EXPLANATORY NOTES.
“Jinns.”—Before referred to, and meaning that which is internal, and cannot be seen. The word is spelt sometimes Djinns, or Ginns. They are supposed by some to be deities of the ancient pagans. By the Greeks believed to be spirits never engaged in matter, nor ever joined to bodies, subdivided into good and bad, every man having one of each to attend him at all times.
The Mahomedans believe in several divisions of them, and that they inhabited the world many thousands of years before Adam. Falling into corruption, they were consigned to the Mountains of Kâf; the mountains which in Moslem legends surround the world. They still believe that they interest themselves in the affairs of men; that, if assuming human shape their eyes are placed longitudinally in their face. In Arab mythology Solomon is supposed to have possessed special power over them. There are forty troops of them, it is stated, with 600,000 in a troop. Crooke, in referring to them, says, they are believed to have been resplendently handsome, and sometimes horribly hideous.
They are not confined to any part of the earth in which we live, but are to be found in every region.
In Hungary, it is said that many years ago the miners were visited by them in the shape of little negro boys who did no mischief, merely on occasion blowing out their lamps.
The Malays, who are Mahomedans, have the same beliefs as their co-religionists in India, their beneficent spirits being styled Dawā, with supernatural powers.
The Chinese idea of Jinns and Genii, as given by one of their writers, is that they will live upon air, or even give up breathing the outer air, and carry on the process of breathing inwardly, as they say, for days together as in a catalepsy (like an Indian Fakir). They will become invisible; they will take the form of any bird, beast, fish or insect; they will mount up above the clouds; dive into the deepest sea; or burrow into the centre of the earth.
The chief Jinn will command spirits and demons of all sorts and sizes and hold them at his beck and call. Finally, after living in the world for perhaps several hundred years, he does not die (for a Jinn or Genii is immortal, though a spirit may not be so), but he rides up to heaven on the back of a dragon, where he becomes a ruler of spirits.
The strict “Confucians” deny their existence. One of the most celebrated of Genii is in Chinese history named “Chang Kwoh,” who possessed a white mule which could transport him thousands of miles in a single day, and which when he halted he folded up and hid away in his wallet.
The Isles of the Genii San Shên Shan were supposed to be pretty much where “Formosa” actually now exists; vide Deny’s exhaustive work on the Folk-lore of China.
“Chuprassies.”—From the Hindustani word “Chuprās,” a buckle or badge worn to show authority, and generally on a belt over the shoulder.
“Exorcism.”—The so-called art of Divination, or the foretelling of events, past and future by other than human means, together with the conjuring of spirits both good and evil, and the wearing of charms and amulets as a preservative against evils and witchcraft, have all been in habitual use from remote ages, and are still resorted to in many parts of the world.
India is full of it, where the evil spirits are called “Bhût,” and so is Persia, where necromancers examine for marks and signs the blade bone of a newly killed sheep, very much as is done in the art of Palmistry which by marks and signs professes to discover the character of any person from the palm of his hand.
Exorcism soon followed in the train of most of these superstitions, and a class of people supposed to be possessed of devils, and called “energumens,” sought out those who professed to drive them away with a magical form of words. The Moslems term all these systems of belief “Kahānah,” or a “causing to tell,” and deem them such as to call for disapproval, as indeed also do most Christians in these days.