Magic and Fetishism

by Alfred C. Haddon

Most forms of magic can be performed by anybody provided he knows what to do; but there are specialists in magic, who, by us, are variously termed medicine-men, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, witches, wise women, and the like. Their lore is transmitted orally to their disciples, who may or may not be their own children. Magical powers may be due to the mere accident of birth, as for example in the European belief in the therapeutic gifts of the seventh son of a seventh son. In some cases the sorcerer has to undergo a rigorous training, often being subjected to painful or loathsome ordeals; by these means the weaklings are eliminated, and those who persist have their character and fortitude strengthened, and they gain increased respect from their fellow-men. Further, in Australia and elsewhere, the medicine-man is not always a ‘doctor’; he may be a ‘rain-maker,’ ‘seer,’ or ‘spirit-medium,’ or may practise some special form of magic.

Usually the sorcerers unite together to form a society, which may attain great influence among backward races. According to Leland ([43, 10]), ‘there is actually in Tuscany a culture or worship of fetishes which are not Catholic, i.e. of strange stones and many curious relics. But there is a great deal of mystery and secrecy observed in all this cult. It has its professors; men, but mostly women, who collect charms and spells, and teach them to one another, and hold meetings; that is, there is a kind of college of witches and wizards, which, for many good reasons, eludes observation.’ The old faith, as it is termed, is pre-Christian, but not actively anti-Christian.

VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGICAL PRACTICES

The superficial observer is apt to regard the medicine-men or sorcerers as cheats who deliberately humbug their neighbours; but it is probable that most of them really believe themselves to be possessed of occult or supernormal power. Doubtless they do many things for mere effect, in order to enhance the respect they desire to have paid to themselves personally, as well as to put the subjects or spectators into a proper frame of mind; but this is precisely what is deliberately done by the organisers of all ceremonies by all peoples. Doubtless, also, many acts are performed which are intended to impose upon the credulity of others; but this is a device which is not unknown among cultured people, as, for example, the liquefying of the blood of St. Januarius in Naples. There remain, however, a large number of phenomena, which are as mysterious to them as they are to the vast majority of mankind, and many of these are receiving the attention of psychologists of the present day, without their significance being understood. Mr. Podmore ([55, 373]) is not afraid to say that ‘many of the alleged wonders of witchcraft and of ancient magic in general, when disentangled from the accretions formed round them by popular myth and superstition, present a marked resemblance to some of the facts recorded’ in his book.

The mental equilibrium of many backward peoples is very unstable, although they may not suffer from the same derangements of the nervous system that affect the more highly civilised peoples. To take an example or two of this nervous instability, Castren observed long ago that if the Samoyeds were sitting around inside their skin tents in the evening, and some one crept up and struck the tent, half of them were likely to fall into cataleptic fits. Bogoras ([5, 42]) refers to the well-known Arctic hysteria which is so widespread among the Yukaghir and Lamut women, and to a less extent among the Chukchee, the Russianised, and even the Russian women. This disease develops chiefly in the form of an uncontrollable desire to repeat in a loud voice each word spoken by somebody else, and to imitate every sudden gesture or action. This is the same nervous disorder as the widely spread lâtah of Malaysia, which has been so admirably described by Sir F. A. Swettenham ([68, 64]).

The far-reaching power of suggestion has been perhaps the most potent factor in upholding magical practices, especially when it is combined with hypnotism. The hypnotic state, it must be remembered, though ordinarily produced by another, can be self-induced by gazing at an object. There is an overwhelming number of modern instances of bad habits, various diseases, inflammations, local and general pain, insomnia, neurasthenia, psychic paralysis, and psychic hysteria, being cured by suggestion while the patient is in the hypnotic state ([31, 607]). Conversely pain, inflammations, and other organic changes can be produced through the same means; such is the explanation of the appearance of stigmata on the hands and feet of religious ecstatics, who had induced auto-hypnotism by intently gazing on the Figure on the Cross. The cataleptic and anæsthetic conditions producible by hypnotism are well known all over the world, and have for ages been part of the stock-in-trade of sorcerers, medicine-men, or of certain religious enthusiasts.

Suggestion alone, without the aid of hypnotism, can effect wonders, and faith-cures and Christian science are by no means a new thing under the sun, but something very old under new names. Probably every physician has known cases of ‘persons who died because they did not want to live or were at least indifferent; and probably an equal number who materially lengthened their lives by the mere determination not to die’ ([67, 612]).

‘The psychology of the matter,’ writes Marett ([51, 143]), ‘is up to a certain point simple enough. Just as the savage is a good actor, throwing himself like a child into his mime, so he is a good spectator, entering into the spirit of another’s acting, herein again resembling the child, who can be frightened into fits by the roar of what he knows to be but a “pretended” lion. Even if the make-believe is more or less make-believe to the victim, it is hardly less efficacious; for, dominating, as it tends to do, the field of attention, it racks the emotional system, and, taking advantage of the relative abeyance of intelligent thought and will, sets stirring all manner of deep-lying impulses and automatisms.’

All peoples have prohibitions of certain kinds, and most have a firm belief that should these tabus be broken dire consequences will befall the offender. Occasionally the punishment is effected by the social executive, through representatives of secret societies or by other means; but usually it is left in the hands, so to speak, of the outraged spiritual powers, and so strong is this belief that it drees its own weird. For example, Father Merolla ([54, xvi. 238]) tells of a young Congo negro who, being on a journey, lodged at a friend’s house; the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a wild hen. His host replied ‘No.’ Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and his old friend asked him ‘If he would eat a wild hen,’ to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. ‘Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, “What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?” At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four hours after.’ Armit ([2, 459]) relates that an Australian died of fright within a fortnight after he had discovered his sick wife had lain upon his blanket. Nowhere is the power of taboo greater than among the Polynesians. And examples of its potency in procuring its own fulfilment in the Heroic Age of Ireland have already been given ([p. 29]).