[425] The crystals forced into a wizard’s body, whether by spirits or by other wizards, are essential to his profession, and if they leave him his power is lost. “It is the possession of these stones which gives his virtue to the medicine-man” (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 480 note). John Mathew says that, according to the belief of the Kabi (Queensland): “A man’s power in the occult art would appear to be proportioned to his vitality, and the degree of vitality which he possessed depended upon the number of sacred pebbles and the quantity of yurru (rope) which he carried within him” (Eagle-hawk and Crow, p. 143). “Rope” was the property of the higher grade of medicine-men (substitute for snakes?), who had obtained it from the Rainbow in exchange for some of their pebbles. Certain pebbles, especially crystals, are independent magic-powers throughout Australasia and elsewhere, probably of much older repute than the profession of wizardry; and the wizard gets his personal power by having them inside him. Similarly, Jounod describes Bantu wizards as “endowed with magical power, or rather possessing enchanted drugs” (Life of a South African Tribe, p. 293): whereas we are often told that the occult art begins with the extraordinary personality of the wizard.
[426] Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 522-9.
[427] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 485.
[428] Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 321.
[429] E. im Thurn, The Indians of Guiana, p. 334.
[430] Thomas Whiffen, The North-West Amazons, p. 181.
[431] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 156.
[432] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV., “Shamanism,” pp. 87-90.
[433] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 322.
[434] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 334.