Plate LIX
A Rite of Garden Magic.
An offering of cooked food is exposed to the spirits for some time in the garden. The magician, with the ceremonial axe on his arm, is seen squatting to the right. In the forefront, a big bundle of leaves which he will presently charm over. (See [Div. IV].)
Spells accompanied by a rite of transference.—When we compare the rite of medicating the adze blade with the rite of medicating some dried grass, with which the canoe is afterwards beaten, we see that, in the second case, the magic is uttered over a something, which has no intrinsic connection with the final object of the magic, that is, with the canoe. It is neither to become a part of it, nor to be used as an implement in its manufacture. We have here the introduction for purposes of the rite, of a special medium, used to absorb the magical force, and to transfer it to the final object. We can therefore call rites where such mediums are used rites of transference. When a stick is charmed to be used afterwards for the magical knocking out of a canoe; or a mussel-shell, with which the canoe will be scraped; or a piece of coco-nut husk, which will be thrown into the water to remove the heaviness of the canoe; or a pandanus streamer, which will give it swiftness, there is introduced into every one of these rites a substance which has to play a magical rôle only. The rite, therefore, is not the simple charming of a part or of a constructive implement, which will enter into the composition or be used in the making of an object. The rite here is more autonomous, possesses more of its own significance. The beating of a canoe with two bunches of grass, one after the other, in order first to extract its heaviness and then impart to it lightness, has a meaning parallel to the spell but independent of it. So has also the throwing down of the coco-nut husk. The flutter of the pandanus streamers has direct association with speed, as the natives explicitly state. As the bisila streamers flutter in the wind, so should the canoe and the sail shake with the swiftness of their going. In the case of the ginger, which is spat over the Dobuans feigning hostility, the inherent quality of the substance, which our pharmacopæas describe as a stimulant, makes the meaning of the rite plain. We can easily see that some of the rites are rather more creative than others. That is, the very act performed produces, according to native ideas, a more definite effect than in others. So it is with the spitting of the ginger, and still more directly the spilling of the lime, in order to produce a mist, and shut the eyes of the mulukwausi. These two, for instance, are more creative than the hanging up of the pandanus streamer.
Spells accompanied by offerings and invocations.—In the very first rite described in this book, we saw an offering being laid before, and an invocation being addressed to the wood-sprite, tokway. There are a number of rites, accompanied by offerings given to ancestral spirits, whose participation in the offering is solicited. Such rites are performed in garden magic (see [Plate LIX]) in fishing magic, and in weather magic. It must, however, be said at once that there is no worship and no sacrificial offering involved in these rites, that is, not of the usual description, because the spirits are not imagined to serve as agents of the magician, in carrying out the bidding of his magic. We shall return to the subject presently. Here it will be enough to notice that the only instance of such a spell we have come across—that is, the invocation of the tokway—has its concomitant offering made only as a sort of compensation for having chased him out, or as a means of persuading him to go. Probably it is the first rather than the second, because the tokway has no free choice left, after he has been exorcised. He must obey the bidding of the magician.
This survey shows clearly that the virtue, the force, the effective principle of magic lies in the spell. We saw that in many cases, the spell is quite sufficient, if directly breathed upon the object. Again, in what may be called the prevalent type of ritual, the action which accompanies the utterance of the formula serves only to direct and condense the spell upon the object. In all such cases the rite lacks all independent significance, all autonomous function. In some cases, the rite introduces a substance which is used for magical purposes only. As a rule, the substance then intensifies, through a parallel action, the meaning of the spell. On the whole, it may be said that the main creative power of magic resides in the formula; that the rite serves to convey, or transfer it to the object, in certain cases emphasising the meaning of the spell through the nature of the transferring medium, as well as through the manner in which it is finally applied. It is hardly necessary to state that in the Trobriand magic, there are no rites performed without the spell.
V
It is also evident in studying the manner in which the force of the spell is conveyed to the object, that the voice of the reciter transfers the virtue. Indeed, as has been repeatedly pointed out, in quoting the formulæ, and as we shall have to discuss later still, the magical words are, so to speak, rubbed in by constant repetition to the substance. To understand this better we must inquire into the natives’ conceptions of psycho-physiology. The mind, nanola, by which term intelligence, power of discrimination, capacity for learning magical formulæ, and all forms of non-manual skill are described, as well as moral qualities, resides somewhere in the larynx. The natives will always point to the organs of speech, where the nanola resides. The man who cannot speak through any defect of his organs, is identified in name (tonagowa) and in treatment with all those mentally deficient. The memory, however, the store of formulæ and traditions learned by heart, resides deeper, in the belly. A man will be said to have a good nanola, when he can acquire many formulæ, but though they enter through the larynx, naturally, as he learns them, repeating word for word, he has to stow them away in a bigger and more commodious receptacle; they sink down right to the bottom of his abdomen. I made the discovery of this anatomical truth, while collecting war magic, from Kanukubusi, the last office holder of the long succession of war magicians to the chiefs of Omarakana. Kanukubusi is an old man, with a big head, a broad, high forehead, a stumpy nose, and no chin, the meekest and most docile of my informants, with a permanently puzzled and frightened expression on his honest countenance (see [Plate LVIII]). I found this mild old man very trustworthy and accurate, an excellent informant indeed, within the narrow sphere of his speciality, which he and his predecessors had used to make ‘anger flare up in the nanola’ of Omarakana men, to make the enemy fly in terror, pursued and slaughtered by the victorious warriors. I paid him well for the few formulæ he gave me, and inquired at the end of our first session, whether he had any more magic to produce. With pride, he struck his belly several times, and answered: “Plenty more lies there!” I at once checked his statement by an independent informant, and learned that everybody carries his magic in his abdomen.