THE MAGIC ART.
Words of Power called Mantra are committed to memory and used for
various purposes. Jugglers utter them to raise a magic veil over the
eyes of the spectators, and sorcerers to detect thefts, to induce love,
to remove spells to cure possession and to inflict disease or death.
Mantra are uttered to keep away animals. Elephants are frightened by
"Om sri jâtâ hârê bhâvatu arahan situ." A dog takes to its heels when
the following is muttered thrice over the hand and stretched towards
it "Om namô budungê pâvâdê bat kâpu ballâ kikki kukkâ nam tô situ. Om
buddha namas saka situ."
As a preventive against harmful influences, a thread spun by a virgin,
and rubbed with turmeric is charmed over charcoal and resin-smoke
and tied round one's arm, waist or neck, having as many knots as the
number of the times the charm has been repeated.
Amulets (yantra) made of five kinds of metal (gold, silver, copper,
brass, iron) are similarly worn for avoiding evil and these are either
pentacle shaped, crescent shaped or cylindrical enclosing a charmed
ola leaf, charmed oil or charmed pills.
To win a girl's affections the lover has only to rub a charmed
vegetable paste over his face and show himself to the girl, or give
her to eat a charmed preparation of peacock's liver, honey and herbs
or make her chew a charmed betel leaf, or sprinkle on her some charmed
oil, or wear a charmed thread taken from her dress.
To detect a theft, a cocoanut is charmed, attached to a stick and
placed where a thief has made his escape, and while the operator holds
it he is led along to the thief's house. Persons suspected of theft are
made to stand with bared backs round an ash plantain tree and as it is
struck with a charmed creeper, the culprit gets an ashy streak on his
back. They are also asked to touch a charmed fowl in turn and the fowl
begins to crow as soon as the thief touches its body. The names of the
suspected persons are sometimes written on slips of paper and placed on
the ground with a cowrie shell opposite each slip, and as soon as the
mantra is uttered the shell opposite the thief's name begins to move.
Charmed branches are hung up by hunters and wayfarers near dangerous
spots. If charmed slaked lime be secretly rubbed on the lintel of a
man's house before he starts out shooting, he will not kill any bird,
and if rubbed on the threshold he will not kill any fourfooted animal.
A person under the influence of a charm is taken to a banyan tree
with his hair wrapped round the head of a cock; the hair is cut off
with a mantra, the bird nailed to the tree and the patient cured.
The charm known as Pilli is used to inflict immediate death; the
sorcerer procures a dead body of a child, animal, bird, reptile or
insect and goes at dawn, noon or midnight to a lonely spot where
three roads meet or to a grave yard and lying on his back utters a
mantra; the dead body becomes animated and it is given the name of
the intended victim with directions to inflict on him a fatal wound:
to stab, strangle, bite or sting him.
The charm called Angama causes the victim to throw up blood and it
affects within seven hours; the sorcerer takes some article that the
intended victim had worn or touched, goes to a lonely spot, charms it
and touches the victim, or fans him with it or stretches it towards
him, or keeps it in the hand and looks at his face or blows so that
the breath may light on him or leaves it in some accessible place
that it may be picked up by him.
The charm known as the Huniama is frequently practised and it
takes effect within intervals varying from a day to several years;
the sorcerer makes an image to represent the intended victim; nails
made of five kinds of metal are fixed at each joint, and the victim's
name written on a leaf, or a lock of his hair, or a nail paring, or a
thread from his dress inserted in its body; the image is charmed and
buried where the victim has to pass and if he does so, he falls ill
with swelling, with stiffness of joints, with a burning sensation in
his body or with paralysis.
A Pilli or Angama charm can be warded off if the victim himself be a
sorcerer when by a counter charm he can direct the operator himself
to be killed or injured.
A Huniama charm can be nullified by getting a sorcerer either to cut
some charmed lime fruits which have come in contact with the patient
or to slit with an arekanut cutter a charmed coil of creepers placed
round the patient's neck, shoulders and anklets or to keep a charmed
pumpkin gourd on the sorcerer's chest while lying on his back and
making the patient cut it in two with a bill hook, the parts being
thrown into the sea or a stream; or to break up a charmed waxen figure
and throw the pieces into boiling oil.