THE ANAESTHETICS OF JUGGLERS.
Fakirs are religious mendicants who, for the purpose of exciting the charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to that of common mortals.
In the Indies, these fakirs visit all the great markets, all religious fetes, and usually all kinds of assemblages, in order to exhibit, themselves. If one of them exhibits some new peculiarity, some curious deformity, a strange posture, or, finally, any physiological curiosity whatever that surpasses those of his confreres, he becomes the attraction of the fete, and the crowd surrounds him, and small coin and rupees begin to fall into his bowl.
Fakirs, like all persons who voluntarily torture themselves, are curious examples of the modifications that will, patience, and, so to speak, "art" can introduce into human nature, and into the sensitiveness and functions of the organs. If these latter are capable of being improved, of having their functions developed and of acquiring more strength (as, for example, the muscles of boxers, the breast of foot racers, the voice of singers, etc.), these same organs, on the contrary, can be atrophied or modified, and their functions be changed in nature. It is in such degradation and such degeneration of human nature that fakirs excel, and it is from such a point of view that they are worth studying.
We may, so to speak, class these individuals according to the grades of punishments that they inflict upon themselves, or according to the deformities that they have caused themselves to undergo. But, as we have already said, the number of both of these is extremely varied, each fakir striving in this respect to eclipse his fellows. It is only necessary to open a book of Indian travel to find descriptions of fakirs in abundance; and such descriptions might seem exaggerated or unlikely were they not so concordant. The following are a few examples:
Immovable fakirs.--The number of these is large. They remain immovable in the spot they have selected, and that too for an exceedingly long period of time. An example of one of these is cited who remained standing for twelve years, his arms crossed upon his breast, without moving and without lying or sitting down. In such cases charitable persons always take it upon themselves to prevent the fakir from dying of starvation. Some remain sitting, immovable, and apparently lifeless, while others, who lie stretched out upon the ground, look like corpses. It may be easily imagined what a state one of these beings is in after a few months or years of immobility. He is extremely lean, his limbs are atrophied, his body is black with filth and dust, his hair is long and dishevelled, his beard is shaggy, his finger and toe nails have become genuine claws, and his aspect is frightful. This, however, is a character common to all fakirs.
We may likewise class among the immovables those fakirs who cause themselves to be interred up to the neck, and who remain thus with their head sticking out of the ground either during the entire time the fair or fete lasts or for months and years.
Anchylotic Fakirs.--The number of fakirs who continue to hold one or both arms outstretched is very large in India. The following description of one of them is given by a traveler: "He was a goussain--a religious mendicant--who had dishevelled hair and beard, and horrible tattooings upon his face, and, what was most hideous, was his left arm, which, withered and anchylosed, stuck up perpendicularly from the shoulder. His closed hand, surrounded by straps, had been traversed by the nails, which, continuing to grow, had bent like claws on the other side. Finally, the hollow of this hand, which was filled with earth, served as a pot for a small sacred myrtle."
Other fakirs hold their two arms above their head, the hands crossed, and remain perpetually in such a position. Others again have one or both arms extended. Some hang by their feet from the limb of a tree by means of a cord, and remain head downward for days at a time, with their face uncongested and their voice clear, counting their beads and mumbling prayers.
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of fakirs is the faculty that certain of them possess of remaining entirely buried in vaults and boxes, and inclosed in bags, etc., for weeks and months, and, although there is a certain deceit as regards the length of their absolute abstinence, it nevertheless seems to be a demonstrated fact that, after undergoing a peculiar treatment, they became plunged into a sort of lethargy that allows them to remain for several days or weeks without taking food. Certain fakirs that have been interred under such conditions have, it appears, passed ten months or a year in their grave.
Tortured Fakirs.--Fakirs that submit themselves to tortures are very numerous. Some of them perform exercises analogous to those of the Aissaoua. Mr. Rousselet, in his voyage to the Indies, had an opportunity of seeing some of these at Bhopal, and the following is the picturesque description that he gives of them: "I remarked some groups of religious mendicants of a frightfully sinister character. They were Jogins, who, stark naked and with dishevelled hair, were walking about, shouting, and dancing a sort of weird dance. In the midst of their contortions they brandished long, sharp poniards, of a special form, provided with steel chains. From time to time, one of these hallucinated creatures would drive the poniard into his body (principally into the sides of his chest), into his arms, and into his legs, and would only desist when, in order to calm his apparent fury, the idlers who were surrounding him threw a sufficient number of pennies to him."
At the time of the feast of the Juggernaut one sees, or rather one did see before the English somewhat humanized this ceremony, certain fakirs suspended by their flesh from iron hooks placed along the sides of the god's car. Others had their priests insert under their shoulder blades two hooks, that were afterward fixed to a long pole capable of pivoting upon a post. The fakirs were thus raised about thirty feet above ground, and while being made to spin around very rapidly, smilingly threw flowers to the faithful. Others, again, rolled over mattresses garnished with nails, lance-points, poniards, and sabers, and naturally got up bathed in blood. A large number cause 120 gashes (the sacred number) to be made in their back and breast in honor of their god. Some pierce their tongue with a long and narrow poniard, and remain thus exposed to the admiration of the faithful. Finally, many of them are content to pass points of iron or rods made of reed through folds in their skin. It will be seen from this that fakirs are ingenious in their modes of exciting the compassion and charity of the faithful.
Elsewhere, among a large number of savage tribes and half-civilized peoples, we find aspirants to the priesthood of the fetiches undergoing, under the direction of the members of the religious caste that they desired to enter, ordeals that are extremely painful. Now, it has been remarked for a long time that, among the neophytes, although all are prepared by the same hands, some undergo these ordeals without manifesting any suffering, while others cannot stand the pain, and so run away with fright. It has been concluded from this that the object of such ordeals is to permit the caste to make a selection from among their recruits, and that, too, by means of anesthetics administered to the chosen neophytes.
In France, during the last two centuries, when torturing the accused was in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the hands of the executioner.
What are the processes that permit of such results being reached? Evidently, we cannot know them all. A certain number are caste, sect, or family secrets. Many are known, however, at least in a general way. The processes naturally vary, according to the object to be attained. Some seem to consist only in an effort of the will. Thus, those fakirs who remain immovable have no need of any special preparation to reach such a result, and the same is the case with those who are interred up to the neck, the will alone sufficing. Fakirs probably pass through the same phases that invalids do who are forced to keep perfectly quiet through a fracture or dislocation. During the first days the organism revolts against such inaction, the constraint is great, the muscles contract by starts, and then the patient gets used to it; the constraint becomes less and less, the revolt of the muscles becomes less frequent, and the patient becomes reconciled to his immobility. It is probable that after passing several months or years in a state of immobility fakirs no longer experience any desire to change their position, and even did they so desire, it would be impossible owing to the atrophy of their muscles and the anchylosis of their joints.
Those fakirs who remain with one or several limbs immovable and in an abnormal position have to undergo a sort of preparation, a special treatment; they have to enter and remain two or three mouths in a sort of cage or frame of bamboo, the object of which is to keep the limb that is to be immobilized in the position that it is to preserve. This treatment, which is identical with the one employed by surgeons for curing affections of the joints, has the effect of soldering or anchylosing the articulation. When such a result is reached, the fakir remains, in spite of himself and without fatigue, with outstretched arms, and, in order to cause them to drop, he would have to undergo a surgical operation.
As for those voluntary tortures that cause an effusion of blood, the insensibility of those who are the victims of it is explainable when we reflect that India is the country par excellence of anæsthetic plants. It produces, notably, Indian hemp and poppy, the first of which yields hashish and the other opium. Now it is owing to these two narcotics, taken in a proper dose, either alone or combined according to a formula known to Hindoo fakirs and jugglers, but ignored by the lower class, that the former are able to become absolutely insensible themselves or make their adepts so.
INDIAN FAKIRS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS.
There is, especially, a liquor known in the Indian pharmacopoeia under the name of bang, that produces an exciting intoxication accompanied with complete insensibility. Now the active part of bang consists of a mixture of opium and hashish. It was an analogous liquor that the Brahmins made Indian widows take before leading them to the funeral pile. This liquor removed from the victims not only all consciousness of the act that they were accomplishing, but also rendered them insensible to the flames. Moreover, the dose of the anæsthetic was such that if, by accident, the widow had escaped from the pile (something that more than once happened, thanks to English protection), she would have died through poisoning. Some travelers in Africa speak of an herb called rasch, which is the base of anæsthetic preparations employed by certain Arabian jugglers and sorcerers.
It was hashish that the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect of Assassins, had recourse to for intoxicating his adepts, and it was, it is thought, by the use of a virulent solanaceous plant--henbane, thornapple, or belladonna--that he succeeded in rendering them insensible. We have unfortunately lost the recipe for certain anæsthetics that were known in ancient times, some of which, such as the Memphis stone, appear to have been used in surgical operations. We are also ignorant of what the wine of myrrh was that is spoken of in the Bible.
We are likewise ignorant of the composition of the anæsthetic soap, the use of which became so general in the 15th and 16th centuries that, according to Taboureau, it was difficult to torture persons who were accused. The stupefying recipe was known to all jailers, who, for a consideration, communicated it to prisoners. It was this use of anæsthetics that gave rise to the rule of jurisprudence according to which partial or general insensibility was regarded as a certain sign of sorcery. We may cite a certain number of preparations, which vary according to the country, and to which is attributed the properly of giving courage and rendering persons insensible to wounds inflicted by the enemy. In most cases alcohol forms the base of such beverages, although the maslach that Turkish soldiers drink just before a battle contains none of it, on account of a religious precept. It consists of different plant-juices, and contains, especially, a little opium. Cossacks and Tartars, just before battle, take a fermented beverage in which has been infused a species of toadstool (Agaricus muscarius), and which renders them courageous to a high degree.
As well known, the old soldiers of the First Empire taught the young conscripts that in order to have courage and not feel the blows of the enemy, it was only necessary to drink a glass of brandy into which gunpowder had been poured.--La Nature.
[SCHOOL OF MINES QUARTERLY.]