"Manifold as are the applications of this crude philosophy--for a philosophy it is as well as an art--the fundamental principles on which it is based would seem to be reducible to two; first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second, that things which have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so, continue to act on each other as if the contact still persisted. From the first of these principles the savage infers that he can produce any desired effect merely by imitating it; from the second he concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any distance any person of whom, or anything of which, he possesses a particle. Magic of the latter sort, resting as it does on the belief in a certain secret sympathy which unites indissolubly things that have once been connected with each other, may appropriately be termed sympathetic in the strict sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which the supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect, may conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic."
The sympathetic or imitative principle is not very conspicuous in the instances of vulgar (that is, non-professional) magic quoted by Bakin. It is, however, illustrated by other Japanese customs. There is a round stone in a shrine in Sagami which brings rain when water is poured over it. The stone is supposed to be the shintai of an Aburi no Kami (rain-fall-God), to whom the shrine is dedicated. Here we have a combination of religion with magic.[293] Whistling in order to raise the wind[294] is a purely non-religious piece of imitative magic, but in the Nihongi myth it is associated with religion by being represented as taught by a God. We should probably regard as a form of sympathetic magic the modern practice of devout visitors to the shrine of Tenjin, near Kiôto, who, in order to obtain relief from their ailments, rub the corresponding part of a bronze bull which stands before the shrine. A characteristic example of non-religious imitative magic is the custom of kasedori. When a marriage is unfruitful, the old women of the neighbourhood come to the house and go through the form of delivering the wife of a child. The infant is represented by a doll. The date selected for this ceremony is not immaterial. It is that of the festival of Sahe no kami. This, no doubt, gives it a quasi-religious flavour. To this class we may also refer the New Year's practice of going to sleep with a picture of a boat under the pillow. If lucky dreams follow an anchor is painted to it, if unlucky dreams a sail.
The Nihongi[295] records a case in which a woman took earth from Mount Kako in Yamato, which she wrapped in her neckerchief and prayed, saying: "'This earth represents the country of Yamato.' Then she turned it upside down." The common witchcraft of ill-treating a figure of the intended victim in order to make him suffer in a corresponding manner is well known in Japan. The Nihongi (a.d. 587) speaks of a rebellious Minister preparing figures of the Heir to the Throne and loathing them. Dr. Griffis[296] gives the following description of a magical ceremony performed by a woman in revenge for her lover's desertion of her:--
"At two o'clock in the morning she proceeds to the shrine of her patron-God, usually the Ujigami. Sometimes she wears a crown, made of an iron tripod reversed, on which burn three candles. In her left hand she carries a straw effigy of her victim; in her right she grasps a hammer. On her bosom is suspended a mirror. Reaching the sacred tree before the shrine, she impales the effigy upon it with nails, adjuring the Gods to save their tree, impute the guilt of desecration to the traitor, and visit him with their deadly vengeance. The visit is repeated nightly until the object of her sorcery sickens and dies. At Sabae, before a shrine of Kompira, stood a pine tree about a foot thick, plentifully studded with such nails."[297]
The possession by the operator of the hair or nails of his victim adds greatly to the potency of his devices. Hence they are carefully kept by the proper owners and thrown away together in the twelfth month.
Another form of witchcraft is represented by the later custom of Inu-gami (dog-deity) thus described by Motoöri: "A hungry dog is tied up in sight of food which he is not allowed to eat. When his desire is keenest, his head is cut off and at once flies to seize the food. This head is put into a vessel and worshipped. A serpent or a weasel will do as well." It constitutes a mighty charm, which evidently owes its power to the keenness of the animal's sufferings.[298] The Fūzoku Gwaho tells a story which was probably invented in order to account for this custom. "An old woman buried her pet dog, leaving only the head above ground. Then she cut him about with a bamboo saw, saying, 'If thou hast a soul, kill such a one, and I will make thee a God.' The man really did die afterwards in strange fashion. From that time the dog-deity dwelt in the old woman's house and wrought many wonderful curses." In Tosa each village has several Inugami-mochi (dog-deity-owners). They are shunned by their neighbours. A matchmaker's very first inquiry is whether there is such a person in the family. Leprosy is the next subject of his questions, sudden death (supposed to be hereditary), riches or poverty, wisdom or foolishness, are of subsidiary importance.
The same idea of a materialized emotion is illustrated by a practice common near Yamaguchi. In order to drive away certain destructive insects from the rice-fields a straw figure, made to resemble a cavalry soldier, is led round in stately procession, and finally flung into the sea. This figure represents the leader of some fugitives from a battle who hid in these fields, but were pursued and slain there. The noxious insects are their materialized resentment at this fate.
The principles of sympathetic and imitative magic, so copiously illustrated in 'The Golden Bough,' are not applicable to all magical procedures. Many defy specific explanation, and are possibly the result of some chance association of ideas no longer traceable, or of a mistaken empiricism. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is responsible for much that is called magic.
The description of magic in Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible' as a "means of binding superhuman powers, either to restrain them from injuring oneself, or to constrain them to injure others and put them under a spell, or to reveal what to mortal man was unknown," scarcely applies at all to Japanese magic. I have not met with any mention in the older literature of pacts with demons or the coercion of spirits.
The Symbol in Magic.--In Japan, as in other countries, magic makes great use of the Symbol, the Talisman, and the Formula, spoken or written. This seems to depend on the more general notion that things which are associated in thought must have also a direct physical influence on each other, of which a familiar example among ourselves is the objection to receive a knife as a present, because it might cut the friendship between the giver and receiver. Possibly this association of the subjective with the objective (in Dr. Tylor's words "mistaking an ideal for a real connexion)[299] was in Hirata's mind when he used the somewhat cryptic phrase, "Magic (majinahi, or magic, means etymologically mixture) is so called because it mixes the spirit (tama) of that which is here with the body of that which is there." We have seen[300] that the phallus, as a symbol of robust animal life, was used to exorcise evil things, whether demons or diseases. Roof-tiles impressed with a symbol (bubbles) which is indicative of water, are used at the present day as a charm to protect houses from fire. The deification of the gourd, the clay and the water-plant, no doubt, points to a previous magical use as preventives of conflagration. Rice, perhaps as a representative of the kteis, is used for several magical purposes. In one of the Fudoki, unhulled rice is scattered broadcast by Tsuchigumo,[301] to disperse a strange darkness which turned day into night.