they appeal to the inferior gods who have, as they believe,
the control of human affairs, and can be affected by incantations, vows,
or special homage.
The bleak and lonely island of Waigatz is still, as in the days of the
Dutch adventurer, Barentz, supposed to be the residence of the chief of
these minor divinities. There a block of stone, pointed at the summit,
bears a certain resemblance to a human head, having been wrought into
this likeness by a freak of Nature. The Samojede image-makers have taken
it for their model, and multiplied it in wood and stone; and the idols
thus easily manufactured they call _sjadæi_, because they wear a human (or
semi-human) countenance (_sja._) They attire them in reindeer skins, and
embellish them with innumerable coloured rags. In addition to the
_sjadæi_, they adopt as idols any curiously contorted tree or irregularly
shapen stone; and the household idol (_Hahe_) they carry about with them,
carefully wrapped up, in a sledge reserved for the purpose, the
_hahengan_. One of the said Penates is supposed to be the guardian of
wedded happiness, another of the fishery, a third of the health of his
worshippers, a fourth of their herds of reindeer. When his services are
needed, the Hahe is removed from its resting-place, and erected in the
tent or on the pasture-ground, in the wood, or on the river’s bank. Then
his mouth is smeared with oil or blood, and before him is set a dish of
fish or flesh, in return for which repast it is expected that he will use
his power on behalf of his entertainers. When his aid is no longer needed,
he is returned to the hahengan.
Besides these obliging deities, the Samojede believes in the existence of
an order of invisible spirits which he calls _Tadebtsois_. These are ever
and everywhere around him, and bent rather upon his injury than his
welfare. It becomes important, therefore, to propitiate them; but this can
be done only through the intervention of a _Tadibe_, or sorcerer; who, on
occasion, stimulates himself into a wildly excited condition, like the
frenzy of the Pythean or Delphic priestess. When the credulous Samojede
invokes his assistance, he attires himself in full necromantic costume: a
kind of shirt, made of reindeer leather; and trimmed with red cloth. Its
seams are similarly trimmed; and the shoulders are decorated with red
cloth tags, or epaulettes. A visor of red cloth conceals his face, and
upon his breast gleams a plate of polished metal.
Thus imposingly arrayed, the Tadibe takes his drum of reindeer skin,
ornamented with brass rings, and, attended by a neophyte, walks round and
round with singular stateliness, while invoking the presence of the
spirits by a discordant rattle. This gradually increases in violence, and
is accompanied by the droning incantation of the words of enchantment. In
due time the spirits are supposed to appear, and the Tadibe proceeds to
consult them: beating his drum more gently, and occasionally pausing in
his lugubrious chant,--which, however, the novice is careful not to
interrupt,--to listen, as he pretends, to the answers of the deities. At
length the interrogations cease; the chant breaks into a fierce howl; more
and more loudly rattles the drum: the Tadibe appears possessed by a
supernatural influence; his body writhes; the foam-drops gather on his
lips. All at once the wild intoxication ceases; and the Tadibe delivers
the supposed will of the Tadebtsois: advises how a stray reindeer may be
recovered, or the disease of the Samojede worshipper relieved, or the
fisherman’s labour may secure a plenteous “harvest of the sea.”
The Tadibe’s office is usually hereditary; but occasionally some outsider,
predisposed by nature to hysteric manifestations, and gifted with a warm,
irregular imagination, is initiated into its mysteries. His morbid fancy
is intensified by long solitary self-communings and protracted fasts and
vigils; and his frame debilitated by the use of pernicious narcotics and
stimulants, until he comes to believe that he has been visited by the
spirits. He is then received as a Tadibe, with numerous ceremonies, which
take place at midnight, and is invested with the magic drum. It is
evident, therefore, that the Tadibe, if he deceive others, is the victim
to some extent of self-deception. But, in order to impose upon his
ignorant countrymen, he does not disdain to resort to the commonest cheats
of the conjuror. Among these is the notorious rope-trick, introduced into
England by the performers known as the “Davenport Brothers,” and since
repeated by so many “professional artists.” With hands and feet to all
appearance securely fastened, he sits down on a carpet of reindeer skin,
and, the lights being put out, summons the spirits to his assistance.
Their presence is speedily made known by singular noises; squirrels seem
to rustle, snakes to hiss, bears to growl. At length the disturbance
ceases; the lights are rekindled; and the Tadibe steps forward unbound;
the spectators of course believing that he has been assisted by the
Tadebtsois.
Not less barbarous than the poor creatures who submit to his guidance,
the Tadibe is incapable, and probably not desirous, of improving their
moral condition. Similar impostors, claiming and exercising a similar
spiritual dictatorship,--_Schamans_, as the Tungusi call them, _Angekoks_
among the Eskimos, _Medicine-men_ among the Crees and Chepewyans,--we find
among all the Arctic tribes of the Old and New World, where their
authority has not been overthrown by Christianity or Buddhism; and this
dreary superstition still prevails over at least half a million of souls,
from the White Sea to the extremity of Asia, and from the Pacific to
Hudson’s Bay.
Like the peoples of Siberia, the Samojedes offer up sacrifices to the
dead, and perform various ceremonies in their honour. Like the North
American Indians, they believe that the desires and pursuits of the
departed continue exactly the same as if they were still living; and
hence, that they may not be in want of weapons or implements, they deposit
in or about the graves a sledge, a spear, a knife, an axe, a cooking-pot.
At the funeral, and for several years afterwards, the kinsmen sacrifice
reindeer over the grave.
When a chief or Starochina dies,--the owner, it may be, of several herds
of reindeer,--his nearest relatives fashion an image, which is kept in the
tent of the deceased, and receives the same measure of respect that was
paid to the man himself in his lifetime. At every meal it occupies his
accustomed seat; every evening it is solemnly undressed, and duly laid
down in his bed. For three years these honours are regularly paid; after
which the image is buried, in a belief that the body must by that time
have decayed, and lost all recollection of the past. Only the souls of the
Tadibes, and of those who have died a violent death, are in the enjoyment
of immortality, and hover about the air as disembodied spirits.
THE OSTIAKS.
Further to the east, and occupying the northernmost part of Siberia from
the Oural Mountains to Kamtschatka, are the Ostiaks.
The Russians have imposed upon this people the Christian religion, as
taught by the Greek Church; but it seems probable that the majority adhere
in secret to their heathen creed. Madame Felinska, a Polish lady, who for
some years lived in exile in Siberia, relates that, one day, when she was
seeking a pathway through a wood, she came upon a couple of Ostiaks, on
the point of performing their devotions. These are certainly of a much
simpler kind than the rites enjoined by the Greek Church: the worshipper
simply places himself before a tree--he appears to prefer the larch--in
some sequestered forest-nook, and performs in rapid succession the most
extravagant contortions and gestures. As the practice is prohibited by the
Russian Government, it is necessarily made a matter of secresy.
An Ostiak generally carries about him a rude image of one of the deities
or demons which he adores under the name of Schaïtan; but he conforms to
Russian customs by wearing a small crucifix of copper on his breast. The
Schaïtan is a rude imitation of the human figure, carved in wood. It is of
different sizes, according to the uses for which it is intended; if for
wearing on the person, it is a miniature doll; but as part of the
furniture of an Ostiak’s hut it is made on a large scale. It is always
attired in seven pearl-broidered chemises, and suspended to the neck by a
string of silver coins. In every hut it fills the place of
honour,--sometimes in company with an image of the Virgin Mary or some
Russian saint; and when they sit down to their meals, the Ostiaks are
careful to offer it the daintiest morsels, smearing its lips with fish or
raw game; this sacred duty fulfilled, they attack with eagerness the
viands set before them.
The Ostiak priests are called _Schamans_. Their influence is very great,
but is wholly employed in the promotion of their own selfish interests,
through the encouragement of the basest superstitions.
WEATHER-CONJURING AMONG THE MONGOLS.
There are many allusions in Mongol history to the practice of
weather-conjuring. The operation was performed by means of a stone
supposed to be endowed with magical virtues, called _Yadah_ or _Jadah
Tásh_; this was suspended over or hung in a basin of water with sundry
ceremonies. Ibn Mohalhal, an early Arab traveller, asserts that the
_Kímák_, a great tribe of the Turks, possessed such a stone. In the war
waged against Chinghiz and Aung Khan by a powerful tribal confederation in
1202, it is recorded that Sengun, the son of Aung Khan, who had been
despatched to arrest the enemy’s advance, caused them to be enchanted, so
that all the movements they attempted against him were defeated by dense
mists and blinding snow-storms. So thick was the mist, so intense was the
darkness, that men and horses stumbled over precipices, and many also
perished with cold.
The celebrated conqueror, Timur, in his _Memoirs_, records that the Jets
resorted to incantations to produce heavy rains which hindered his cavalry
from acting against them. A _Yadachi_, or weather-conjuror, was taken
prisoner, and after he had been beheaded the storm ceased.
Babu refers to one of his early friends, Khwaja ka Mulai, as conspicuous
for his skill in falconry and his knowledge of _Yadageri_, or the science
of inducing rain and snow by means of enchantment. The Russians were much
distressed by heavy rains in 1552, when besieging Kazan, and universally
ascribed the unfavourable weather to the arts of the Tartar queen, who was
an enchantress.
Early in the 18th century, the Emperor Shi-tsung issued a proclamation
against rain-conjuring, addressed to the Eight Banners of Mongolia. “If,”
indignantly observes the Emperor, “if I, offering prayers in sincerity,
have yet cause to fear that it may please heaven to leave MY prayer
unanswered, it is truly intolerable that mere common people wishing for
rain should of their own fancy set up altars of earth; and bring together
a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taossi to conjure the spirits to
gratify their wishes.”
The belief in the efficacy of weather-conjuring prevailed all over Europe.
In the _Cento Novelle Antiche_, certain necromancers gave specimens of
their skill before the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa; and the weather began
to be overcast; and lo, of a sudden rain fell with continued thunders and
lightnings, as if the world were come to an end, and hailstones of the
size and appearance of steel caps.
IN TIBET.
Marco Polo, describing his visit to the Kaan’s Palace at Chandu, once
known as Kaipingfu, speaks of the immense stud of pure white mares which
the Kaan kept there, and adds:--“When the Kaan sets out from the Park on
the 28th of August, the milk of all those mares is taken and sprinkled on
the ground. And this is done on the injunction of the Idolaters and
Idol-priests, who affirm that it is an excellent thing to sprinkle that
milk on the ground every 28th of August, so that the Earth and the Air and
the False Gods shall have their share of it, and likewise the spirits that
inhabit the Air and the Earth. And then those beings will protect and
bless the Kaan and his children and his wives and his folk and his gear,
and his cattle and his horses, his corn and all that is his.”
Marco Polo proceeds:--“But I must now tell you a strange thing which
hitherto I have forgotten to mention. During the three months of every
year that the Emperor resides at that place, if it should happen to be bad
weather, there are enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such
adepts in necromancy and diabolic arts, that they are able to prevent any
cloud or storm from passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s Palace
stands. The sorcerers who do this are called Tebet and Kesimar, which are
the names of two nations of idolaters. Whatever they do in this way is by
the help of the Devil, but they make those people believe that it is
compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of GOD....
“There is another marvel performed by those Bacsi of whom I have been
speaking as knowing so many enchantments. For when the great Kaan is at
his capital and in his great palace, seated at his table, which stands on
a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are set before him
on a great buffet in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance of
some ten paces from the table, and filled with wine, or other good spiced
liquor such as they use. Now when the Kaan desires to drink, these
enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the cups to move from
their place without being touched by anybody, and to present themselves to
the Emperor! This every one present may witness, and there are oftentimes
more than ten thousand persons thus present. ’Tis a truth and no lie! and
so will tell you the sages of our own country who understand necromancy,
for they also can perform it.”
On the occasion of one of these Idol Festivals, the Bacsi would go to the
Prince and say:--“Sire, the feast of such a god is come.” And he would
continue:--“My Lord, you know that this god, when he gets no offering,
always sends bad weather and spoils our seasons. So we pray you to give us
such and such a number of black-faced sheep,” (naming any number they
please). “And we beg also, good my Lord, that we may have such a quantity
of incense, and such a quantity of lign-aloes, and”--so much of this or so
much of that, according to the measure of their cupidity or the
probability of their expectations being gratified--“that we may perform a
solemn service and a great sacrifice to our Idols, and that so they may be
induced to protect us and all our property.”
When the Bacsi have obtained from the Kaan the fulfilment of their
desires, they make a great feast in honour of their god, and hold great
ceremonies of worship with grand illuminations and quantities of incense
of a variety of odours, which they make up from different aromatic spices.
And when the viands are cooked, they set them before the idols, and
sprinkle the bush about, affirming that in this way the idols obtain a
sufficiency. Thus it is that they keep their festivals. Each idol, we must
add, has a name of his own, and a feast-day, just as the Saints of the
Christian Church have their anniversaries.
Large minsters and abbeys are theirs, some of them of the size of a small
town, with upwards of 2,000 monks in a single abbey. These monks dress
more decorously than the rest of the people, and have the head and the
beard shaven. Among them a limited number are, by their rule, allowed to
marry.
Another kind of devotees were called the Seusin, men of extraordinary
abstemiousness, who led a life of extreme endurance. Their sole food was
bran mixed with hot water, so that one might call their lives a prolonged
fast. They had numerous idols, and idols of a monstrous size, but they
also worshipped fire. Idolaters not belonging to this sect naturally
called them “heretics,” on the old principle that “my doxy” is
“orthodoxy,” and “your doxy” “heterodoxy.” Their dresses were made of
hempen stuff, black and blue, and they slept upon mats. In fact, says
Marco Polo, “their asceticism is something remarkable.”
* * * * *
Chandu, or Xanadu, and its palace, suggested to Coleridge one of his most
exquisite passages of description:--
“In Xanadu did Kubla Kaan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
By caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground,
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests, ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.”
Xanadu has disappeared, and so has its palace, but the superstitions
practised in it are still in vogue among the Mongolian peoples. The word
“Bakhshi,” however, has come to have a different meaning in different
districts; among the Kirghiz Kazzaks it is applied, as Marco Polo applied
it, to a conjuror or medicine-man; among the modern Mongols it signifies
“a teacher,” and is bestowed on the oldest and most learned priest of a
community; in Western Turkestan it means “a bard;” in our Indian army it
is “a paymaster.”
The jugglery of the goblets, to which Marco Polo refers, was not uncommon
in Mediæval Europe. Colonel Yule cites[37] the Jesuit Delrio as lamenting
the credulity of certain princes, otherwise of pious repute, who allowed
diabolic tricks to be played in their presence; as for instance that
things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, should be
moved by bounds from one end of a table to the other, without the use of a
magnet or of any attachment. The pious prince appears to have been Charles
IX., and the conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. In old legends this
trick is one of the sorceries ascribed to Simon Magus. “He made statues to
walk; leapt into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread
of stones; changed his shape; assumed two faces at once,”--an
accomplishment not confined to conjurors,--“converted himself into a
pillar; caused closed doors to fly open of their own will; and made the
vessels in a house seem to move of themselves.”
Colonel Yule asserts that the profession and practice of exorcism and
magic in general is much more prominent in Lamaism, or Tibetan Buddhism,
than in any other known form of that religion. “Indeed,” he says, “the old
form of Lamaism, as it existed in Marco Polo’s day, and till the reforms
of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and as it is still professed by the _Red_ sect
in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian Buddhism and the
old indigenous Shamanism. Even the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect
recognises an orthodox kind of magic, which is due in great measure to the
combination of Sivaism with the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the
institutes are contained in the vast collection of the _Jud_ or Tantras,
recognised among the holy books. The magic arts of this code open even a
short road to the Buddhahood itself. To attain that perfection of power
and wisdom culminating in the cessation of sensible existence, requires,
according to the ordinary paths, a period of three _asankhyas_ (or say
Unaccountable Time × 3), whereas by means of the magic arts of the
_Tantras_, it may be reached in the course of three _rebirths_ only, nay,
of one! But from the Tantras also can be learned how to acquire miraculous
powers for objects entirely selfish and secular, and how to exercise these
by means of _Dhárani_, or mystic Indian charms.”
The commonplace and vulgar exhibition of such exploits as blowing fire,
cutting off heads, and swallowing knives, is formally repudiated by the
orthodox Yellow Lamas; but as the crowd cannot be satisfied without them,
each of the great Yellow Lama monasteries in Tibet maintains a conjuror,
as of old each European sovereign kept his jester. This conjuror is not a
member of the monastic fraternity, and lives in a particular part of the
convent, out of the atmosphere of their sanctity. He is called _Choicong_,
or protector of religion, and is free to marry. The Choicong hand down
their magic lore from generation to generation orally, and by their cries
and howls, and their frenzied gestures, and their fantastic dress, are
connected with the Shamanist devil dancers.
Magic seems to have always borne the same character in every country. The
marvels accomplished by the Indian mystic charms, or _Dhárani_, are
exactly those which the Mediæval magicians of Europe professed to achieve.
To make water flow backwards, to resuscitate the dead, to fly through the
air, to read a man’s inmost thoughts, these were the wonders done by Simon
Magus in his day, and by Albertus Magnus and his followers in their day;
and form what may be called the ordinary stock-in-trade of the old
necromancers. The Bakhshis included them in their series of performances.
“There are certain men,” says Ricold, “whom the Tartars honour above all
in the world, viz., the _Baxitæ_, (or _Bakhshis_), who are a kind of idol
priests. These are men from India, persons of deep wisdom, well conducted,
and of the gravest morals. They are usually acquainted with magic arts,
and depend on the counsel and aid of demons; they exhibit many illusions,
and predict some future events. For instance, one of eminence among them
was said to fly; the truth however was (as it proved) that he did not fly,
but did walk close to the surface of the ground without touching it; and
would seem to sit down without having any substance to support him.” Ibn
Batuta describes a performance of this kind as witnessed by him at Delhi,
in the presence of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak. Francis Valentyn, at a later
date, speaks of it as common in India. He was told, he says, that a man
would first go and sit upon three sticks which had been so put together as
to form a tripod, after which, first one stick, then a second, then a
third would be removed from under him, and yet the man would not fall, but
would remain suspended in the air. He could not bring himself to believe
it, so manifestly contrary was it to reason, yet he had spoken with two
friends who had both seen it done on the same occasion, and one of them
mistrusting his own eyes, had felt about with a long stick to ascertain if
there were not something on which the body rested, but could discover
nought.
Superstition, like history, repeats itself,--some of the marvels with
which the Lama conjurors and the Tartar Bakhshis deluded their people are
repeated by the spiritualistic “mediums,” of the present day and put
forward by them as the credentials of their pretended mission.
They fall short, however, of the extraordinary feats performed by the
professional jugglers who laid no claim to a religious character, if we
may credit the accounts of the early travellers. Ibn Batuta, for instance,
gravely describes what he saw, or thought he saw, at a great entertainment
given by the Viceroy of Khansa:--
A juggler, he says, one of the Kaan’s slaves, made his appearance, and at
the Amir’s bidding, began to display his surprising accomplishments.
Taking a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs
were passed, he laid hold of one of these, and slung the ball into the
air. It went so high, that the spectators wholly lost sight of it.
Observe, that the scene was the palace-court, _sub Jove_. There remained
only a little of the end of the thong in the juggler’s hand, and of this
he desired a juvenile assistant to lay hold, and mount. He did so,
climbing by the thong, and was speedily lost to sight also. The conjuror
called him thrice, but receiving no answer, snatched up a knife, as if in
a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and in _his_ turn disappeared.
By-and-by he threw down one of the boy’s hands, then a foot, then the
other hand, the other foot, the trunk, and lastly, the head! Finally, he
himself came down, all puffing and panting, and with blood-besmeared
clothes kissed the ground before the Amir, addressing him in Chinese. The
Amir made some reply; and straightway the juggler took the boy’s _disjecta
membra_, laid them in their places, gave a kick, and lo and behold, the
boy arose and stood erect, “clothed and in his right mind.” “All this,”
says Ibn Batuta, “astonished me beyond measure,”--and no wonder!--“and I
had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in
the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the
same kind. They gave me a cordial, however, which cured the attack. The
Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, ‘Wallah! ’tis my opinion
there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither maiming nor
mending; ’tis all hocus pocus!’”
Impartial scientific observers have passed a similar verdict on the
proceedings of the “mediums,” who, however, have never achieved anything
so surprising as the feat here recorded. Before we incredulously reject
the Arab traveller’s narrative, let us compare it with an account
furnished by Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances
of some Chinese conjurors, which he saw at Batavia. Passing over the
basket-murder trick, which Houdin and others have made familiar to the
English public, we come to “a thing which surpasses all belief;” which,
indeed, Mr. Melton would scarcely have ventured to relate had not
thousands witnessed it at the same time as himself.
One of the gang took a ball of cord, and grasping one end in his hand
hurled the other up into the air with such force that it was entirely lost
to sight. He then climbed up the cord as rapidly as a sailor up his ship’s
rigging, and to such a height that he became invisible. Melton stood full
of astonishment, and at a loss to know what next would happen; when,
behold, a leg tumbled out of the air! A conjuror who was on the watch for
it immediately snatched it up, and threw it into a basket. Down came a
hand, and then another leg, and, in short, all the members of the body
successively fell from the air, to find shelter in the basket. The last of
the ghastly shower was the head; and no sooner had it touched the ground
than the man who had gathered the limbs and stowed them in the basket,
turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Straightway they began to creep
together, until they composed a whole man, who stood up and walked about
just as before, having sustained apparently no damage! “Never in my life,”
says Melton, “was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful
performance, and I doubted now no longer that those misguided men did it
by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such
things should be accomplished by natural means.”[38]
The Emperor Jahángir in his “Memoirs” (cited by Yule) describes the
exploits of some Bengali jugglers, who exhibited before him. Two of them
bear a close resemblance to the foregoing. Thus: they produced a man whom
they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the body.
These mutilated members they scattered along the ground, where they
remained for some time. A sheet or curtain was extended over the spot, and
one of the men placing himself under it, in a few minutes reappeared, in
company with the individual supposed to have been so roughly dissected, in
such perfect health and condition, that one might have safely sworn he had
never received the slightest wound or injury.
Again: they produced a chain, fifty cubits long, and one end of it threw
towards the sky, when it remained as if fastened to something in the air.
A dog was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the
chain, ran up it to the other end, and immediately vanished. In the same
manner a boy, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the
chain to disappear, in their turn, at the other end of it. And, lastly,
the chain was taken down and put away in a bag, without any of the
spectators discovering in what manner the different animals had been
spirited into space!
The surprising dexterity of these jugglers is emulated by their
descendants, and many of the Indian conjurors produce illusions scarcely
less wonderful than any we have described.
Take the pretty mango-trick. The juggler who exhibits has no other drapery
than half a yard of cotton, and no other apparatus than a handful of
common toys. He has none of those elaborate mechanical contrivances, on
which the European professors of legerdemain mostly rely for their
effects.
He takes a mango-stone, buries it in a little mud, and covers it with a
jar.
A few minutes later, the jar is lifted up; and lo, a tender green
seed-leaf has delicately sprouted. Another peep into the magic hotbed, and
we see that the tiny leaf has withered, and that a flourishing young tree
has sprung into sudden existence.
Or we have the egg-trick, which an eye-witness thus describes:--[39]
“One of the party, a very handsome woman, fixed on her head a fillet of
strong texture, to which were fastened, at equal distances, twenty pieces
of string of equal length, with a common noose at the end of each. Under
her arm she carried a basket, in which were carefully deposited twenty
eggs. Her basket, the fillet, and the nooses were carefully examined by
us. There was evidently no deception.
“The woman advanced alone, and stood before us. She then began to move
rapidly round on one spot, whence she never for one instant moved,
spinning round and round like a top.
“When her pace was at its height, she drew down one of the strings, which
now flew horizontally round her head, and, securing an egg in the noose,
she jerked it back to its original position, still twirling round with
undiminished velocity, and repeating the process until she had secured the
whole twenty eggs in the nooses previously prepared for them. She
projected them rapidly from her hand the moment she had secured them,
until at length the whole twenty were flying round her in an unbroken
circle. Thus she continued spinning at undiminished speed for fully five
minutes; after which, taking the eggs one by one from their nooses, she
replaced them in her basket; and then in one instant stopped, without the
movement of a limb, or even the vibration of a muscle, as if she had been
suddenly transformed into marble. The countenance was perfectly calm, nor
did she exhibit the slightest distress from her extraordinary exertions.”
The basket-murder trick, to which we have already referred, is as
follows:--
The juggler stepping forward, invites your examination of a light wicker
basket, and when you profess yourself satisfied, he places it over a
child, about eight years old, who is perfectly naked. He then asks the
child some indifferent question, and you hear her reply to it from the
basket. Question and answer are repeated frequently, each time in a louder
and more impassioned manner, until the juggler, in a seeming fit of rage,
threatens to kill the girl, who vainly supplicates for mercy.
The dramatic character of the scene is as perfect in its realism as it is
horrible. The man plants his foot furiously on the frail basket, and
plunges his sword into it again and again, while the ears of the
spectators are rent and their hearts touched by the child’s cries of
agony. For a moment it is impossible to believe that you are witnessing a
deception, as you listen to the passionate shrieks and watch the man’s
furious face. Blood flows in a stream from the basket, and by degrees the
groans of the victim grow fainter and fainter, until all is hushed in a
silence so intense that you hear your heart beat. You are about to rush on
the murderer, and inflict summary punishment, when he mutters a few
cabalistic words, takes up the basket, and shows you--only a little
blood-stained earth; while the child, you know not how or whence, has come
to mingle with the crowd, and ask for baksheesh.
Two simpler exploits may be recorded:--
Taking a large, wide-mouthed, earthen vessel, filled with water, the
conjuror turns it upside down, and, of course, the contents run out.
He then reverses the jar, which to your amazement is seen to be perfectly
full, while all the earth round about is--dry! The jar is again emptied,
and submitted to the inspection of the spectators. He asks you to fill it
to the brim; after which he reverses it: not a drop of water flows, and
yet when you look into it, it is perfectly empty. At last the conjuror
breaks the jar by way of a practical demonstration of the fact that it is
made of common earthenware.
A large basket is produced: the conjuror raises it, and a Pariah dog
appears crouching on the ground. The basket-cover is replaced; and a
second examination shows you a bitch with a litter of seven puppies. A
goat, a pig, and various other animals, come forth in due time from this
inexhaustible cornucopia.
All these exploits are performed by a single exhibitor, who stands quite
alone, and at a distance of several feet from the crowd, so that collusion
with confederates would seem to be impossible.