I. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
As knowledge increases, mankind learns more and more about the world and the processes of nature, but even at the present day the vast majority of white men possess only a rudimentary amount of this knowledge; indeed, most so-called educated people have very vague ideas concerning the physical universe in which they live. Such being the case, it is not surprising that primitive peoples have very confused notions concerning these matters, and, as the result of false inductions concerning the causes of phenomena, they seek to accomplish ends by means that we recognise as inadequate. ‘It is plain,’ as Dr. Jevons points out ([36, 33]), ‘that as long as man is turned loose as it were amongst these innumerable possible causes with nothing to guide his choice, the chances against his making the right selection are considerable.’ Further, ‘no progress could be made in science until man had distinguished, at any rate roughly, possible from absolutely impossible effects (or causes), and had learned to dismiss from consideration the impossible. It might be expected that experience would suffice of itself to teach man this essential distinction, but the vast majority of the human race have not yet learned from experience that like does not necessarily produce like: four-fifths of mankind, probably, believe in sympathetic magic.’
The instances of sympathetic magic as Dr. Hirn points out ([32, 278]) are naturally divided into two main classes which, broadly speaking, correspond to the two types of association, contiguity and similarity, and as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether a given associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given superstition is to be assigned. We will start from the facts that are simpler and easier to explain.
A. Contagious Magic.
1. Sympathetic Magic based on a material connection between things ([32, 279]) has been aptly termed by Dr. Frazer ([21, 77]) Contagious Magic. All over the world we meet with examples of the belief that objects which were once related to one another retain their connection though they may be separated, and whatever may happen to one part or object the other part or object is similarly affected; thus, by acting upon a part of a given whole we may influence the whole as well as all its other parts.
This belief explains why a magician, wishing to influence or act upon some particular individual, desires to obtain some portion of his body or something actually connected with him. A few hairs from the beard, a lock of hair, some nail-parings, a drop of blood from the nose which has fallen to the ground, and which has not been rendered impalpable by effacing it with the foot, are used by Basuto sorcerers ([10, 277]), and indeed by workers of magic everywhere. A few of the examples collected by Mr. Hartland ([30, ii. 66]) will suffice to demonstrate the universality of this belief. In some parts of England a girl forsaken by her lover is advised to get a lock of his hair and boil it; whilst it is simmering in the pot he will have no rest. In certain parts of Germany and Transylvania the clippings of the hair or nails, as well as broken pieces of the teeth, are buried beneath the elder tree which grows in the courtyard, or are burnt, or carefully hidden, for fear of witches. Patagonians burn the hairs brushed out from their heads, and all the parings of their nails for they believe that spells may be wrought upon them by any one who can obtain a piece of either.
The potency of the hair is shown in the beliefs about the long narrow beaded band which is used to tie up the hair of a Musquakie woman ([56, 96, 7]). This, though a talisman when first worn, becomes something infinitely more sacred and precious, being transfused with the essence of her soul; any one gaining possession of it has her for an abject slave if he keeps it, and kills her if he destroys it. A woman will go from a man she loves to a man she hates if he has contrived to possess himself of her hair-string; and a man will forsake wife and children for a witch who has touched his lips with her hair-string. The hair-string is made for a girl by her mother or grandmother and decorated with ‘luck’ patterns; it is also prayed over by the maker and a shaman. The scalp-lock ornament worn by the Musquakie men is kept with great care as it helps to protect the soul. As the tearing out of the scalp-lock makes the soul at its root the slave of the one obtaining it, so the possession of its ornament and shield, which has absorbed some of its essence, gives the possessor the ability to send the rightful owner brain fever and madness ([56, 106]).
In the South Sea Islands it was necessary to the success of any sorcery to secure something connected with the body of the victim. Accordingly a spittoon was always carried by the confidential servant of a chief in the Hawaiian Islands to receive his expectorations, which were carefully buried every morning. The Tahitians used to burn or bury the hair they cut off, and every individual among them had his distinct basket for food. As Mr. Hartland points out ([30, ii. 76]), the custom, everywhere practised, of obliterating all trace of the saliva after spitting, doubtless originated in the desire to prevent the use of it for magical purposes, and the same desire led to the extreme cleanliness in the disposal of fouler excreta which is almost universally a characteristic of savages. Thus this belief has been one of the most beneficial of superstitions.
Luck-bags of red cloth, which contain ‘the four things of good fortune,’ are made by witches in Italy ([43, 287]), who while sewing it sing an incantation. American Negroes brought over from West Africa the art of making ‘luck-balls’ or ‘cunjerin’ bags,’ a practice which is kept up to the present day. They are supposed to bring happiness and success in everything the owner undertakes; one made for Charles G. Leland, at the instigation of Miss Owen ([57, 173]), contained, in addition to knotted threads, a piece of foil to represent the brightness of the little spirit that was going to be in the ball, a leaf of clover in the place of the hair of the one that is going to own the ball, and some dust which was designed to blind the eyes of enemies. Miss Owen got the same man, Alexander, the King of the Voodoos, who made the ball for Mr. Leland, to make one for me, and she informed me that ‘it was made just like Mr. Leland’s with the same words and with the same materials, excepting the clover. This is not the season for clover, so a fragment of paper, torn from one of your books, represents you.’
It is not essential that the object to be operated upon should have formed an actual part of a person, for something associated with that person, such as something habitually worn or used, is sufficient, or as in the case of the luck-ball just cited, the association may be as remote as that between an author and a piece of the paper of a book he has published.
Earth from a man’s footprints, on account of its close contact with the person, has acquired the virtues of a portion of his body. Widely spread in Germany is the belief that if a sod whereon a man has trodden—all the better if with the naked foot—be taken up and dried behind the hearth or oven, he will parch up with it and languish, or his foot will be withered. He will be lamed, or even killed, by sticking his footprint with nails—coffin nails are the best—or broken glass ([30, ii. 78]); but these are also the practices of Australian or other savages. To quote only one example from Australia ([34, 26]), sharp fragments of quartz, glass, bone, or charcoal are buried in the footprints of the victim or in the mark made in the ground by his reclining body. They are supposed to enter the victim, and rheumatic affections are very frequently attributed to them.
Clothes, from their intimate association with the person, have naturally attained a prominent place among the instruments of witchcraft. In Germany and Denmark no portion of a survivor’s clothing must on any account be put upon a corpse, else the owner will languish away as it moulders in the grave. To hang rags from the clothing of a dead man upon a vine is to render it barren. ‘Probably,’ as Mr. Hartland suggests, ‘it is only a different interpretation of the same belief which alike in Christian, in Mohammedan, and in Buddhist lands has led to the ascription of marvellous powers to the clothes and other relics of departed saints. The divine power which was immanent in these personages during life attaches not merely to every portion of their bodies but to every shred of their apparel’ ([30, ii. 90]). An illustrative parallel can be taken from the Pacific. The red feathers which adorned the sacred girdle worn by the Tahitian kings were taken from the images of the gods. The girdle ‘thus became sacred, even as the person of the gods, the feathers being supposed to retain all the dreadful attributes of power and vengeance which the idols possessed, and with which it was designed to endow the king.’ So potent was it that Mr. Ellis says ([17, iii. 108]) it ‘not only raised him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with their gods.’
It is conceivable, as Mr. Hartland suggests ([30, ii. 214]), that uneducated folk might argue thus: if an article of my clothing in a witch’s hands may cause me to suffer, the same article in contact with a beneficent power may relieve pain, restore me to health, or promote my general prosperity. Hence the practice of throwing pins into wells, of tying rags on bushes and trees, of driving nails into trees and stocks, of throwing stones and sticks on cairns, and the analogous practices throughout the world, suggest that they are to be interpreted as acts of ceremonial union with the spirit identified with well, tree, stock, or cairn ([30, ii. 228]). In the British Islands the sanctity of the well or bush was subsequently annexed by the missionaries who took up their abode beside them, and thus we find the wells or trees called after certain saints and the healing power attributed to the latter, whereas the holiness and efficacy of the wells were in the vast majority of cases, if not in all, pre-Christian ([27, 383]).
Objects are worn or eaten so that by induction the individual may acquire their properties. Thus the Red Indian hunter ([70, 131]) wears ornaments of the claws of the grizzly bear, that he may be endowed with its courage and ferocity, and the Tyrolese hunter still wears tufts of eagle’s down in his hat, to gain the eagle’s keen sight and courage. ‘Look,’ writes Casalis ([10, 271]), ‘at those strange objects hanging from the necks of our little black friends. There is a kite’s foot in order that the poor child may escape misfortune with the swiftness of the kite in its flight. Another has the claw of a lion in order that his life may be as firmly secured against all danger as that of a lion; a third is adorned with the tarsus bone of a sheep, or an iron ring, that he may oppose to evil a resistance as firm as iron, or as that little compact bone without marrow which could not be crushed between two stones without difficulty.’
The eating of certain kinds of food, more especially of the flesh of animals, would similarly have a very potent effect; thus among the Dyaks ([65, i. 176]), young men sometimes abstain from eating the flesh of deer, lest they should become timid. The Abipones of Paraguay ([14, 258]) ‘detest the thought of eating hens, eggs, sheep, fish, or tortoises, imagining that these tender kinds of food engender sloth and languor in their bodies and cowardice in their minds. On the other hand they eagerly devour the flesh of the tiger [jaguar], bull, stag, boar, anta and tamandua [ant-eaters], having an idea that, from continually feeding on these animals, their strength, boldness, and courage are increased.’
Belief in contagious magic leads quite logically to various revolting practices. In Torres Straits the sweat of renowned warriors was drunk by young men, who also ate mixed with their food the scrapings from the finger-nails of the warriors which had become saturated with human blood in order ‘to make strong and like a stone; no afraid’ ([29, v. 301]). The eyes and tongue of a freshly killed enemy were frequently torn out and given to lads to make them brave and fearless. The Australian natives believe that a man’s fat and his strength and vitality are connected, therefore the wasting of the body and disease are the result of the absence of fat, perhaps to be followed by death. By eating a man’s fat, and thus making it part of himself, the black fellow thinks that he also acquires the strength of the deceased. So also they think that human fat brings success in hunting, causes spears which are anointed with it to fly true, or the club to strike irresistible blows. The possession of human fat is, therefore, much desired by these aborigines, especially those who feel age or disease, or who wish to be successful in the magical arts, for it is believed that the spirit of the dead man whose fat has been used will help the charm to act ([35, 411, 361]). Cannibalism for magical purposes of this sort has probably been extremely common and is possibly at the base of a good deal of anthropophagy.
Very widely spread is the belief that close relatives or even friends are bound together in a sympathetic relation, which is especially manifest on important occasions or at critical times. When a Land Dyak village has turned out for a wild-pig hunt in the jungle, those who remain at home may not touch water or oil with their hands during the absence of their friends, lest the hunters should all become ‘butter-fingered,’ and the prey so escape them ([60, i. 430]). It is also recorded from Borneo that when men are on a war expedition, fires are lighted at home, the mats are spread, and the fires kept up till late in the evening and lighted again before dawn, so that the men may not be cold; the roofing of the house is opened before dawn, so that the men may not lie too long and so fall into the enemies’ hands ([60, ii. 104]). Again when a Dyak is out head-hunting, his wife, or, if he is unmarried, his sister, must wear a sword day and night, in order that he may be always thinking of his weapons; and she may not sleep during the day nor go to bed before two in the morning, lest her husband or brother should thereby be surprised in his sleep by an enemy ([20, i. 30]). Similar instances could easily be multiplied indefinitely from various savage countries, but even in Europe there are not lacking records of a real sympathy between husband and wife, where the former suffers from certain characteristic ailments of the latter ([59, 240]). There is a very widely spread series of customs based upon the belief that the father and his unborn or newly born child are in such sympathetic relationship that the former has to take all sorts of precautions lest his offspring should in any way be injured. The extreme form this custom takes is for the newly made father to take to his bed and be specially dieted; this occurs in many places, but notably in the East Indian Archipelago and in South America. The custom, which is known as the Couvade, is subject to many modifications, which have been tabulated and discussed by Mr. H. Ling Roth ([59, 204]). Among the Land Dyaks of Borneo the husband of a pregnant woman, until the time of her delivery, may not do work with any sharp instrument, except what may be absolutely necessary for the cultivation of his farm; he may not tie things together with rattans, or strike animals, or fire guns, or do anything of a violent character for fear of injuring the child. Often the men must abstain from certain food lest it should affect the child; thus in Guiana partaking of the Agouti would make the child meagre, or eating a labba would make the infant’s mouth protrude like the labba’s, or make it spotted like the labba, which spots would ultimately become ulcers ([59, 220]). Thus the father is frequently debarred from performing many of the usually unconsidered daily acts, lest they should affect the welfare of a child that is newly born or is about to be born; and there is the curious development of the belief of an occult reaction of the expected child on the father, affecting, to take one example, his success in fishing ([59, 234]).
B. Homœopathic Magic.
2. When man first began to think about the world around him he must have noted (what he, in common with other animals, had unconsciously acted upon in the past) that day and night and the seasons arrived in regular succession, the same stars rose and set, an animal reproduced its own kind, in fact that there was a uniformity in nature. But side by side with these natural sequences there were irregularities. Some days were shorter than others, some were bright, others cloudy, the length and character of the seasons varied from year to year, some stars had a course in the heavens independent of the majority. Again, he might early have noticed that many of these fluctuations in sunshine and rain, in heat and cold, affected him directly or indirectly by influencing vegetation. We need not be surprised, therefore, if he came to the conclusion that it would be better for him if he exerted himself to regulate matters somewhat, but then the difficulty would arise, what was he to do?
The unenlightened mind does not discriminate between cause and effect, and imagines that as like produces like, so a result can be attained by imitating it. Hence arose Mimetic or Symbolic Magic, which, following Dr. Hirn, is better termed Homœopathic Magic, which is occult influence based upon a likeness between things ([32, 282]). On this was founded the mediæval medical theory known as the Doctrine of Signatures, which supposes that plants and minerals indicate by their external characters the diseases which nature intended them to remedy.
It would be easy to give a large number of examples to illustrate homœopathic magic, but a few will suffice. Thus the Euphrasia, or eye-bright, was, and is, supposed to be good for the eyes, on the strength of a black pupil-like spot in its corolla ([70, 123]). The yellow turmeric, or saffron, cured jaundice. The roots of roses or their slips, with their knots removed and set amongst broom, will bring forth yellow roses ([47, x. 70]).
The influence of homœopathic magic can be traced in beliefs and practices from the lowest savages to civilised nations. The magician who works by similarities makes representations of things or beings, in order to acquire an influence over them. By dramatic or pictorial imitation heavenly bodies are influenced, rain is made, plants and animals are increased, animals enticed to their destruction, human beings acted upon.
When it was wished to cause rain to fall in Murray Island, Torres Straits, the rain-maker scooped a hole in the ground, and lined it with leaves and placed in it a rude stone image of a man which had previously been anointed with oil and rubbed with scented grass; then he poured the decoction of minced leaves of various plants mixed with water over the image—the image being so laid in the hole as to point to the quarter from which the rain was expected. Earth was heaped over the image and leaves and shells placed on the mound, and all the while the rain-maker muttered an incantation in a low sepulchral tone. Four large screens composed of plaited coco-nut leaves were placed at the head, foot, and sides of the grave to represent clouds; on the upper part of each was fastened a blackened oblong of vegetable cloth to mimic a black thunder-cloud, and coco-nut leaves, with their leaflets pointing downwards, were suspended close by to represent rain. A torch was ignited and waved lengthwise over the grave; the smoke represented clouds and the flames mimicked lightning, and a bamboo clapper was sounded to imitate thunder.
The rain was supposed to come when the decoction round the image was rotten. The incantation consisted of enumerating various aspects of certain forms of clouds. Rain could be made in this manner only by one section of the community, and amongst these one or two men had a much greater reputation than the others ([29, vi.]).
This may be taken as an example of a typical rain-making ceremony, in which all the phenomena of a thunder shower are imitated.
If a native of Mabuiag, in Torres Straits, required rain he went to the rain-maker and asked him to make some. The latter might reply, ‘You go and put some more thatch on your house and on mine too’; this was to keep out the forthcoming rain. The rain-maker painted the front of his body white, and the back black. This was explained by my informant thus: ‘All along same as clouds, black behind, white he go first,’ or he painted his body with black spots to make the clouds come separately; when they congregated, the rain fell. The rain-maker put ‘medicine’ in his right hand and waved it towards his body and chanted an incantation. To stop the rain the rain-maker put red paint on the crown of his head, to represent the shining sun, and ruddled his body all over. He then lay doubled up and was closely surrounded with three mats, so that no wind could penetrate to him. Finally he burnt some leaves on the sea-shore close to the water, on a rising tide; the smoke represented the clouds, and as it was dissipated so they disappeared, and as the encroaching sea washed away the ashes, so the clouds were scattered ([29, v. 350]).
In the island of Muralug certain old men could raise a wind by very rapidly whirling a thin bull-roarer attached to a long string. More wind could be obtained by climbing to the top of a tree and performing there. In this case the noise made by the bull-roarer imitated that produced by a gale of wind ([29, v. 352]).
Examples of the magical increase of plants are found in the ‘yam stones’ placed in their gardens by various Papuans, which by their rounded shape suggest the actual tubers ([28, 202]; [29, vi.]).
The following instances are culled from that treasury of folk custom and belief—The Golden Bough. In Thüringen the man who sows flax carries the seed in a long bag which reaches from his shoulders to his knees, and he walks with long strides, so that the bag sways to and fro on his back. It is believed that this will cause the flax to wave in the wind. In the interior of Sumatra rice is sown by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down their back, in order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and have long stalks. It is commonly believed in Germany and Austria that leaping high in the fields will make the flax or hemp grow tall. A Bavarian sower, in sowing wheat, will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that the corn may have a fine yellow colour ([20, i. 35, 36]).
As references are given on [pp. 41-44] to magical practices for the increase of animals, further examples need not be added here, their object being to provide plenty of food for the community. It was for the same reason that images of fish, turtle, and dugong were made by the islanders of Torres Straits and taken with them when they went fishing, with the idea that the image lured the real animal to its destruction; and men of the dugong clan who were symbolically decorated made mimetic movements with a dead dugong to constrain others to come and be caught ([29, v. 337, 182, and vi.]).
The same people used to carve small human effigies out of thin slabs of wood and coat them with beeswax, or the images were made entirely of beeswax. These figures were treated in various ways for nefarious magic, but always the first action was to call them by the names of the persons who were to be affected by them. If the magician pulled an arm or a leg off the image, the patient felt sore in the corresponding limb, and became ill, and eventually died in great pain; should the magician restore the dismembered limb, the patient would recover. If a magician pricked with the spine of a sting ray an image that had been named, the person indicated would be stung in the same place by a sting ray when he went fishing on the reef ([29, v. 324]). Analogous customs are to this day practised in Britain. The first example comes from Ross-shire ([48, 373]). The corp creagh is a body of clay rudely shaped into the image of a person whose hurt is desired. After a tolerably correct representation is obtained, it is stuck all over with pins and thorns and placed in a running stream. As the image is worn away by the action of the water the victim also wastes away with some mortal disease. The more pins that are stuck in from time to time the more excruciating agony the victim suffers. Should, however, any wayfarer discover the corp in the stream, the spell is broken and the victim duly recovers. From Argyleshire we learn ([49, 144]) that a long incantation was used as the pins were being put in the clay image, the beginning of which was something to this effect: ‘As you waste away, may —— waste away; as this wounds you, may it wound ——.’ When it was desired that the person should die a lingering death, care was taken that the pins should not touch where the heart was supposed to be; but when a speedy death was desired, the pins were stuck over the region of the heart. Actual instances of the employment of the corp chrè or corp chreadh, clay body or clay corpse (as Dr. Maclagan calls it), are given by the two authors last cited, one of which occurred about the year 1899. This practice is merely the continuance of old customs, for ‘King James in his Dæmonology, says that “the devil teacheth how to make pictures of wax or clay, that by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness”; and in the eleventh century certain Jews, it was believed, made a waxen image of Bishop Eberhard, set about with tapers, bribed a clerk to baptize it, and set fire to it on the Sabbath, the which image burning away at the middle, the bishop fell grievously sick and died’ ([70, 124]).
Many magical practices and beliefs are difficult to classify as either contagious or homœopathic magic; they may even be a mixture of both. Such is the belief in the power of names or words, talismans and amulets, divination, and various practices of public and private magic. These will be dealt with under separate headings.