[265] Dorsey, ‘Siouan Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 225 sq.
[266] Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 95.
[267] Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 511.
[268] Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 304 sq. Cf. Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 173; Parry, op. cit. p. 525.
Moreover, by niggardliness a person may expose himself to supernatural dangers, whereas liberality may entail supernatural reward. In Morocco nobody would like to eat in the presence of other people without sharing his meal with them; otherwise they might poison his food by looking at it with an evil eye. So also, if anybody shows a great liking for a thing belonging to you, wanting, for instance, to buy your gun or your horse, it is best to let him have it, since otherwise an accident is likely to happen to the object of his desire.[269] But baneful energy, what the Moors call l-bas, is transferable not only by the eye, but by the voice. The poor and the needy have thus in their hands a powerful weapon and means of retaliation, the curse. The ancient Greeks believed that the beggar had his Erinys,[270] his avenging demon, which was obviously only a personification of his curse.[271] It is said in the Proverbs, “He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.”[272] The same idea is expressed in Ecclesiasticus:—“Turn not away thine eye from the needy, and give him none occasion to curse thee: for if he curse thee in the bitterness of his soul, his prayer shall be heard of him that made him…. A prayer out of a poor man’s mouth reacheth to the ears of God, and his judgment cometh speedily.”[273] According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, the poor man who follows the good law, when wronged and deprived of his rights, invokes Mithra for help, with hands uplifted.[274] Mr. Chapman states that, “though the Damaras are, generally speaking, great gluttons, they would not think of eating in the presence of any of their tribe without sharing their meal with all comers, for fear of being visited by a curse from their ‘Omu-kuru’ [or deity], and becoming impoverished.”[275] There is all reason to suppose that in this case the curse of the deity was originally the curse, or evil wish, of an angry man.
[269] Similar beliefs prevail in modern Egypt (Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, p. 391).
[270] Odyssey, xvii. 475.
[272] Proverbs, xxviii. 27.
[273] Ecclesiasticus, iv. 5 sq.; xxi. 5. Cf. Deuteronomy, xv. 9. Rabbi Johanan says that almsgiving “saves man from sudden, unnatural death” (Kohler, in Jewish Encyclopedia, i. 435). Cf. Proverbs, x. 2.