The second case, not given with marks of quotation, occurred in the park of Maharajah Tagore on December 7, 1898. 'A Frenchman, the son of Dr. Javal of Paris, was present.' The narrator, 'nous,' was also present, and went up after the rite to venture his hand in the furnace. He was warned that the Brahmin had left ten minutes before, and that 'the fire had recovered its activity.' The Maharajah, however, caused the ceremony to be repeated, and some minutes after all was ready. The narrator then traversed the fire, barefoot, at un petit trot, 'a little less than two paces a second.' As 100 yards can be run in ten seconds, this trot was remarkably slow. He felt in paces one and two a sensation of burning, in the five following paces a sensation of intense heat. There were three small brown marks on his feet, which formed blisters, but did not interfere with walking, and healed 'in some days.' He now learned that the Brahmin's premier aide did the ceremony not quite successfully. He is convinced that, but for the ceremony, he would have been seriously injured.
The third case was at Benares in February 1899. Three Hindoos collided and fell in: neither they nor their clothes were burned.
The author clearly regards the performers of the ceremony as able 'to tame considerably the destructive energy of the fire.' This, of course, is the theory of the savage devotees. The ceremony was only a procession of sacred images carried in a glazed sanctuary, and words, not known to the spectator, were uttered by the Brahmin. Holy water was sprinkled, and a cocoanut was thrown into the oven. As has been said, incantations are pronounced in Fiji and elsewhere.[16]
The following case is recent: it is culled from 'The Daily Mail,' November 9, 1900.
ORDEAL BY FIRE
According to the 'Japan Herald,' on Monday last a party of distinguished Americans (the American Minister and his wife, two naval officers, and others) attended the religious rites of the Ontake Jinsha, a powerful sect of Shintoists.
A heap of burning charcoal was placed in a large furnace. The officiating priest read a service over the fire, after which the foreign visitors, to the number of seven, including ladies, took off their shoes and walked over the fire, their naked feet showing no sign of scorching.
The performance called forth, says the report, the enthusiastic approval of the spectators.
Yet more recent is the next case, from Honolulu, the reporter being Mr. Gorten, a correspondent of the 'Boston Evening Transcript,' March 20, 1891. We quote the passage:—
We have already witnessed still another strange sight suggestive of necromancy and the incantations of the East. Papa Ita, a Tahitan, has given us exhibitions of the famous fire-walking which is still practised in the South Sea Islands and parts of Japan and India. On the vacant land swept a year ago by the Chinatown fire a great elliptical pit was dug and a large quantity of wood placed therein, on which were piled the lava rocks. All day the fire burned till the stones were of a white heat; then the white-haired native from Tahiti approached the fiery furnace dressed in a robe of white tapa, with a girdle and head-dress of the sacred ti leaves and a bundle of leaves in his hand for a wand. Striking the ground with the ti-leaf wand, he uttered an incantation in his own language, which was a prayer to his gods to temper the heat and allow him to pass; then calmly and deliberately, with bare feet, he walked the length of the pit, bearing aloft the ti-leaf wand. Pausing a moment on the other side, he again struck the ground and returned over the same fiery path. This was several times repeated, and he even paused a few seconds when in the middle of the pit to allow his picture to be taken. The stones were undoubtedly hot and were turned by means of long poles just before the walking, to have the hottest side up, and from between the rocks the low flames were continually leaping up. The heat that radiated to the spectators was intense. It was a fact that others followed with shoes on, but no one could be found to accept the standing offer of 500 dollars to any one who would, with bare feet, follow Papa Ita. None but natives of course believe there is anything supernatural, but we cannot explain how he does it. It cannot be called a fake, for he really does what he claims to do, and none, so far, dare imitate him. The natives fall down before him, as a great Kapuna, and many interested in the welfare of the Hawaiians deplore these exhibitions, feeling it is bad for the natives, in that it strengthens their old bonds of superstition, to the undoing of much of the advancement they have made. Just now Papa Ita is touring the other islands of the group, and rumour has it that his manager will take him to the Pan-American Exhibition at Buffalo. In that case people in the States can see and judge of this curious exhibition for themselves.
I end with the only instance (forwarded from a correspondent by Mr. T. S. O'Connor) of the ascertained use of an ointment to diminish the effect of the fire. Dr. Hocken and Colonel Gudgeon, as we saw, found no trace of this device; nor is it mentioned in the Japanese evidence.
Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I., June 8, 1897.
You referred some time ago to the fire-walkers. I have seen some of these gents performing quite recently, and got an explanation from a coolie customer of ours who watched the business with me. It seems they rub themselves with an oil, made from the root of the tabicutch (don't know the Latin name), which has the property of producing profuse sweat, and the two combine, causing an oily covering which warms very slowly and is difficult to dry up by heat. But even then it is essential that the men be good Stoics. I give the explanation for what it is worth, but saw the preparation myself, and had some of the stuff scraped off a man, who was ready for the rite, put it on a piece of tin and held it in the fire, and it certainly neither dried up nor got hot in a hurry.
It is clear that this explanation does not explain several of the cases wherein no anointing is used. We can only agree with Dr. Hocken that the performances deserve the study of physiologists and physicians. The explanation of Iamblichus, 'they walk on fire unharmed,' is that 'the god within them does not let fire harm them.' This implies that an exalted psychical condition of the performers secures their immunity. But in the cases where Europeans bore a part, and even in Dr. Hocken's examination of the natives, there was no sign of other than the normal mental condition. As fresh evidence comes in, it is perhaps not impossible that science will interest herself in the problem.
[1] G. B. iii. 307, 308, citing Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie (1896), pp. 193-195.