The palettes themselves played the part of mere paint-stones, but their supposed resident power might very efficaciously be transferred to its proprietor by means of the paint ground upon it.
“Persons who go in pursuit of the crocodile,” says Pliny, “anoint themselves with its fat.”[760] In the same way as the crocodile-hunter thus assimilates himself to his quarry by a direct contagion, so the owner of the palette could possess himself of the power in the slate likeness by painting himself with the “medicine” ground upon it.
The validity, or otherwise, of the suggestion must be determined by expert mythologists. The theory, to my mind, appears too far-fetched, and breaks down from the introduction of an additional agency.
The fisher wearing an amulet or attaching a charm to his tackle, and the fat-anointed crocodile hunter both supposedly have direct connection with his quest.
But Bates’s solution demands four agents at work, the fisher, the prey, the portrayed profile of the latter, and the palette; from these the fisher extracts the desired power by decorating himself with the paint made out of a fifth agency, the galena, etc. Here exists no direct contagion as with the crocodile hunter, or direct connection as with the amulet-wearing piscator. That such early men as the pre-dynasties, though possessed of no insignificant a culture, should reason by causation at a fifth remove, seems lacking in probability, especially in a matter of primitive semi-religious belief, which is ever slow, ever resentful of change.
CHAPTER XXIV
TACKLE
“I tell you that the fisherman suffers more than any other. Consider, is he not toiling on the River? He is mixed up with the crocodiles: should the clumps of papyrus give way, then he shouts for help.”[761]
Now let us see by what implements and devices this “plenty of fish” was made to pay toll.