Probably in all primitive faiths the word is regarded as a magical power in itself. In Egypt it was believed that by words the most powerful of the gods could be made obedient to the will of man. By them, as exorcisms or incantations everywhere, demons could be loosed or bound, and spirits summoned from the vasty deep. The stock in trade of the Indian medicine-man is principally his store of exorcisms, and among the Goras of North-Western India any one can become a priest who will learn the formulas which compel the demons.[93]
Our word “charm” comes from the Latin carmen, the sacred rhythmic formula, such as Virgil averred could by its occult power drag the moon from the sky.
“Carmina vel cælo possunt deducere lunam.”
There were such songs scarcely less potent among the Australian Blacks, which could summon the rain in dry seasons or cause it to cease in floods.[94]
No demon, however malevolent, can resist, in their belief, the power of the right word. The natives of New South Wales say that an evil spirit in the shape of a dwarf with monstrous head roams the woods at night and devours those whom he meets. But if the man utters the word “Boonbolong,” the dwarf passes on his way and does not harm him.[95]
When Jesus was in Capernaum, and at his command an unclean spirit had gone out of a man possessed, the multitude said one to the other,—τις εστι ουτος λογος, “What is this Word, by the authority and might of which this man casts out devils?” (Luke iv., 36.) They believed he used some cabalistic formula of exorcism which constrained the demons to obey his will.
Nowhere did the Word display its terrible effect more fearfully than in the curse or imprecation. In ancient Assyria, writes Professor Sayce, “The power of the mamit, or curse, was such that the gods themselves could not transgress it.”[96] Not only did it unloose the demons of destruction, but it constrained the gods against their will, changing them from protectors to enemies.[97]
Amid savage tribes, in undoubted and repeated instances, the curse kills as certainly as a knife. Among the western Indians of our country, when a medicine-man “gathers his medicine,” that is, rises to the full height of inspired volition, and utters a withering curse on his antagonist, commanding him to die, the latter knows all hope is lost. Sometimes he drops dead on the spot, or at best lingers through a few days of misery.[98] The Australians believe that the curse of a potent magician will kill at the distance of a hundred miles.[99]
Not only is the word thus mighty in the unseen world, but it is itself the very efflux and medium of the divine power itself.
Thus in the drama of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis we read: “And God said, ‘Light, be,’ and light was”; and in the corresponding myth of the Quiche Indians of Central America, the maker of the world calls forth, Uleu! Earth! and at the word the solid land grew forth.[100]