Universality of the Amulet.—Scarabs.—Beads.—Savage Amulets.—Gnostic and Christian Amulets.—Herbs and Animals as Charms.—Knots.—Precious Stones.—Signatures.—Numbers.—Saliva.—Talismans.—Scripts.—Characts.—Sacred Names.—Stolen Goods.
In the ancient world, as with savages, the whole art of medicine was in many cases the art of preparing and applying amulets and charms.
An amulet (probably the word is derived from the Arabic hamalet, a pendant) is anything which is hung round the neck or attached to any other part of the body, and worn as an imagined protection against disease, witchcraft, accidents, or other evils. Stones, metals, bits of parchment, portions of the human body, as parings of the finger nails, may constitute these charms. Substances like stones, gems, or parchment may have certain words, letters, or signs inscribed upon them. In the East amulets have from the earliest ages been associated with the belief in evil spirits as the causes of diseases. A talisman may for our purpose be considered as the same thing as an amulet. In Scott’s Tales of the Crusaders, there is one of these charms which has the power of stopping blood and protecting the wearer from hydrophobia. Charms, enchantments, the ceremonial use of words as incantations, songs, verses, etc., have all been used either with a view of causing, preventing, or curing diseases, and their use of course arose from the belief of primitive, or savage man his present representative, that our maladies have a supernatural origin. An amulet may consist merely of a piece of string tied like a bracelet round the wrist, as in India, where such a charm is commonly worn by school children; it is a talisman against fever, which has been blessed by a Brahman, has been sold for a half-rupee, and is highly esteemed by the wearer. Our word carminative (a comforting medicine, like tincture of cardamoms) means really a charm medicine, and is derived from the Latin carmen, a song-charm. This word enshrines the fact that magic and medicine were once united. The charm, i.e. song, was a spell, whether of words, philtres, or figures, as thus:—
“With the charmes that she saide,
A fire down fro’ the sky alight.”
—Gower.
Charms, amulets, characts, talismans, and the like, are found amongst all peoples and in all times. They unite in one bond of superstitious brotherhood the savage and the philosopher, the Sumatrans and the Egyptians, the Malay and the Jew, the Catholic and the Protestant. The charm differs from the amulet merely in the fact that it need not be suspended. “There is scarcely a disease,” says Pettigrew, “for which a charm has not been given.”[544] And it is well to note that their greatest effect is always produced on disorders of the nervous system, in which the imagination plays so important a part. Charms are also used to avert diseases and other evils; so that the man, sufficiently protected as he supposes by these objects, not only will escape plague and pestilence, but will be invulnerable to bullet and sword. The Sumatrans practise medicine chiefly by charms; when called in to prescribe, they generally ask for “something on account,” under the pretext of purchasing the appropriate charm.[545]
The hoof of the elk is used by the Indians and Norwegians and other northern nations as a cure for epilepsy. The patient must apply it to his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.[546]
“Medicine” amongst primitive folk is a synonym for fetich; anything wonderful, mysterious, or unaccountable, is called “medicine” by the North American Indians. The medicine-bag is a mystery bag, a charm. In fetiches primitive man recognises something which has a power of a sort he cannot understand straightway; therefore it becomes to him a religious object. “Why are any herbs or roots magical?” asks Mr. Lang; and he correctly answers the question, not by any far-fetched explanations, but by the observation that herbs really do possess medicinal properties (some of them indeed of extreme potency), and the ignorant invariably confound medicine with magic.[547] On this theory it is, of course, not necessary to swallow the medicine or apply it as we apply lotions and liniments; it is enough to carry it about as an amulet or charm, for it is the life of the thing which is efficacious, the spirit, which resides in the outward form, which possesses the virtue, not the material object itself. Of course, it may be necessary to take the charm internally; but then it is not the physiological action which is looked for, but the magical. Dapper, in his Description of Africa (p. 621), tells of savages who wear roots round their necks as amulets when they sleep out; they chew the roots, and spit the juice round the camp to keep off the wild beasts. At other times they burn the roots, and blow the smoke about for the same purpose. The Korannas carry roots as charms against bullets and wild animals. If successful in war, and obtaining much booty, they say, “We thank thee, our grandfather’s root, that thou hast given us cattle to eat.”
The Bongoes and Niam-Niams have similar customs.[548]