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The Golden Bough, a Study in Magic and Religion, 12 volumes, Third
Edition, by Frazer, James George. Part I. The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings, Vol. I.




 THE GOLDEN BOUGH

 A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION

 _THIRD EDITION_


 PART I

 THE MAGIC ART
 AND THE EVOLUTION OF KINGS


 VOL. I




[Illustration]

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[Illustration: _The Golden Bough._

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 THE MAGIC ART

 AND THE EVOLUTION OF KINGS

 BY

 SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER

 D.C.L., LL.D., LITT.D.

 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
 PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

 IN TWO VOLUMES

 VOL. I

 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
 ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

 1917




“_Nec indigeste tamquam in acervum congessimus digna memoratu: sed
variarum rerum disparilitas, auctoribus diversa confusa temporibus,
ita in quoddam digesta corpus est, ut quae indistincte atque promiscue
ad subsidium memoriae annotaveramus in ordinem instar membrorum
cohaerentia convenirent. Nec mihi vitio vertas, si res quas ex lectione
varia mutuabor ipsis saepe verbis quibus ab ipsis auctoribus enarratae
sunt explicabo, quia praesens opus non eloquentiae ostentationem sed
noscendorum congeriem pollicetur: et boni consulas oportet, si notitiam
vetustatis modo nostris non obscure modo ipsis antiquorum fideliter
verbis recognoscas, prout quaeque se vel enarranda vel transferenda
suggesserint. Apes enim quodammodo debemus imitari, quae vagantur
et flores carpunt, deinde quicquid attulere disponunt ac per favos
dividunt et sucum varium in unum saporem mixtura quadam et proprietate
spiritus sui mutant._”

 MACROBIUS, _Saturnalia, Praefatio_.


 COPYRIGHT

 _Third Edition March 1911_

 _Reprinted July 1911, 1913, 1917_




 TO

 MY FRIEND

 WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH

 IN

 GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION

{vii}




PREFACE


When I originally conceived the idea of the work, of which the first
part is now laid before the public in a third and enlarged edition, my
intention merely was to explain the strange rule of the priesthood or
sacred kingship of Nemi and with it the legend of the Golden Bough,
immortalised by Virgil, which the voice of antiquity associated with
the priesthood. The explanation was suggested to me by some similar
rules formerly imposed on kings in Southern India, and at first I
thought that it might be adequately set forth within the compass of
a small volume. But I soon found that in attempting to settle one
question I had raised many more: wider and wider prospects opened out
before me; and thus step by step I was lured on into far-spreading
fields of primitive thought which had been but little explored by my
predecessors. Thus the book grew on my hands, and soon the projected
essay became in fact a ponderous treatise, or rather a series of
separate dissertations loosely linked together by a slender thread
of connexion with my original subject. With each successive edition
these dissertations have grown in number and swollen in bulk by the
accretion of fresh materials, till the thread on which they are strung
at last threatened to snap under their weight. Accordingly, following
the hint of a friendly critic, I decided to resolve my overgrown book
into its elements, and to publish separately the various disquisitions
of which {viii} it is composed. The present volumes, forming the first
part of the whole, contain a preliminary enquiry into the principles
of Magic and the evolution of the Sacred Kingship in general. They
will be followed shortly by a volume which discusses the principles of
Taboo in their special application to sacred or priestly kings. The
remainder of the work will be mainly devoted to the myth and ritual of
the Dying God, and as the subject is large and fruitful, my discussion
of it will, for the sake of convenience, be divided into several parts,
of which one, dealing with some dying gods of antiquity in Egypt and
Western Asia, has already been published under the title of _Adonis,
Attis, Osiris_.

But while I have thus sought to dispose my book in its proper form as a
collection of essays on a variety of distinct, though related, topics,
I have at the same time preserved its unity, as far as possible, by
retaining the original title for the whole series of volumes, and by
pointing out from time to time the bearing of my general conclusions
on the particular problem which furnished the starting-point of the
enquiry. It seemed to me that this mode of presenting the subject
offered some advantages which outweighed certain obvious drawbacks. By
discarding the austere form, without, I hope, sacrificing the solid
substance, of a scientific treatise, I thought to cast my materials
into a more artistic mould and so perhaps to attract readers, who
might have been repelled by a more strictly logical and systematic
arrangement of the facts. Thus I put the mysterious priest of Nemi,
so to say, in the forefront of the picture, grouping the other sombre
figures of the same sort behind him in the background, not certainly
because I deemed them of less moment but because the picturesque
natural surroundings of the priest of Nemi among the wooded hills of
Italy, the very mystery which enshrouds him, and not least the haunting
magic of Virgil’s verse, all combine to shed a glamour on the tragic
figure with the Golden Bough, which fits him to {ix} stand as the
centre of a gloomy canvas. But I trust that the high relief into which
he has thus been thrown in my pages will not lead my readers either
to overrate his historical importance by comparison with that of some
other figures which stand behind him in the shadow, or to attribute
to my theory of the part he played a greater degree of probability
than it deserves. Even if it should appear that this ancient Italian
priest must after all be struck out from the long roll of men who have
masqueraded as gods, the single omission would not sensibly invalidate
the demonstration, which I believe I have given, that human pretenders
to divinity have been far commoner and their credulous worshippers
far more numerous than had been hitherto suspected. Similarly, should
my whole theory of this particular priesthood collapse—and I fully
acknowledge the slenderness of the foundations on which it rests—its
fall would hardly shake my general conclusions as to the evolution of
primitive religion and society, which are founded on large collections
of entirely independent and well-authenticated facts.

Friends versed in German philosophy have pointed out to me that my
views of magic and religion and their relations to each other in
history agree to some extent with those of Hegel. The agreement is
quite independent and to me unexpected, for I have never studied the
philosopher’s writings nor attended to his speculations. As, however,
we have arrived at similar results by very different roads, the partial
coincidence of our conclusions may perhaps be taken to furnish a
certain presumption in favour of their truth. To enable my readers to
judge of the extent of the coincidence, I have given in an appendix
some extracts from Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion. The
curious may compare them with my chapter on Magic and Religion, which
was written in ignorance of the views of my illustrious predecessor.

With regard to the history of the sacred kingship which {x} I have
outlined in these volumes, I desire to repeat a warning which I have
given in the text. While I have shewn reason to think that in many
communities sacred kings have been developed out of magicians, I am
far from supposing that this has been universally true. The causes
which have determined the establishment of monarchy have no doubt
varied greatly in different countries and at different times: I make no
pretence to discuss or even enumerate them all: I have merely selected
one particular cause because it bore directly on my special enquiry;
and I have laid emphasis on it because it seems to have been overlooked
by writers on the origin of political institutions, who, themselves
sober and rational according to modern standards, have not reckoned
sufficiently with the enormous influence which superstition has exerted
in shaping the human past. But I have no wish to exaggerate the
importance of this particular cause at the expense of others which may
have been equally or even more influential. No one can be more sensible
than I am of the risk of stretching an hypothesis too far, of crowding
a multitude of incongruous particulars under one narrow formula, of
reducing the vast, nay inconceivable complexity of nature and history
to a delusive appearance of theoretical simplicity. It may well be that
I have erred in this direction again and again; but at least I have
been well aware of the danger of error and have striven to guard myself
and my readers against it. How far I have succeeded in that and the
other objects I have set before me in writing this work, I must leave
to the candour of the public to determine.

 J. G. FRAZER.

 CAMBRIDGE,
 _5th December 1910_.

{xi}




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF _THE GOLDEN BOUGH_


For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive
superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my
attention was the hitherto unexplained rule of the Arician priesthood;
and last spring it happened that in the course of my reading I came
across some facts which, combined with others I had noted before,
suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation,
if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of
primitive religion, I resolved to develop it fully, and, detaching it
from my general work, to issue it as a separate study. This book is the
result.

Now that the theory, which necessarily presented itself to me at first
in outline, has been worked out in detail, I cannot but feel that in
some places I may have pushed it too far. If this should prove to have
been the case, I will readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon
as it is brought home to me. Meantime my essay may serve its purpose as
a first attempt to solve a difficult problem, and to bring a variety of
scattered facts into some sort of order and system.

A justification is perhaps needed of the length at which I have dwelt
upon the popular festivals observed by European peasants in spring, at
midsummer, and at harvest. It can hardly be too often repeated, since
it is not yet generally recognised, that in spite of their fragmentary
character the {xii} popular superstitions and customs of the peasantry
are by far the fullest and most trustworthy evidence we possess as to
the primitive religion of the Aryans. Indeed the primitive Aryan, in
all that regards his mental fibre and texture, is not extinct. He is
amongst us to this day. The great intellectual and moral forces which
have revolutionised the educated world have scarcely affected the
peasant. In his inmost beliefs he is what his forefathers were in the
days when forest trees still grew and squirrels played on the ground
where Rome and London now stand.

Hence every enquiry into the primitive religion of the Aryans should
either start from the superstitious beliefs and observances of the
peasantry, or should at least be constantly checked and controlled
by reference to them. Compared with the evidence afforded by living
tradition, the testimony of ancient books on the subject of early
religion is worth very little. For literature accelerates the advance
of thought at a rate which leaves the slow progress of opinion by word
of mouth at an immeasurable distance behind. Two or three generations
of literature may do more to change thought than two or three thousand
years of traditional life. But the mass of the people who do not read
books remain unaffected by the mental revolution wrought by literature;
and so it has come about that in Europe at the present day the
superstitious beliefs and practices which have been handed down by word
of mouth are generally of a far more archaic type than the religion
depicted in the most ancient literature of the Aryan race.

It is on these grounds that, in discussing the meaning and origin of
an ancient Italian priesthood, I have devoted so much attention to the
popular customs and superstitions of modern Europe. In this part of my
subject I have made great use of the works of the late W. Mannhardt,
without which, indeed, my book could scarcely have been written.
Fully recognising the truth of the principles which I have {xiii}
imperfectly stated, Mannhardt set himself systematically to collect,
compare, and explain the living superstitions of the peasantry. Of
this wide field the special department which he marked out for himself
was the religion of the woodman and the farmer, in other words, the
superstitious beliefs and rites connected with trees and cultivated
plants. By oral enquiry, and by printed questions scattered broadcast
over Europe, as well as by ransacking the literature of folk-lore, he
collected a mass of evidence, part of which he published in a series
of admirable works. But his health, always feeble, broke down before
he could complete the comprehensive and really vast scheme which he
had planned, and at his too early death much of his precious materials
remained unpublished. His manuscripts are now deposited in the
University Library at Berlin, and in the interest of the study to which
he devoted his life it is greatly to be desired that they should be
examined, and that such portions of them as he has not utilised in his
books should be given to the world.

Of his published works the most important are, first, two tracts,
_Roggenwolf und Roggenhund_, Danzig, 1865 (second edition, Danzig,
1866), and _Die Korndämonen_, Berlin, 1868. These little works were put
forward by him tentatively, in the hope of exciting interest in his
enquiries and thereby securing the help of others in pursuing them.
But, except from a few learned societies, they met with very little
attention. Undeterred by the cold reception accorded to his efforts
he worked steadily on, and in 1875 published his chief work, _Der
Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_. This was followed in
1877 by _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_. His _Mythologische Forschungen_,
a posthumous work, appeared in 1884.

Much as I owe to Mannhardt, I owe still more to my friend Professor
W. Robertson Smith. My interest in the early history of society was
first excited by the works of {xiv} Dr. E. B. Tylor, which opened up
a mental vista undreamed of by me before. But it is a long step from a
lively interest in a subject to a systematic study of it; and that I
took this step is due to the influence of my friend W. Robertson Smith.
The debt which I owe to the vast stores of his knowledge, the abundance
and fertility of his ideas, and his unwearied kindness, can scarcely be
overestimated. Those who know his writings may form some, though a very
inadequate, conception of the extent to which I have been influenced by
him. The views of sacrifice set forth in his article “Sacrifice” in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, and further developed in his recent work,
_The Religion of the Semites_, mark a new departure in the historical
study of religion, and ample traces of them will be found in this
book. Indeed the central idea of my essay—the conception of the slain
god—is derived directly, I believe, from my friend. But it is due to
him to add that he is in no way responsible for the general explanation
which I have offered of the custom of slaying the god. He has read
the greater part of the proofs in circumstances which enhanced the
kindness, and has made many valuable suggestions which I have usually
adopted; but except where he is cited by name, or where the views
expressed coincide with those of his published works, he is not to be
regarded as necessarily assenting to any of the theories propounded in
this book.

The works of Professor G. A. Wilken of Leyden have been of great
service in directing me to the best original authorities on the Dutch
East Indies, a very important field to the ethnologist. To the courtesy
of the Rev. Walter Gregor, M.A., of Pitsligo, I am indebted for some
interesting communications which will be found acknowledged in their
proper places. Mr. Francis Darwin has kindly allowed me to consult
him on some botanical questions. The manuscript authorities to which
I occasionally refer are answers to a list of ethnological questions
which I am circulating. Most {xv} of them will, I hope, be published
in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_.

The drawing of the Golden Bough which adorns the cover is from the
pencil of my friend Professor J. H. Middleton. The constant interest
and sympathy which he has shewn in the progress of the book have been a
great help and encouragement to me in writing it.

The Index has been compiled by Mr. A. Rogers, of the University
Library, Cambridge.

 J. G. FRAZER.

 TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
 _8th March 1890_.

{xvii}




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF _THE GOLDEN BOUGH_


The kind reception accorded by critics and the public to the first
edition of _The Golden Bough_ has encouraged me to spare no pains to
render the new one more worthy of their approbation. While the original
book remains almost entire, it has been greatly expanded by the
insertion of much fresh illustrative matter, drawn chiefly from further
reading, but in part also from previous collections which I had made,
and still hope to use, for another work. Friends and correspondents,
some of them personally unknown to me, have kindly aided me in
various ways, especially by indicating facts or sources which I had
overlooked and by correcting mistakes into which I had fallen. I thank
them all for their help, of which I have often availed myself. Their
contributions will be found acknowledged in their proper places. But I
owe a special acknowledgment to my friends the Rev. Lorimer Fison and
the Rev. John Roscoe, who have sent me valuable notes on the Fijian and
Waganda customs respectively. Most of Mr. Fison’s notes, I believe,
are incorporated in my book. Of Mr. Roscoe’s only a small selection
has been given; the whole series, embracing a general account of the
customs and beliefs of the Waganda, will be published, I hope, in the
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_. Further, I ought to add
that Miss Mary E. B. Howitt has kindly allowed me to make some extracts
{xviii} from a work by her on Australian folklore and legends which I
was privileged to read in manuscript.

I have seen no reason to withdraw the explanation of the priesthood
of Aricia which forms the central theme of my book. On the contrary,
the probability of that explanation appears to me to be greatly
strengthened by some important evidence which has come to light
since my theory was put forward. Readers of the first edition may
remember that I explained the priest of Aricia—the King of the
Wood—as an embodiment of a tree-spirit, and inferred from a variety
of considerations that at an earlier period one of these priests had
probably been slain every year in his character of an incarnate deity.
But for an undoubted parallel to such a custom of killing a human god
annually I had to go as far as ancient Mexico. Now from the _Martyrdom
of St. Dasius_, unearthed and published a few years ago by Professor
Franz Cumont of Ghent (_Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. 1897), it is
practically certain that in ancient Italy itself a human representative
of Saturn—the old god of the seed—was put to death every year at his
festival of the Saturnalia, and that though in Rome itself the custom
had probably fallen into disuse before the classical era, it still
lingered on in remote places down at least to the fourth century after
Christ. I cannot but regard this discovery as a confirmation, as
welcome as it was unlooked for, of the theory of the Arician priesthood
which I had been led independently to propound.

Further, the general interpretation which, following W. Mannhardt,
I had given of the ceremonies observed by our European peasantry in
spring, at midsummer, and at harvest, has also been corroborated by
fresh and striking analogies. If we are right, these ceremonies were
originally magical rites designed to cause plants to grow, cattle
to thrive, rain to fall, and the sun to shine. Now the remarkable
researches of Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. J. Gillen {xix}
among the native tribes of Central Australia have proved that these
savages regularly perform magical ceremonies for the express purpose of
bringing down rain and multiplying the plants and animals on which they
subsist, and further that these ceremonies are most commonly observed
at the approach of the rainy season, which in Central Australia answers
to our spring. Here then, at the other side of the world, we find an
exact counterpart of those spring and midsummer rites which our rude
forefathers in Europe probably performed with a full consciousness
of their meaning, and which many of their descendants still keep up,
though the original intention of the rites has been to a great extent,
but by no means altogether, forgotten. The harvest customs of our
European peasantry have naturally no close analogy among the practices
of the Australian aborigines, since these savages do not till the
ground. But what we should look for in vain among the Australians we
find to hand among the Malays. For recent enquiries, notably those of
Mr. J. L. van der Toorn in Sumatra and of Mr. W. W. Skeat in the Malay
Peninsula, have supplied us with close parallels to the harvest customs
of Europe, as these latter were interpreted by the genius of Mannhardt.
Occupying a lower plane of culture than ourselves, the Malays have
retained a keen sense of the significance of rites which in Europe have
sunk to the level of more or less meaningless survivals.

Thus on the whole I cannot but think that the course of subsequent
investigation has tended to confirm the general principles followed and
the particular conclusions reached in this book. At the same time I am
as sensible as ever of the hypothetical nature of much that is advanced
in it. It has been my wish and intention to draw as sharply as possible
the line of demarcation between my facts and the hypotheses by which I
have attempted to colligate them. Hypotheses are necessary but often
temporary bridges built to connect isolated facts. If my light bridges
should sooner or later {xx} break down or be superseded by more solid
structures, I hope that my book may still have its utility and its
interest as a repertory of facts.

But while my views, tentative and provisional as they probably are,
thus remain much what they were, there is one subject on which they
have undergone a certain amount of change, unless indeed it might
be more exact to say that I seem to see clearly now what before was
hazy. I mean the relation of magic to religion. When I first wrote
this book I failed, perhaps inexcusably, to define even to myself my
notion of religion, and hence was disposed to class magic loosely
under it as one of its lower forms. I have now sought to remedy this
defect by framing as clear a definition of religion as the difficult
nature of the subject and my apprehension of it allowed. Hence I have
come to agree with Sir A. C. Lyall and Mr. F. B. Jevons in recognising
a fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle between
magic and religion. More than that, I believe that in the evolution
of thought, magic, as representing a lower intellectual stratum, has
probably everywhere preceded religion. I do not claim any originality
for this latter view. It has been already plainly suggested, if not
definitely formulated, by Professor H. Oldenberg in his able book _Die
Religion des Veda_, and for aught I know it may have been explicitly
stated by many others before and since him. I have not collected the
opinions of the learned on the subject, but have striven to form my own
directly from the facts. And the facts which bespeak the priority of
magic over religion are many and weighty. Some of them the reader will
find stated in the following pages; but the full force of the evidence
can only be appreciated by those who have made a long and patient study
of primitive superstition. I venture to think that those who submit to
this drudgery will come more and more to the opinion I have indicated.
That all my readers should agree either with my definition {xxi} of
religion or with the inferences I have drawn from it is not to be
expected. But I would ask those who dissent from my conclusions to make
sure that they mean the same thing by religion that I do; for otherwise
the difference between us may be more apparent than real.

As the scope and purpose of my book have been seriously misconceived by
some courteous critics, I desire to repeat in more explicit language,
what I vainly thought I had made quite clear in my original preface,
that this is not a general treatise on primitive superstition, but
merely the investigation of one particular and narrowly limited
problem, to wit, the rule of the Arician priesthood, and that
accordingly only such general principles are explained and illustrated
in the course of it as seemed to me to throw light on that special
problem. If I have said little or nothing of other principles of equal
or even greater importance, it is assuredly not because I undervalue
them in comparison with those which I have expounded at some length,
but simply because it appeared to me that they did not directly bear
on the question I had set myself to answer. No one can well be more
sensible than I am of the immense variety and complexity of the
forces which have gone towards the building up of religion; no one
can recognise more frankly the futility and inherent absurdity of any
attempt to explain the whole vast organism as the product of any one
simple factor. If I have hitherto touched, as I am quite aware, only
the fringe of a great subject—fingered only a few of the countless
threads that compose the mighty web,—it is merely because neither my
time nor my knowledge has hitherto allowed me to do more. Should I live
to complete the works for which I have collected and am collecting
materials, I dare to think that they will clear me of any suspicion of
treating the early history of religion from a single narrow point of
view. But the future is necessarily uncertain, and at the best {xxii}
many years must elapse before I can execute in full the plan which I
have traced out for myself. Meanwhile I am unwilling by keeping silence
to leave some of my readers under the impression that my outlook on
so large a subject does not reach beyond the bounds of the present
enquiry. This is my reason for noticing the misconceptions to which I
have referred. I take leave to add that some part of my larger plan
would probably have been completed before now, were it not that out of
the ten years which have passed since this book was first published
nearly eight have been spent by me in work of a different kind.

There is a misunderstanding of another sort which I feel constrained
to set right. But I do so with great reluctance, because it compels me
to express a measure of dissent from the revered friend and master to
whom I am under the deepest obligations, and who has passed beyond the
reach of controversy. In an elaborate and learned essay on sacrifice
(_L’Année Sociologique_, Deuxième Année, 1897–1898), Messrs. H. Hubert
and M. Mauss have represented my theory of the slain god as intended to
supplement and complete Robertson Smith’s theory of the derivation of
animal sacrifice in general from a totem sacrament. On this I have to
say that the two theories are quite independent of each other. I never
assented to my friend’s theory, and so far as I can remember he never
gave me a hint that he assented to mine. My reason for suspending my
judgment in regard to his theory was a simple one. At the time when
the theory was propounded, and for many years afterwards, I knew of no
single indubitable case of a totem sacrament, that is, of a custom of
killing and eating the totem animal as a solemn rite. It is true that
in my _Totemism_, and again in the present work, I noted a few cases
(four in all) of solemnly killing a sacred animal which, following
Robertson Smith, I regarded as probably a totem. But none even of these
four cases included the {xxiii} eating of the sacred animal by the
worshippers, which was an essential part of my friend’s theory, and
in regard to all of them it was not positively known that the slain
animal was a totem. Hence as time went on and still no certain case
of a totem sacrament was reported, I became more and more doubtful
of the existence of such a practice at all, and my doubts had almost
hardened into incredulity when the long-looked-for rite was discovered
by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in full force among the aborigines
of Central Australia, whom I for one must consider to be the most
primitive totem tribes as yet known to us. This discovery I welcomed
as a very striking proof of the sagacity of my brilliant friend, whose
rapid genius had outstripped our slower methods and anticipated what
it was reserved for subsequent research positively to ascertain. Thus
from being little more than an ingenious hypothesis the totem sacrament
has become, at least in my opinion, a well-authenticated fact. But from
the practice of the rite by a single set of tribes it is still a long
step to the universal practice of it by all totem tribes, and from that
again it is a still longer stride to the deduction therefrom of animal
sacrifice in general. These two steps I am not yet prepared to take.
No one will welcome further evidence of the wide prevalence of a totem
sacrament more warmly than I shall, but until it is forthcoming I shall
continue to agree with Professor E. B. Tylor that it is unsafe to make
the custom the base of far-reaching speculations.

To conclude this subject, I will add that the doctrine of the
universality of totemism, which Messrs. Hubert and Mauss have
implicitly attributed to me, is one which I have never enunciated or
assumed, and that, so far as my knowledge and opinion go, the worship
of trees and cereals, which occupies so large a space in these volumes,
is neither identical with nor derived from a system of totemism. It is
possible that further enquiry may lead me to regard as {xxiv} probable
the universality of totemism and the derivation from it of sacrifice
and of the whole worship both of plants and animals. I hold myself
ready to follow the evidence wherever it may lead; but in the present
state of our knowledge I consider that to accept these conclusions
would be, not to follow the evidence, but very seriously to outrun it.
In thinking so I am happy to be at one with Messrs. Hubert and Mauss.

When I am on this theme I may as well say that I am by no means
prepared to stand by everything in my little apprentice work,
_Totemism_. That book was a rough piece of pioneering in a field that,
till then, had been but little explored, and some inferences in it
were almost certainly too hasty. In particular there was a tendency,
perhaps not unnatural in the circumstances, to treat as totems, or as
connected with totemism, things which probably were neither the one nor
the other. If ever I republish the volume, as I hope one day to do, I
shall have to retrench it in some directions as well as to enlarge it
in others.

Such as it is, with all its limitations, which I have tried to indicate
clearly, and with all its defects, which I leave to the critics to
discover, I offer my book in its new form as a contribution to that
still youthful science which seeks to trace the growth of human
thought and institutions in those dark ages which lie beyond the
range of history. The progress of that science must needs be slow and
painful, for the evidence, though clear and abundant on some sides,
is lamentably obscure and scanty on others, so that the cautious
enquirer is every now and then brought up sharp on the edge of some
yawning chasm across which he may be quite unable to find a way. All
he can do in such a case is to mark the pitfall plainly on his chart
and to hope that others in time may be able to fill it up or bridge
it over. Yet the very difficulty and novelty of the investigation,
coupled with the extent of the intellectual prospect which suddenly
opens {xxv} up before us whenever the mist rises and unfolds the
far horizon, constitute no small part of its charm. The position of
the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position
of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the
rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to
their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as
the cloistered student of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the
gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells.
To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama
is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith
and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted
races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the
long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to
civilisation. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely
fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded
manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is
steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest
antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the
jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which
will task the energies of generations of students to master. The study
is still in its rudiments, and what we do now will have to be done
over again and done better, with fuller knowledge and deeper insight,
by those who come after us. To recur to a metaphor which I have
already made use of, we of this age are only pioneers hewing lanes and
clearings in the forest where others will hereafter sow and reap.

But the comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind
is fitted to be much more than a means of satisfying an enlightened
curiosity and of furnishing materials for the researches of the
learned. Well handled, it may become a powerful instrument to expedite
progress if it lays bare certain weak spots in the foundations on which
modern {xxvi} society is built—if it shews that much which we are
wont to regard as solid rests on the sands of superstition rather than
on the rock of nature. It is indeed a melancholy and in some respects
thankless task to strike at the foundations of beliefs in which, as
in a strong tower, the hopes and aspirations of humanity through long
ages have sought a refuge from the storm and stress of life. Yet sooner
or later it is inevitable that the battery of the comparative method
should breach these venerable walls, mantled over with the ivy and
mosses and wild flowers of a thousand tender and sacred associations.
At present we are only dragging the guns into position: they have
hardly yet begun to speak. The task of building up into fairer and more
enduring forms the old structures so rudely shattered is reserved for
other hands, perhaps for other and happier ages. We cannot foresee, we
can hardly even guess, the new forms into which thought and society
will run in the future. Yet this uncertainty ought not to induce us,
from any consideration of expediency or regard for antiquity, to spare
the ancient moulds, however beautiful, when these are proved to be
out-worn. Whatever comes of it, wherever it leads us, we must follow
truth alone. It is our only guiding star: _hoc signo vinces_.

To a passage in my book it has been objected by a distinguished scholar
that the church-bells of Rome cannot be heard, even in the stillest
weather, on the shores of the Lake of Nemi. In acknowledging my blunder
and leaving it uncorrected, may I plead in extenuation of my obduracy
the example of an illustrious writer? In _Old Mortality_ we read how
a hunted Covenanter, fleeing before Claverhouse’s dragoons, hears the
sullen boom of the kettledrums of the pursuing cavalry borne to him
on the night wind. When Scott was taken to task for this description,
because the drums are not beaten by cavalry at night, he replied in
effect that he liked to hear the drums sounding there, and {xxvii}
that he would let them sound on so long as his book might last. In the
same spirit I make bold to say that by the Lake of Nemi I love to hear,
if it be only in imagination, the distant chiming of the bells of Rome,
and I would fain believe that their airy music may ring in the ears of
my readers after it has ceased to vibrate in my own.

 J. G. FRAZER.

 CAMBRIDGE,
 _18th September 1900_.

{xxix}




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER I.—THE KING OF THE WOOD • Pp. 1–43

 § 1. _Diana and Virbius_, pp. 1–24.—The lake and sanctuary of Diana
 at Nemi, 1–6; the character of Diana at Nemi, 6–8; rule of succession
 to the priesthood, 8–10; legends of its origin, 10 _sq._; features of
 the worship of Diana at Nemi, 12–14; Diana’s festival on the 13th of
 August, 14–17; the companions of Diana, Egeria, 17–19; Virbius, 19–21;
 unhistorical character of the traditions, 21–23; antiquity of the
 grove, 23 _sq._

 § 2. _Artemis and Hippolytus_, pp. 24–40.—Hippolytus at Troezen,
 24–28; hair-offerings to Hippolytus and others, 28–32; graves of
 Apollo and Artemis at Delos, 33–35; Artemis a goddess of the wild life
 of nature, 35–38; Hippolytus the consort of Artemis, 38–40.

 § 3. _Recapitulation_, pp. 40–43.—Virbius the consort of Diana, 40
 _sq._; the leafy bust at Nemi, 41–43.


 CHAPTER II.—PRIESTLY KINGS • Pp. 44–51

 Priestly kings in ancient Italy, Greece, and other parts of the world,
 44–48; divinity of Spartan and other early kings, 48–51; magical
 powers of early kings, 51.


 CHAPTER III.—SYMPATHETIC MAGIC • Pp. 52–219

 § 1. _The Principles of Magic_, pp. 52–54.—The Law of Similarity
 and the Law of Contact or Contagion, 52 _sq._; the two principles
 misapplications of the association of ideas, 53 _sq._; Sympathetic
 Magic in its two branches, Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic, and
 Contagious Magic, 54.

 § 2. _Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic_, pp. 55–174.—Magical images to
 injure enemies, 55–70; magical images to procure offspring, 70–74;
 simulation of birth at adoption and circumcision, 74–77; magical
 images to procure love, 77 _sq._; homoeopathic magic in medicine,
 78–84; homoeopathic magic to ensure the food supply, 85 _sqq._;
 magical ceremonies (_intichiuma_) in Central Australia for the
 multiplication of the totems, 85–89; use of {xxx} human blood in
 Australian ceremonies, 89–94; suggested origin of circumcision and
 of other Australian initiatory rites, particularly the extraction
 of teeth, 95–101; certain funeral rites designed to ensure rebirth,
 101–105; rites to secure rebirth of animals and plants, 105 _sq._;
 general theory of magical (_intichiuma_) and initiatory rites in
 Australia, 106–108; homoeopathic magic in fishing and hunting,
 108–111; negative magic or taboo, 111–113; examples of homoeopathic
 taboos, 113–117; homoeopathic taboos on food, 117–119; magical
 telepathy, 119 _sq._; telepathy in hunting, 120–126; telepathy
 in war, 126–134; various cases of homoeopathic magic, 134 _sq._;
 homoeopathic magic to make plants grow, 136–144; persons influenced
 homoeopathically by plants, 144–147; homoeopathic magic of the dead,
 147–150; homoeopathic magic of animals, 150–157; homoeopathic magic
 of inanimate things, 157–159; homoeopathic magic of iron, 159 _sq._;
 homoeopathic magic of stones, 160–165; homoeopathic magic of sun,
 moon, and stars, 165 _sq._; homoeopathic magic of the tides, 167
 _sq._; homoeopathic magic of grave-clothes and city sites in China,
 168–170; homoeopathic magic to avert misfortune, 170–174.

 § 3. _Contagious Magic_, pp. 174–214.—Supposed physical basis of
 sympathetic magic, 174 _sq._; effect of contagious magic in fostering
 cleanliness, 175; contagious magic of teeth, 176–182; contagious magic
 of navel-string and afterbirth or placenta, 182–200; afterbirth or
 navel-string a seat of the external soul, 200 _sq._; contagious magic
 of wounds and spilt blood, 201–205; contagious magic of garments,
 205–207; contagious magic of footprints and other bodily impressions,
 207–214.

 § 4. _The Magician’s Progress_, pp. 214–219.—Elevation of public
 magicians to the position of chiefs and kings, 214–216; rise of
 monarchy essential to the emergence of mankind from savagery, 216–219.


 CHAPTER IV.—MAGIC AND RELIGION • Pp. 220–243

 Affinity of magic to science, 220 _sq._; its fatal flaw, 221 _sq._;
 relation of magic to religion, definition of religion, 222–224;
 opposition of principle between magic and science on the one side
 and religion on the other, 224–226; hostility of religion to magic
 in later history, 226; confusion of magic and religion in early
 times and among savages, 226–231; confusion of magic and religion in
 modern Europe, 231–233; confusion of magic and religion preceded by
 an earlier age in which magic existed without religion, 233 _sq._;
 universality of the belief in magic among the ignorant classes at
 the present day, 234–236; resulting danger to civilisation, 236
 _sq._; change from magic to religion following the recognition of the
 inefficacy of magic, 237–240; the early gods viewed as magicians,
 240–242; difficulty of detecting the fallacy of magic, 242 _sq._


 CHAPTER V.—THE MAGICAL CONTROL OF THE WEATHER • Pp. 244–331

 § 1. _The Public Magician_, pp. 244–247.—Two types of man-god, the
 religious and the magical, 244 _sq._; rise of a class of public
 magicians a step in social and intellectual progress, 245–247. {xxxi}

 § 2. _Magical Control of Rain_, pp. 247–311.—Importance of the magical
 control of the weather, especially of rain, 247; rain-making based on
 homoeopathic or imitative magic, 247 _sq._; examples of rain-making
 by homoeopathic or imitative magic, 247–251; stopping rain by fire,
 252 _sq._; rain-making among the Australian aborigines, 254–261;
 belief that twins control the weather, especially the rain, 262–269;
 the rain-maker makes himself wet, the maker of dry weather keeps
 himself dry, 269–272; rain-making by means of leaf-clad girls or boys
 in south-eastern Europe and India, 272–275; rain-making by means of
 puppets in Armenia and Syria, 275 _sq._; rain-making by bathing and
 sprinkling of water, 277 _sq._; beneficial effects of curses, 279–282;
 rain-making by women ploughing, 282–284; rain-making by means of the
 dead, 284–287; rain-making by means of animals, especially black
 animals, 287–292; rain-making by means of frogs, 292–295; stopping
 rain by rabbits and serpents, 295 _sq._; doing violence to the
 rain-god in order to extort rain, 296–299; compelling saints in Sicily
 to give rain, 299 _sq._; disturbing the rain-god in his haunts, 301
 _sq._; appealing to the pity of the rain-gods, 302 _sq._; rain-making
 by means of stones, 304–309; rain-making in classical antiquity, 309
 _sq._

 § 3. _The Magical Control of the Sun_, pp. 311–319.—Helping the sun
 in eclipse, 311 _sq._; various charms to make sunshine, 312–314;
 human sacrifices to the sun in ancient Mexico, 314 _sq._; sacrifice
 of horses to the sun, 315 _sq._; staying the sun by means of a net or
 string or by putting a stone or sod in a tree, 316–318; accelerating
 the moon, 319.

 § 4. _The Magical Control of the Wind_, pp. 319–331.—Various charms
 for making the wind blow or be still, 319–323; winds raised by wizards
 and witches, 323–327; fighting the spirit of the wind, 327–331.


 CHAPTER VI.—MAGICIANS AS KINGS • Pp. 332–372

 Magic not the only road to a throne, 332 _sq._; danger of too
 simple and comprehensive theories, 332 _sq._; discredit which such
 theories have brought on mythology, 333 _sq._; magic only a partial
 explanation of the rise of kings, 334; social importance of magicians
 among the aborigines of Australia, 334–337; social importance of
 magicians in New Guinea, 337 _sq._; magical powers of chiefs and
 others in Melanesia, 338–342; evolution of chiefs or kings out of
 magicians, especially out of rain-makers, in Africa, 342–352; kings
 in Africa and elsewhere punished for drought and dearth, 352–355;
 power of medicine-men among the American Indians, 355–360; power of
 medicine-men among the pagan tribes of the Malay Peninsula, 360 _sq._;
 development of kings out of magicians among the Malays, 361 _sq._;
 magical virtue of regalia, 362–365; magical powers of kings among the
 Aryan races, 366–368; touching for the King’s Evil, 368–371; general
 conclusion, 371 _sq._


 CHAPTER VII.—INCARNATE HUMAN GODS • Pp. 373–421

 Conception of gods slowly evolved, 373 _sq._; decline of magic,
 374; conception of incarnate human gods an early stage of religious
 history, 374–376; {xxxii} incarnation either temporary or
 permanent, 376 _sq._; temporary incarnation of gods in human form in
 Polynesia, Fiji, Bali, and Celebes, 377–380; temporary deification
 of sacrificer in Brahman ritual, 380; the new birth, 380 _sq._;
 temporary incarnation or inspiration produced by drinking blood,
 381–383; temporary inspiration produced by sacred tree or plant, 383
 _sq._; inspired sacrificial victims, 384 _sq._; divine power acquired
 by temporary inspiration, 385 _sq._; human gods in the Pacific,
 386–389; human gods in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Germany, 389–392;
 human gods in Africa, 392–397; divinity of kings in Madagascar, 397
 _sq._; divinity of kings and men in the East Indies, 398–400; divine
 kings and men in Burma, Siam, and Tonquin, 400–402; human gods in
 India, 402–407; pretenders to divinity among Christians, 407–410;
 transmigrations of human divinities, especially of the divine Lamas,
 410–412; incarnate human gods in the Chinese empire, 412–415; divine
 kings of Peru and Mexico, 415 _sq._; divinity of the emperors of China
 and Japan, 417 _sq._; divinity of early kings, 417 _sq._; divinity of
 Egyptian kings, 418–420; conclusion, development of sacred kings out
 of magicians, 420 _sq._


 APPENDIX.—HEGEL ON MAGIC AND RELIGION • Pp. 423–426

{p1}




CHAPTER I

THE KING OF THE WOOD


    “_The still glassy lake that sleeps_
      _Beneath Aricia’s trees—_
    _Those trees in whose dim shadow_
      _The ghastly priest doth reign,_
    _The priest who slew the slayer,_
      _And shall himself be slain._”

    MACAULAY.


§ 1. _Diana and Virbius_

[Sidenote: The lake of Nemi.]

Who does not know Turner’s picture of the Golden Bough? The scene,
suffused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine mind
of Turner steeped and transfigured even the fairest natural landscape,
is a dream-like vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi—“Diana’s
Mirror,” as it was called by the ancients. No one who has seen that
calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban hills, can ever
forget it. The two characteristic Italian villages which slumber on
its banks, and the equally Italian palace whose terraced gardens
descend steeply to the lake, hardly break the stillness and even the
solitariness of the scene. Dian herself might still linger by this
lonely shore, still haunt these woodlands wild.

[Sidenote: Its tragic memories]

In antiquity this sylvan landscape was the scene of a strange and
recurring tragedy. In order to understand it aright we must try to form
in our minds an accurate picture of the place where it happened; for,
as we shall see later on, a subtle link subsisted between the natural
beauty of the spot and the dark crimes which under the mask of religion
were often perpetrated there, crimes which after the lapse of {p2} so
many ages still lend a touch of melancholy to these quiet woods and
waters, like a chill breath of autumn on one of those bright September
days “while not a leaf seems faded.”

[Sidenote: The Alban hills.]

The Alban hills are a fine bold group of volcanic mountains which rise
abruptly from the Campagna in full view of Rome, forming the last spur
sent out by the Apennines towards the sea. Two of the extinct craters
are now filled by two beautiful waters, the Alban lake and its lesser
sister the lake of Nemi. Both lie far below the monastery-crowned top
of Monte Cavo, the summit of the range, but yet so high above the plain
that standing on the rim of the larger crater at Castel Gandolfo, where
the Popes had their summer palace, you look down on the one hand into
the Alban lake, and on the other away across the Campagna to where, on
the western horizon, the sea flashes like a broad sheet of burnished
gold in the sun.

[Sidenote: The sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis.]

The lake of Nemi is still as of old embowered in woods, where in spring
the wild flowers blow as fresh as no doubt they did two thousand
springs ago. It lies so deep down in the old crater that the calm
surface of its clear water is seldom ruffled by the wind. On all sides
but one the banks, thickly mantled with luxuriant vegetation, descend
steeply to the water’s edge. Only on the north a stretch of flat ground
intervenes between the lake and the foot of the hills. This was the
scene of the tragedy. Here, in the very heart of the wooded hills,
under the abrupt declivity now crested by the village of Nemi, the
sylvan goddess Diana had an old and famous sanctuary, the resort of
pilgrims from all parts of Latium. It was known as the sacred grove of
Diana Nemorensis, that is, Diana of the Wood, or, perhaps more exactly,
Diana of the Woodland Glade.​[1] Sometimes the lake and grove were
called, after the nearest town, the lake {p3} and grove of Aricia.​[2]
But the town, the modern Ariccia, lay three miles away at the foot of
the mountains, and separated from the lake by a long and steep descent.
A spacious terrace or platform contained the sanctuary. On the north
and east it was bounded by great retaining walls which cut into the
hillsides and served to support them. Semicircular niches sunk in
the walls and faced with columns formed a series of chapels, which
in modern times have yielded a rich harvest of votive offerings. On
the side of the lake the terrace rested on a mighty wall, over seven
hundred feet long by thirty feet high, built in triangular buttresses,
like those which we see in front of the piers of bridges to break
floating ice. At present this terrace-wall stands back some hundred
yards from the lake; in other days its buttresses may have been lapped
by the water. Compared with the extent of the sacred precinct, the
temple itself was not large; but its remains prove it to have been
neatly and solidly built of massive blocks of peperino, and adorned
with Doric columns of the same material. Elaborate cornices of marble
and friezes of terra-cotta contributed to the outward splendour of the
edifice, which appears to have been further enhanced by tiles of gilt
bronze.​[3] {p4}

[Sidenote: Wealth and popularity of the shrine.]

The great wealth and popularity of the sanctuary in antiquity are
attested by ancient writers as well as by the remains which have come
to light in modern times. In the civil war its sacred treasures went
to replenish the empty coffers of Octavian,​[4] who well understood
the useful art of thus securing the divine assistance, if not the
divine blessing, for the furtherance of his ends. But we are not told
that he treated Diana on this occasion as civilly as his divine uncle
Julius Caesar once treated Capitoline Jupiter himself, borrowing three
thousand pounds’ weight of solid gold from the god, and scrupulously
paying him back with the same weight of gilt copper.​[5] However, the
sanctuary at Nemi recovered from this drain on its resources, for two
centuries later it was still reputed one of the richest in Italy.​[6]
Ovid has described the walls hung with fillets and commemorative
tablets;​[7] and the abundance of cheap votive offerings and copper
coins, which the site has yielded in our own day, speaks volumes for
the piety and numbers, if not for the opulence and liberality, of
the worshippers. Swarms of beggars used to stream forth daily from
the slums of Aricia and take their stand on the long slope up which
the labouring horses dragged well-to-do pilgrims to the shrine; and
according to the response which their whines and importunities met with
they blew kisses or hissed curses after the carriages as they swept
rapidly down hill again.​[8] {p5} Even peoples and potentates of the
East did homage to the lady of the lake by setting up monuments in
her sanctuary; and within the precinct stood shrines of the Egyptian
goddesses Isis and Bubastis, with a store of gorgeous jewellery.​[9]

[Sidenote: Roman villas at Nemi.]

The retirement of the spot and the beauty of the landscape naturally
tempted some of the luxurious Roman nobles to fix their summer
residences by the lake.​[10] Here Lucius Caesar had a house to
which, on a day in early summer, only two months after the murder
of his illustrious namesake, he invited Cicero to meet the assassin
Brutus.​[11] The emperors themselves appear to have been partial to a
retreat where they could find repose from the cares of state and the
bustle of the great city in the fresh air of the lake and the stillness
of the woods. Here Julius Caesar built himself a costly villa, but
pulled it down because it was not to his mind.​[12] Here Caligula had
two magnificent barges, or rather floating palaces, launched for him
on the lake;​[13] and it was while dallying in the woods of Nemi that
the sluggard Vitellius received the tidings of revolt which woke him
from his dream of pleasure and called him to arms.​[14] Vespasian had
a monument dedicated to his honour in the {p6} grove by the senate and
people of Aricia: Trajan condescended to fill the chief magistracy of
the town; and Hadrian indulged his taste for architecture by restoring
a structure which had been erected in the precinct by a prince of the
royal house of Parthia.​[15]

[Sidenote: Diana as the mistress of wild animals.

Diana as the patroness of cattle.

Analogy of St. Leonhard in Germany.]

Such, then, was the sanctuary of Diana at Nemi, a fitting home for
the “mistress of mountains, and forests green, and lonely glades,
and sounding rivers,” as Catullus calls her.​[16] Multitudes of her
statuettes, appropriately clad in the short tunic and high buskins of
a huntress, with the quiver slung over her shoulder, have been found
on the spot. Some of them represent her with her bow in her hand or
her hound at her side.​[17] Bronze and iron spears, and images of
stags and hinds, discovered within the precinct,​[18] may have been
offerings of huntsmen to the huntress goddess for success in the
chase. Similarly the bronze tridents, which have also come to light at
Nemi, were perhaps presented by fishermen who had speared fish in the
lake, or maybe by hunters who had stabbed boars in the forest.​[19]
The wild boar was still hunted in Italy down to the end of the first
century of our era; for the younger Pliny tells us how, with his usual
charming affectation, he sat meditating and reading by the nets, while
three fine boars fell into them.​[20] Indeed, some fourteen-hundred
years later boar-hunting was a favourite pastime of Pope {p7} Leo the
Tenth.​[21] A frieze of painted reliefs in terra-cotta, which was
found in the sanctuary at Nemi, and may have adorned Diana’s temple,
portrays the goddess in the character of what is called the Asiatic
Artemis, with wings sprouting from her waist and a lion resting its
paws on each of her shoulders.​[22] A few rude images of cows, oxen,
horses, and pigs dug up on the site may perhaps indicate that Diana
was here worshipped as the patroness of domestic animals as well as
of the wild creatures of the wood.​[23] In like manner her Greek
counterpart Artemis was a goddess not only of game but of herds. Thus
her sanctuary in the highlands of north-western Arcadia, between Clitor
and Cynaethae, owned sacred cattle which were driven off by Aetolian
freebooters on one of their forays.​[24] When Xenophon returned from
the wars and settled on his estate among the wooded hills and green
meadows of the rich valley through which the Alpheus flows past
Olympia, he dedicated to Artemis a little temple on the model of her
great temple at Ephesus, surrounded it with a grove of all kinds of
fruit-trees, and endowed it not only with a chase but also with a
sacred pasture. The chase abounded in fish and game of all sorts,
and the pasture sufficed to rear swine, goats, oxen, and horses; and
on her yearly festival the pious soldier sacrificed to the goddess
a tithe both of the cattle from the sacred pasture and of the game
from the sacred chase.​[25] Again, the people of Hyampolis in Phocis
worshipped Artemis and thought that no cattle throve like those which
they dedicated to her.​[26] Perhaps then the images of cattle found in
Diana’s precinct at Nemi were offered to her by herdsmen to ensure her
blessing on their herds. In Catholic Germany at the present time the
great patron of cattle, horses, and pigs is St. Leonhard, and models
of cattle, horses, and pigs are dedicated to him, sometimes in order
to ensure the health and increase of the flocks and herds through the
coming year, sometimes in order to {p8} obtain the recovery of sick
animals.​[27] And, curiously enough, like Diana of Aricia, St. Leonhard
is also expected to help women in travail and to bless barren wives
with offspring.​[28] Nor do these points exhaust the analogy between
St. Leonard and Diana of Aricia; for like the goddess the saint heals
the sick; he is the patron of prisoners, as she was of runaway slaves;
and his shrines, like hers, enjoyed the right of asylum.​[29]

[Sidenote: Nemi an image of Italy in the olden time.]

So to the last, in spite of a few villas peeping out here and there
from among the trees, Nemi seems to have remained in some sense an
image of what Italy had been in the far-off days when the land was
still sparsely peopled with tribes of savage hunters or wandering
herdsmen, when the beechwoods and oakwoods, with their deciduous
foliage, reddening in autumn and bare in winter, had not yet begun,
under the hand of man, to yield to the evergreens of the south, the
laurel, the olive, the cypress, and the oleander, still less to those
intruders of a later age, which nowadays we are apt to think of as
characteristically Italian, the lemon and the orange.​[30]

[Sidenote: Rule of succession to the priesthood of Diana at Nemi.]

However, it was not merely in its natural surroundings that this
ancient shrine of the sylvan goddess continued to be a type or
miniature of the past. Down to the decline of Rome a custom was
observed there which seems to transport us at once from civilisation
to savagery. In the sacred grove there grew a certain tree round which
at any time of the day, and probably far into the night, a grim figure
might be seen to prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn sword, and he
kept peering warily about him as if {p9} at every instant he expected
to be set upon by an enemy.​[31] He was a priest and a murderer; and
the man for whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold
the priesthood in his stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A
candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying
the priest, and having slain him, he retained office till he was
himself slain by a stronger or a craftier.

[Sidenote: The priest who slew the slayer.]

The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried with it
the title of king; but surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier, or
was visited by more evil dreams, than his. For year in year out, in
summer and winter, in fair weather and in foul, he had to keep his
lonely watch, and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was at
the peril of his life. The least relaxation of his vigilance, the
smallest abatement of his strength of limb or skill of fence, put him
in jeopardy; grey hairs might seal his death-warrant. His eyes probably
acquired that restless, watchful look which, among the Esquimaux of
Bering Strait, is said to betray infallibly the shedder of blood; for
with that people revenge is a sacred duty, and the manslayer carries
his life in his hand.​[32] To gentle and pious pilgrims at the shrine
the sight of him might well seem to darken the fair landscape, as
when a cloud suddenly blots the sun on a bright day. The dreamy blue
of Italian skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle
of waves in the sun, can have accorded but ill with that stern and
sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene as it may
have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn
nights when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem
to sing the dirge of the dying year. It is a sombre picture, set to
melancholy music—the background of forest shewing black and jagged
against a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the
branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under foot, the lapping of
the cold water on the shore, and in the foreground, pacing to and fro,
now in twilight and now in gloom, a dark figure with a glitter {p10}
of steel at the shoulder whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the
cloud-rack, peers down at him through the matted boughs.

[Sidenote: Possibility of explaining the rule of succession by the
comparative method.]

The strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in classical
antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. To find an explanation we
must go farther afield. No one will probably deny that such a custom
savours of a barbarous age, and, surviving into imperial times, stands
out in striking isolation from the polished Italian society of the
day, like a primaeval rock rising from a smooth-shaven lawn. It is the
very rudeness and barbarity of the custom which allow us a hope of
explaining it. For recent researches into the early history of man have
revealed the essential similarity with which, under many superficial
differences, the human mind has elaborated its first crude philosophy
of life. Accordingly, if we can shew that a barbarous custom, like
that of the priesthood of Nemi, has existed elsewhere; if we can
detect the motives which led to its institution; if we can prove that
these motives have operated widely, perhaps universally, in human
society, producing in varied circumstances a variety of institutions
specifically different but generically alike; if we can shew, lastly,
that these very motives, with some of their derivative institutions,
were actually at work in classical antiquity; then we may fairly infer
that at a remoter age the same motives gave birth to the priesthood
of Nemi. Such an inference, in default of direct evidence as to how
the priesthood did actually arise, can never amount to demonstration.
But it will be more or less probable according to the degree of
completeness with which it fulfils the conditions I have indicated. The
object of this book is, by meeting these conditions, to offer a fairly
probable explanation of the priesthood of Nemi.

[Sidenote: Legend of the origin of the Nemi worship: Orestes and the
Tauric Diana.

The King of the Wood.]

I begin by setting forth the few facts and legends which have come
down to us on the subject. According to one story the worship of Diana
at Nemi was instituted by Orestes, who, after killing Thoas, King of
the Tauric Chersonese (the Crimea), fled with his sister to Italy,
bringing with him the image of the Tauric Diana hidden in a faggot of
sticks. After his death his bones were transported from Aricia to Rome
and buried in front of the temple of Saturn, on the {p11} Capitoline
slope, beside the temple of Concord. The bloody ritual which legend
ascribed to the Tauric Diana is familiar to classical readers; it is
said that every stranger who landed on the shore was sacrificed on her
altar. But transported to Italy, the rite assumed a milder form. Within
the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be
broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he could, one
of its boughs. Success in the attempt entitled him to fight the priest
in single combat, and if he slew him he reigned in his stead with the
title of King of the Wood (_Rex Nemorensis_). According to the public
opinion of the ancients the fateful branch was that Golden Bough which,
at the Sibyl’s bidding, Aeneas plucked before he essayed the perilous
journey to the world of the dead. The flight of the slave represented,
it was said, the flight of Orestes; his combat with the priest was a
reminiscence of the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana.
This rule of succession by the sword was observed down to imperial
times; for amongst his other freaks Caligula, thinking that the priest
of Nemi had held office too long, hired a more stalwart ruffian to
slay him; and a Greek traveller, who visited Italy in the age of the
Antonines, remarks that down to his time the priesthood was still the
prize of victory in a single combat.​[33] {p12}

[Sidenote: Chief features of the worship of Diana at Nemi.

Importance of fire in her ritual.

Diana as Vesta.]

Of the worship of Diana at Nemi some leading features can still be made
out. From the votive offerings which have been found on the site, it
appears that she was conceived of especially as a huntress, and further
as blessing men and women with offspring, and granting expectant
mothers an easy delivery.​[34] Again, fire seems to have played a
foremost part in her ritual. For during her annual festival, held on
the thirteenth of August, at the hottest time of the year, her grove
shone with a multitude of torches, whose ruddy glare was reflected by
the lake; and throughout the length and breadth of Italy the day was
kept with holy rites at every domestic hearth.​[35] Bronze statuettes
found in her precinct represent the goddess herself holding a torch
in her raised right hand;​[36] and women whose prayers had been heard
by her came crowned with wreaths and bearing lighted torches to the
sanctuary in fulfilment of their vows.​[37] Some one unknown {p13}
dedicated a perpetually burning lamp in a little shrine at Nemi for the
safety of the Emperor Claudius and his family.​[38] The terra-cotta
lamps which have been discovered in the grove​[39] may perhaps have
served a like purpose for humbler persons. If so, the analogy of the
custom to the Catholic practice of dedicating holy candles in churches
would be obvious.​[40] Further, the title of Vesta borne by Diana at
Nemi​[41] points clearly to the maintenance of a perpetual holy fire
in her sanctuary. A large circular basement at the north-east corner
of the temple, raised on three steps and bearing traces of a mosaic
pavement, probably supported a round temple of Diana in her character
of Vesta, like the round temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum.​[42] Here
the sacred fire would seem to have been tended by Vestal Virgins, for
the head of a Vestal in terra-cotta was found on the spot,​[43] and the
worship of a perpetual fire, cared for by holy maidens, appears to have
been common in Latium from the earliest to the latest times.​[44] Thus
we know that among the ruins of Alba the Vestal fire was kept burning
by Vestal Virgins, bound to strict chastity, until the end of the
fourth century of our era.​[45] There were Vestals at {p14} Tibur​[46]
and doubtless also at Lavinium, for the Roman consuls, praetors, and
dictators had to sacrifice to Vesta at that ancient city when they
entered on or laid down their office.​[47]

[Sidenote: Diana’s festival on August 13 converted by the Christian
Church into the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin on August 15.

The Virgin Mary seems to have succeeded Artemis and Diana as the
patroness of the ripening fruits.

Survivals of Diana’s festival in Italy, Sicily, and Scandinavia.

The Virgin Mary and the goddess Anaitis.]

At her annual festival, which, as we have just seen, was celebrated all
over Italy on the thirteenth of August, hunting dogs were crowned and
wild beasts were not molested; young people went through a purificatory
ceremony in her honour; wine was brought forth, and the feast consisted
of a kid, cakes served piping hot on plates of leaves, and apples still
hanging in clusters on the boughs.​[48] The Christian Church appears to
have sanctified this great festival of the virgin goddess by adroitly
converting it into the festival of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
on the fifteenth of August.​[49] The discrepancy of two days between
the dates of the festivals is not a fatal argument against their
identity; for a similar displacement of two days occurs in the case of
St. George’s festival on the twenty-third of April, which is probably
identical with the ancient Roman festival of the Parilia on April
twenty-first.​[50] On the reasons which prompted this conversion of
the festival of the Virgin Diana into the festival of the Virgin Mary,
some light is thrown by a passage in the Syriac text of _The Departure
of My Lady Mary from this World_, which runs thus: “And the apostles
also ordered that there should be a commemoration of the blessed one
on the thirteenth of Ab [that is, August; another MS. reads the 15th
of Ab], on account of the vines bearing bunches (of grapes), and on
account of the trees bearing fruit, that clouds of hail, bearing stones
of wrath, might not come, and the trees be broken, and their fruits,
and the vines with their clusters.”​[51] Here the festival of {p15}
the Assumption of the Virgin is definitely said to have been fixed on
the thirteenth or fifteenth of August for the sake of protecting the
ripening grapes and other fruits. Similarly in the Arabic text of the
apocryphal work _On the Passing of the Blessed Virgin Mary_, which is
attributed to the Apostle John, there occurs the following passage:
“Also a festival in her honour was instituted on the fifteenth day of
the month Ab [that is, August], which is the day of her passing from
this world, the day on which the miracles were performed, and the time
when the fruits of trees are ripening.”​[52] Further, in the calendars
of the Syrian Church the fifteenth of August is repeatedly designated
as the festival of the Mother of God “for the vines”;​[53] and to this
day in Greece the ripening grapes and other fruits are brought to the
churches to be blest by the priests on the fifteenth of August.​[54]
Now we hear of vineyards and plantations dedicated to Artemis, fruits
offered to her, and her temple standing in an orchard.​[55] Hence
we may conjecture that her Italian sister Diana was also revered as
a patroness of vines and fruit-trees, and that on the thirteenth of
August the {p16} owners of vineyards and orchards paid their respects
to her at Nemi along with other classes of the community. We have just
seen that wine and apples still hanging on the boughs formed part of
the festal cheer on that day; in an ancient fresco found at Ostia a
statue of Diana is depicted in company with a procession of children,
some of whom bear clusters of grapes;​[56] and in a series of gems the
goddess is represented with a branch of fruit in one hand and a cup,
which is sometimes full of fruit, in the other.​[57] Catullus, too,
tells us that Diana filled the husbandman’s barns with a bounteous
harvest.​[58] In some parts of Italy and Sicily the day of the
Assumption of the Virgin is still celebrated, like Diana’s day of old,
with illuminations and bonfires; in many Sicilian parishes the corn is
then brought in sacks to the churches to be blessed, and many persons,
who have a favour to ask of the Virgin, vow to abstain from one or
more kinds of fruit during the first fifteen days of August.​[59] Even
in Scandinavia a relic of the worship of Diana survived in the custom
of blessing the fruits of the earth of every sort, which in Catholic
times was annually observed on the festival of the Assumption of the
Virgin.​[60] There is no intrinsic improbability in the view that for
the sake of edification the church may have converted a real heathen
festival into a nominal Christian one. Similarly in the Armenian
Church “according to the express evidence of the Armenian fathers of
the year 700 and later, the day of the Virgin was placed on September
the fifteenth, because that was the day of Anahite, the magnificence
of whose feast the Christian doctors hoped thereby to transfer to
Mary.”​[61] This Anahite or Anaitis, as the Greeks called her, the
Armenian predecessor of the Virgin Mary, was a great Oriental goddess,
{p17} whose worship was exceedingly popular not only in Armenia but in
the adjoining countries. The loose character of her rites is plainly
indicated by Strabo, himself a native of these regions.​[62]

[Sidenote: The 13th of August a harvest festival among the Celts of
Gaul.]

Among the ancient Celts of Gaul, who, to judge by their speech, were
near kinsmen of the ancient Latins, the thirteenth of August appears
to have been the day when the harvest was dedicated to the harvest-god
Rivos.​[63] If that was so, we may conjecture that the choice of a day
in mid-August for the solemn celebration of the harvest-home dates from
the remote time when the ancestors of the Celtic and Italian peoples,
having renounced the wandering life of the huntsman and herdsman,
had settled down together in some land of fertile soil and temperate
climate, where harvest fell neither so late as after the cool rainy
summers of the North nor so early as before the torrid and rainless
summers of southern Europe.

[Sidenote: Egeria, water-nymph and wife of Numa.]

But Diana did not reign alone in her grove at Nemi.​[64] Two lesser
divinities shared her forest sanctuary. One was Egeria, the nymph of
the clear water which, bubbling from the basaltic rocks, used to fall
in graceful cascades into the lake at the place called Le Mole, because
here were established the mills of the modern village of Nemi. The
purling of the stream as it ran over the pebbles is mentioned by Ovid,
who tells us that he had often drunk of its water.​[65] {p18} Women
with child used to sacrifice to Egeria, because she was believed, like
Diana, to be able to grant them an easy delivery.​[66] Tradition ran
that the nymph had been the wife or mistress of the wise king Numa,
that he had consorted with her in the secrecy of the sacred grove, and
that the laws which he gave the Romans had been inspired by communion
with her divinity.​[67] Plutarch compares the legend with other tales
of the loves of goddesses for mortal men, such as the love of Cybele
and the Moon for the fair youths Attis and Endymion.​[68] According
to some, the trysting-place of the lovers was not in the woods of
Nemi but in a grove outside the dripping Porta Capena at Rome, where
another sacred spring of Egeria gushed from a dark cavern.​[69] Every
day the Roman Vestals fetched water from this spring to wash the temple
of Vesta, carrying it in earthenware pitchers on their heads.​[70] In
Juvenal’s time the natural rock had been encased in marble, and the
hallowed spot was profaned by gangs of poor Jews, who were suffered
to squat, like gypsies, in the grove. We may suppose that the spring
which fell into the lake of Nemi was the true original Egeria, and that
when the first settlers moved down from the Alban hills to the banks
of the Tiber they brought {p19} the nymph with them and found a new
home for her in a grove outside the gates.​[71] The remains of baths
which have been discovered within the sacred precinct,​[72] together
with many terra-cotta models of various parts of the human body,​[73]
suggest that the waters of Egeria were used to heal the sick, who may
have signified their hopes or testified their gratitude by dedicating
likenesses of the diseased members to the goddess, in accordance with
a custom which is still observed in many parts of Europe.​[74] To this
day it would seem that the spring retains medicinal virtues.​[75]

[Sidenote: Virbius, the male companion of Diana.]

The other of the minor deities at Nemi was Virbius. Legend had it that
Virbius was the young Greek hero Hippolytus, chaste and fair, who
learned the art of venery from the centaur Chiron, and spent all his
days in the greenwood chasing wild beasts with the virgin huntress
Artemis (the Greek counterpart of Diana) for his only comrade. Proud of
her divine society, he spurned the love of women,​[76] and this proved
his bane. For Aphrodite, stung by his scorn, inspired his stepmother
Phaedra with love of him; and when he disdained her wicked advances she
falsely accused him to his father Theseus. The slander was believed,
and Theseus prayed to his sire Poseidon to avenge the imagined wrong.
So while Hippolytus drove in a chariot by the shore of the Saronic
Gulf, the sea-god {p20} sent a fierce bull forth from the waves. The
terrified horses bolted, threw Hippolytus from the chariot, and dragged
him at their hoofs to death.​[77] But Diana, for the love she bore
Hippolytus, persuaded the leech Aesculapius to bring her fair young
hunter back to life by his simples. Jupiter, indignant that a mortal
man should return from the gates of death, thrust down the meddling
leech himself to Hades. But Diana hid her favourite from the angry god
in a thick cloud, disguised his features by adding years to his life,
and then bore him far away to the dells of Nemi, where she entrusted
him to the nymph Egeria, to live there, unknown and solitary, under
the name of Virbius, in the depth of the Italian forest. There he
reigned a king, and there he dedicated a precinct to Diana. He had a
comely son, Virbius, who, undaunted by his father’s fate, drove a team
of fiery steeds to join the Latins in the war against Aeneas and the
Trojans.​[78] Virbius was worshipped as a god not only at Nemi but
elsewhere; for in Campania we hear of a special priest devoted to his
service.​[79] Horses were excluded from the Arician grove and sanctuary
because horses had killed Hippolytus.​[80] It was unlawful to touch his
image. Some thought that he was the sun.​[81] “But the {p21} truth is,”
says Servius, “that he is a deity associated with Diana, as Attis is
associated with the Mother of the Gods, and Erichthonius with Minerva,
and Adonis with Venus.”​[82] What the nature of that association was we
shall enquire presently. Here it is worth observing that in his long
and chequered career this mythical personage has displayed a remarkable
tenacity of life. For we can hardly doubt that the Saint Hippolytus
of the Roman calendar, who was dragged by horses to death on the
thirteenth of August, Diana’s own day, is no other than the Greek hero
of the same name, who after dying twice over as a heathen sinner has
been happily resuscitated as a Christian saint.​[83]

[Sidenote: The legends of Nemi invented to explain the ritual.

Tradition that the grove of Nemi was dedicated by a Latin dictator.]

It needs no elaborate demonstration to convince us that the stories
told to account for Diana’s worship at Nemi are unhistorical. Clearly
they belong to that large class of myths which are made up to explain
the origin of a religious ritual and have no other foundation than
the resemblance, real or imaginary, which may be traced between it
and some foreign ritual. The incongruity of these Nemi myths is
indeed transparent, since the foundation of the worship is traced now
to Orestes and now to Hippolytus, according as {p22} this or that
feature of the ritual has to be accounted for. The real value of such
tales is that they serve to illustrate the nature of the worship by
providing a standard with which to compare it; and further, that they
bear witness indirectly to its venerable age by shewing that the true
origin was lost in the mists of a fabulous antiquity. In the latter
respect these Nemi legends are probably more to be trusted than the
apparently historical tradition, vouched for by Cato the Elder, that
the sacred grove was dedicated to Diana by a certain Egerius Baebius
or Laevius of Tusculum, a Latin dictator, on behalf of the peoples
of Tusculum, Aricia, Lanuvium, Laurentum, Cora, Tibur, Pometia, and
Ardea.​[84] This tradition indeed speaks for the great age of the
sanctuary, since it seems to date its foundation sometime before 495
B.C., the year in which Pometia was sacked by the Romans and disappears
from history.​[85] But we cannot suppose that so barbarous a rule
as that of the Arician priesthood was deliberately instituted by a
league of civilised communities, such as the Latin cities undoubtedly
were. It must have been handed down from a time beyond the memory
of man, when Italy was still in a far ruder state than any known to
us in the historical period. The credit of the tradition is rather
shaken than confirmed by another story which ascribes the foundation
of the sanctuary to a certain Manius Egerius, who gave rise to the
saying, “There are many Manii at Aricia.” This proverb some explained
by alleging that Manius Egerius was the ancestor of a long and
distinguished line, whereas others thought it meant that there were
many ugly and deformed people at Aricia, and they derived the name
Manius from _Mania_, a bogey or bugbear to frighten children.​[86] A
Roman satirist uses the name Manius as typical of the beggars who lay
in wait for pilgrims on the Arician slopes.​[87] These differences of
opinion, together with the discrepancy between Manius Egerius of Aricia
and Egerius Laevius of Tusculum, as well as the resemblance of both
names to the mythical Egeria,​[88] excite {p23} our suspicion. Yet the
tradition recorded by Cato seems too circumstantial, and its sponsor
too respectable, to allow us to dismiss it as an idle fiction.​[89]
Rather we may suppose that it refers to some ancient restoration or
reconstruction of the sanctuary, which was actually carried out by the
confederate states.​[90] At any rate it testifies to a belief that
the grove had been from early times a common place of worship for
many of the oldest cities of the country, if not for the whole Latin
confederacy.​[91]

[Sidenote: Evidence of the antiquity of the grove.]

Another argument of antiquity may be drawn from some of the votive
offerings found on the spot, such as a sacrificial ladle of bronze
bearing Diana’s name in archaic Greek letters,​[92] and pieces of
the oldest kind of Italian money, being merely shapeless bits of
copper, unstamped and valued by weight.​[93] But as the use of such
old-fashioned money {p24} survived in offerings to the gods long after
it vanished from daily life,​[94] no great stress can be laid on its
occurrence at Nemi as evidence of the age of the shrine.


§ 2. _Artemis and Hippolytus_

[Sidenote: Origin of the Arician myths of Orestes and Hippolytus.]

I have said that the Arician legends of Orestes and Hippolytus, though
worthless as history, have a certain value in so far as they may help
us to understand the worship at Nemi better by comparing it with the
ritual and myths of other sanctuaries. We must ask ourselves, Why
did the authors of these legends pitch upon Orestes and Hippolytus
in order to explain Virbius and the King of the Wood? In regard to
Orestes, the answer is obvious. He and the image of the Tauric Diana,
which could only be appeased with human blood,​[95] were dragged in to
render intelligible the murderous rule of succession to the Arician
priesthood. In regard to Hippolytus the case is not so plain. The
manner of his death suggests readily enough a reason for the exclusion
of horses from the grove; but this by itself seems hardly enough
to account for the identification. We must try to probe deeper by
examining the worship as well as the legend or myth of Hippolytus.

[Sidenote: Worship of Hippolytus at Troezen.

Hippolytus a mythical being of the Adonis type.]

He had a famous sanctuary at his ancestral home of Troezen, situated
on that beautiful, almost landlocked bay, where groves of oranges and
lemons, with tall cypresses soaring like dark spires above the garden
of the Hesperides, now clothe the strip of fertile shore at the foot
of the rugged mountains. Across the blue water of the tranquil bay,
which it shelters from the open sea, rises Poseidon’s sacred island,
its peaks veiled in the sombre green of the pines. On this fair coast
Hippolytus was worshipped. Within his sanctuary stood a temple with an
ancient image. His service was performed by a priest who held office
for life: every year a sacrificial festival was held in his honour; and
his untimely fate was yearly mourned, with weeping and {p25} doleful
chants, by unwedded maids, who also dedicated locks of their hair in
his temple before marriage.​[96] His grave existed at Troezen, though
the people would not shew it.​[97] It has been suggested, with great
plausibility, that in the handsome Hippolytus, beloved of Artemis, cut
off in his youthful prime, and yearly mourned by damsels, we have one
of those mortal lovers of a goddess who appear so often in ancient
religion, and of whom Adonis is the most familiar type. The rivalry
of Artemis and Phaedra for the affection of Hippolytus reproduces,
it is said, under different names, the rivalry of Aphrodite and
Proserpine for the love of Adonis, for Phaedra is merely a double of
Aphrodite.​[98] Certainly in the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides the tragedy
of the hero’s death is traced directly to the anger of Aphrodite at
his contempt for her power, and Phaedra is nothing but a tool of the
goddess. Moreover, within the precinct of Hippolytus at Troezen there
stood a temple of Peeping Aphrodite, which was so named, we are told,
because from this spot the amorous Phaedra used to watch Hippolytus
at his manly sports. Clearly the name would be still more appropriate
if it was Aphrodite herself who peeped. And beside this temple of
Aphrodite grew a myrtle-tree with pierced leaves, which the hapless
Phaedra, in the pangs of love, had pricked with her bodkin.​[99]
Now the myrtle, with its glossy evergreen leaves, its red and white
blossom, and its fragrant perfume, was Aphrodite’s own tree, and legend
associated it with the birth of Adonis.​[100] At Athens also Hippolytus
was intimately associated with Aphrodite, for on the south side of the
Acropolis, looking towards Troezen, a barrow or sepulchral mound in
his memory was shewn, and beside it stood a temple of Aphrodite, said
to have been founded by Phaedra, which bore the name of the temple of
Aphrodite at {p26} Hippolytus.​[101] The conjunction, both in Troezen
and in Athens, of his grave with a temple of the goddess of love is
significant. Later on we shall meet with mounds in which the lovers of
the great Asiatic goddess were said to lie buried.

[Sidenote: The divine mistresses of Hippolytus associated with oaks.]

If this view of the relation of Hippolytus to Artemis and Aphrodite is
right, it is somewhat remarkable that both his divine mistresses appear
to have been associated at Troezen with oaks. For Aphrodite was here
worshipped under the title of Askraia, that is, she of the Fruitless
Oak;​[102] and Hippolytus was said to have met his death not far from a
sanctuary of Saronian Artemis, that is, Artemis of the Hollow Oak, for
here the wild olive-tree was shewn in which the reins of his chariot
became entangled, and so brought him to the ground.​[103]

[Sidenote: Orestes at Troezen.]

It may not be without significance that Orestes, the other mythical
hero of Nemi, also appears in the legendary history of Troezen. For
at Troezen there was a temple of Wolfish Artemis, said to have been
dedicated by Hippolytus, and in front of the temple stood a sacred
stone upon which nine men, according to the legend, had cleansed
Orestes from the guilt of his mother’s murder. In the solemn rite they
made use of water drawn from the Horse’s Fount; and as late as the
second century of our era their descendants dined together on certain
set days in a building called the Booth of Orestes. Before the building
there grew a laurel-tree which was said to have sprung on the spot
where the things used in purifying the matricide were buried. The old
traveller Pausanias, to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of ancient
Greece, could not learn why {p27} Hippolytus dedicated a temple to
Wolfish Artemis; but he conjectured that it might have been because he
extirpated the packs of wolves that used to scour the country.​[104]

[Sidenote: Hippolytus in relation to horses and wolves.]

Another point in the myth of Hippolytus which deserves attention is
the frequent recurrence of horses in it. His name signifies either
“horse-loosed” or “horse-looser”;​[105] he consecrated twenty horses to
Aesculapius at Epidaurus;​[106] he was killed by horses; the Horse’s
Fount probably flowed not far from the temple which he built for
Wolfish Artemis; and horses were sacred to his grandsire Poseidon, who
had an ancient sanctuary in the wooded island across the bay, where
the ruins of it may still be seen in the pine-forest.​[107] Lastly,
Hippolytus’s sanctuary at Troezen was said to have been founded by
Diomede, whose mythical connexion both with horses and wolves is
attested. For the Veneti, at the head of the Adriatic, were famed for
their breed of horses, and they had a sacred grove of Diomede, at the
spot where many springs burst forth from the foot of a lofty cliff,
forming at once the broad and deep river Timavus (the modern Timao),
which flows with a still and tranquil current into the neighbouring
sea. Here the Veneti sacrificed a white horse to Diomede; and
associated with his grove were two others, sacred to Argive Hera and
Aetolian Artemis. In these groves wild beasts were reported to lose
their ferocity, and deer to herd with wolves. Moreover, the horses of
the district, famed for their speed, were said to have been branded
with the mark of a wolf.​[108] Thus Hippolytus was associated with the
horse in many ways, and this association may have been used to explain
more features of the Arician ritual than the mere exclusion of the
animal from the sacred grove.​[109] {p28} To this point we shall return
later on. Whether his relation to wolves was also invoked to account
for any other aspect of the worship at Nemi we cannot say, since the
wolf plays no part in the scanty notices of that worship which have
come down to us.​[110] But doubtless, as one of the wild creatures of
the wood, the beast would be under the special care of Diana.

[Sidenote: Hair offered before marriage to Hippolytus and others.]

The custom observed by Troezenian girls of offering tresses of their
hair to Hippolytus before their wedding brings him into a relation with
marriage, which at first sight seems out of keeping with his reputation
as a confirmed bachelor. According to Lucian, youths as well as maidens
at Troezen were forbidden to wed till they had shorn their hair in
honour of Hippolytus, and we gather from the context that it was their
first beard which the young men thus polled.​[111] However we may
explain it, a custom of this sort appears to have prevailed widely both
in Greece and the East. Plutarch tells us that formerly it was the wont
of boys at puberty to go to Delphi and offer of their hair to Apollo;
Theseus, the father of Hippolytus, complied with the custom,​[112]
which lasted down into historical times.​[113] Argive maidens, grown to
womanhood, dedicated their tresses to Athena before marriage.​[114] On
the same occasion Megarian girls poured libations and laid clippings of
their hair on the tomb of the maiden Iphinoe.​[115] At the entrance to
the temple of Artemis in Delos the grave of two maidens was shewn under
an olive-tree. It was said that long ago they had come as pilgrims
from a far northern land with offerings to Apollo, and dying in the
sacred isle were buried there. The Delian virgins before marriage
used to cut off a lock of their hair, wind it on a spindle, and lay
it on the maidens’ grave. The young men did the same, except that
they twisted the down of their first beard round a wisp of grass or a
green shoot.​[116] In some places it was Artemis who {p29} received
the offering of a maiden’s hair before marriage.​[117] At Panamara in
Caria men dedicated locks of their hair in the temple of Zeus. The
locks were enclosed in little stone boxes, some of them fitted with a
marble lid or shutter, and the name of the dedicator was engraved on
a square sinking in the stone, together with the name of the priest
for the time being. Many of these inscribed boxes have been found of
late years on the spot. None of them bear the names of women; some of
them are inscribed with the names of a father and his sons. All the
dedications are to Zeus alone, though Hera was also worshipped with him
at Panamara.​[118] At Hierapolis, on the Euphrates, youths offered of
their beards and girls of their tresses to the great Syrian goddess,
and left the shorn hair in caskets of gold or silver, inscribed with
their names, and nailed to the walls of the temple.​[119] The custom of
dedicating the first beard seems to have been common at Rome under the
Empire.​[120] Thus Nero consecrated his first beard in a golden box,
studded with costly pearls, on the Capitol.​[121]

[Sidenote: Such offerings intended to communicate strength and
fertility.

Egyptian practice.]

Some light is perhaps thrown on the meaning of these practices by two
ancient Oriental customs, the one Egyptian, the other Phoenician. When
Egyptian boys or girls had recovered from sickness, their parents used
to shave the children’s heads, weigh the hair against gold or silver,
and give the precious metal to the keepers of the sacred beasts, who
bought food with it for the animals according to their tastes. These
tastes varied with the nature of the beast, and the beast varied with
the district. Where hawks were worshipped, the keepers chopped up
flesh, and calling the birds in a loud voice, flung the gobbets up
into the air, till the hawks stooped and caught them. Where cats, or
ichneumons, or {p30} fish were the local deities, the keepers crumbled
bread in milk and set it before them, or threw it into the Nile. And
similarly with the rest of the divine menagery.​[122] Thus in Egypt the
offerings of hair went to feed the worshipful animals.

[Sidenote: Syrian practice; sacrifice of chastity regarded as a
substitute for the sacrifice of hair.]

In the sanctuary of the great Phoenician goddess Astarte at Byblus
the practice was different. Here, at the annual mourning for the
dead Adonis, the women had to shave their heads, and such of them as
refused to do so were bound to prostitute themselves to strangers
and to sacrifice to the goddess with the wages of their shame.​[123]
Though Lucian, who mentions the custom, does not say so, there are
some grounds for thinking that the women in question were generally
maidens, of whom this act of devotion was required as a preliminary
to marriage.​[124] In any case, it is clear that the goddess accepted
the sacrifice of chastity as a substitute for the sacrifice of
hair.​[125] Why? By many people, as we shall afterwards see, the hair
is regarded as in a special sense the seat of strength; and at puberty
it might well be thought to contain a double portion of vital energy,
since at that season it is the outward sign and manifestation of the
newly-acquired power of reproducing the species. For that reason, we
may suppose, the beard rather than the hair of the head is offered
by males on this occasion. Thus the substitution permitted at Byblus
becomes intelligible: the women gave of their fecundity to the goddess,
whether they offered their hair or their chastity. But why, it may be
asked, should they make such an offering to Astarte, who was herself
the great goddess of love and fertility? What need had she to receive
fecundity from {p31} her worshippers? Was it not rather for her to
bestow it on them? Thus put, the question overlooks an important side
of polytheism, perhaps we may say of ancient religion in general. The
gods stood as much in need of their worshippers as the worshippers in
need of them. The benefits conferred were mutual. If the gods made
the earth to bring forth abundantly, the flocks and herds to teem,
and the human race to multiply, they expected that a portion of their
bounty should be returned to them in the shape of tithe or tribute. On
this tithe, indeed, they subsisted, and without it they would starve.
Their divine bellies had to be filled, and their divine reproductive
energies to be recruited; hence men had to give of their meat and
drink to them, and to sacrifice for their benefit what is most manly
in man and womanly in woman. Sacrifices of the latter kind have too
often been overlooked or misunderstood by the historians of religion.
Other examples of them will meet us in the course of our enquiry. At
the same time it may well be that the women who offered their hair to
Astarte hoped to benefit through the sympathetic connexion which they
thus established between themselves and the goddess; they may in fact
have expected to fecundate themselves by contact with the divine source
of fecundity. And it is probable that a similar motive underlay the
sacrifice of chastity as well as the sacrifice of hair.

[Sidenote: Hair offered to rivers as sources of fertility.

Delos and Delphi as centres of fertilisation and of fire.]

If the sacrifice of hair, especially of hair at puberty, is sometimes
intended to strengthen the divine beings to whom it is offered by
feeding or fertilising them, we can the better understand, not only
the common practice of offering hair to the shadowy dead,​[126] but
also the Greek usage of shearing it for rivers, as the Arcadian boys of
Phigalia did for the stream that runs in the depths of the tremendous
woody glen below the city.​[127] For next perhaps to rain and sunshine,
nothing in nature so obviously contributes to fertilise a country as
its rivers. Again, this view may set in a clearer light the custom of
the Delian youths and maidens, {p32} who offered their hair on the
maidens’ tomb under the olive-tree. For at Delos, as at Delphi, one
of Apollo’s many functions was to make the crops grow and to fill
the husbandman’s barns; hence at the time of harvest tithe-offerings
poured in to him from every side in the form of ripe sheaves, or,
what was perhaps still more acceptable, golden models of them, which
went by the name of the “golden summer.”​[128] The festival at which
these first-fruits were dedicated may have been the 6th and 7th of the
harvest-month Thargelion, corresponding to the 24th and 25th of May,
for these were the birthdays of Artemis and Apollo respectively.​[129]
In Hesiod’s day the corn-reaping began at the morning rising of the
Pleiades, which then answered to our 9th of May,​[130] and in Greece
the wheat is still ripe about that time.​[131] In return for these
offerings the god sent out a sacred new fire from both his great
sanctuaries at Delos and Delphi, thus radiating from them, as from
central suns, the divine blessings of heat and light. A ship brought
the new fire every year from Delos to Lemnos, the sacred island of the
fire-god Hephaestus, where all fires were put out before its arrival,
to be afterwards rekindled at the pure flame.​[132] The fetching of
the new fire from Delphi to Athens appears to have been a ceremony of
great solemnity and pomp. All the chief Athenian magistrates repaired
to Delphi for the purpose. The holy fire blazed or smouldered in a
sacred {p33} tripod borne on a chariot and tended by a woman who was
called the Fire-bearer. Soldiers, both horse and foot, escorted it;
magistrates, priests, and heralds accompanied it; and the procession
moved to the music of trumpet and fife.​[133] We do not know on what
occasion the fire was thus solemnly sent from Delphi to Athens, but we
may conjecture that it was when the Pythaists at Athens, watching from
the hearth of Lightning Zeus, saw lightning flash over Harma on Mount
Parnes, for then they sent a sacrifice to Delphi and may have received
the fire in return.​[134] After the great defeat of the Persians at
Plataea, the people of that city extinguished all the fires in the
country, deeming them defiled by the presence of the barbarians. Having
done so they relit them at a pure new fire fetched by a runner from the
altar of the common hearth at Delphi.​[135]

[Sidenote: The graves of Apollo and Artemis at Delos.]

Now the maidens on whose grave the Delian youths and damsels laid their
shorn locks before marriage, were said to have died in the island after
bringing the harvest offering, wrapt in wheaten straw, from the land
of the Hyperboreans in the far north.​[136] Thus they were in popular
opinion the mythical representatives of those bands of worshippers who
bore, year by year, the yellow sheaves with dance and song to Delos.
But in fact they had once been much more than this. For an examination
of their names, which are commonly given as Hekaerge and Opis, has led
modern scholars to conclude, with every appearance of probability, that
these maidens were originally mere duplicates of Artemis herself.​[137]
Perhaps indeed we may {p34} go a step farther. For sometimes one of
this pair of Hyperboreans appears as a male, not a female, under the
name of the Far-shooter (Hekaergos), which was a common epithet of
Apollo.​[138] This suggests that the two were originally the heavenly
twins themselves, Apollo and Artemis, and that the two graves which
were shewn at Delos, one before and the other behind the sanctuary of
Artemis, may have been at first the tombs of these great deities, who
were thus laid to their rest on the spot where they had been born.
As the one grave received offerings of hair, so the other received
the ashes of the victims which were burned on the altar.​[139] Both
sacrifices, if I am right, were designed to strengthen and fertilise
the divine powers who made the earth to wave with the golden harvest,
and whose mortal remains, like the miracle-working bones of saints
in the Middle Ages, brought wealth to their fortunate possessors.
Ancient piety was not shocked by the sight of the tomb of a dead god.
The grave of Apollo himself was shewn at his other great sanctuary of
Delphi,​[140] and this perhaps explains its disappearance at Delos.
The priests of the rival shrines may have calculated that one tomb
sufficed even for a god, and that two might prove a stumbling-block to
any but the most robust faith. Acting on this prudent conviction, they
may have adjusted their respective claims to the possession of the holy
sepulchre {p35} by leaving Apollo to sleep undisturbed at Delphi, while
his grave at Delos was dexterously converted into the tomb of a blessed
virgin by the easy grammatical change of _Hekaergos_ into _Hekaerge_.

[Sidenote: Hippolytus and Artemis.

Artemis a goddess of the wild life of nature.

Artemis not originally regarded as a virgin.

Artemis a goddess of childbirth.

The Ephesian Artemis.]

But how, it may be asked, does all this apply to Hippolytus? Why
attempt to fertilise the grave of a bachelor who paid all his devotions
to a barren virgin? What seed could take root and spring up in so
stony a soil? The question implies the popular modern notion of Diana
or Artemis as the pattern of a straight-laced maiden lady with a
taste for hunting. No notion could well be further from the truth.
To the ancients, on the contrary, she was the ideal and embodiment
of the wild life of nature—the life of plants, of animals, and of
men—in all its exuberant fertility and profusion. As a recent German
writer has admirably put it: “From of old a great goddess of nature
was everywhere worshipped in Greece. She was revered on the mountain
heights as in the swampy lowlands, in the rustling woods and by the
murmuring spring. To the Greek her hand was everywhere apparent. He saw
her gracious blessing in the sprouting meadow, in the ripening corn,
in the healthful vigour of all living things on earth, whether the
wild creatures of the wood and the fell, or the cattle which man has
tamed to his service, or man’s own offspring from the cradle upward.
Her destroying anger he perceived in the blight of vegetation, in the
inroads of wild beasts on his fields and orchards, as well as in the
last mysterious end of life, in death. No empty personification, like
the earth conceived as a goddess, was this deity, for such abstractions
are foreign to every primitive religion; she was an all-embracing power
of nature, everywhere the object of a similar faith, however her names
differed with the place in which she was believed to abide, with the
emphasis laid on her gloomy or kindly aspect, or with the particular
side of her energy which was specially revered. And as the Greek
divided everything in animated nature into male and female, he could
not imagine this female power of nature without her male counterpart.
Hence in a number of her older worships we find Artemis associated
with a nature-god of similar character, to whom tradition assigned
{p36} different names in different places. In Laconia, for instance,
she was mated with the old Peloponnesian god Karneios, in Arcadia more
than once with Poseidon, elsewhere with Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, and so
on.”​[141] The truth is, that the word _parthenos_ applied to Artemis,
which we commonly translate virgin, means no more than an unmarried
woman,​[142] and in early days the two things were by no means the
same. With the growth of a purer morality among men a stricter code
of ethics is imposed by them upon their gods; the stories of the
cruelty, deceit, and lust of these divine beings are glossed lightly
over or flatly rejected as blasphemies, and the old ruffians are set
to guard the laws which before they broke. In regard to Artemis, even
the ambiguous _parthenos_ seems to have been merely a popular epithet,
not an official title. As Dr. Farnell has well pointed out, there was
no public worship of Artemis the chaste; so far as her sacred titles
bear on the relation of the sexes, they shew that, on the contrary,
she was, like Diana in Italy, specially concerned with the {p37} loss
of virginity and with child-bearing, and that she not only assisted
but encouraged women to be fruitful and multiply; indeed, if we may
take Euripides’s word for it, in her capacity of midwife she would
not even speak to childless women. Further, it is highly significant
that while her titles and the allusions to her functions mark her out
clearly as the patroness of childbirth, we find none that recognise
her distinctly as a deity of marriage.​[143] Nothing, however, sets
the true character of Artemis as a goddess of fecundity, though not of
wedlock, in a clearer light than her constant identification with the
unmarried, but not chaste, Asiatic goddesses of love and fertility, who
were worshipped with rites of notorious profligacy at their popular
sanctuaries.​[144] At Ephesus, the most celebrated of all the seats of
her worship,​[145] her universal motherhood was set forth unmistakably
in her sacred image. Copies of it have come down to us which agree
in their main features, though they differ from each other in some
details. They represent the goddess with a multitude of protruding
breasts; the heads of animals of many kinds, both wild and tame, spring
from the front of her body in a series of bands that extend from the
breasts to the feet; bees, roses, {p38} and sometimes butterflies,
decorate her sides from the hips downward. The animals that thus appear
to issue from her person vary in the different copies of the statue;
they include lions, bulls, stags, horses, goats, and rams. Moreover,
lions rest on her upper arms; in at least one copy, serpents twine
round her lower arms; her bosom is festooned with a wreath of blossoms,
and she wears a necklace of acorns. In one of the statues the breast of
her robe is decorated with two winged male figures, who hold sheaves in
both hands.​[146] It would be hard to devise a more expressive symbol
of exuberant fertility, of prolific maternity, than these remarkable
images. No doubt the Ephesian Artemis, with her eunuch priests and
virgin priestesses,​[147] was an Oriental, whose worship the Greek
colonists took over from the aborigines.​[148] But that they should
have adopted it and identified the goddess with their own Artemis is
proof enough that the Grecian divinity, like her Asiatic sister, was at
bottom a personification of the teeming life of nature.

[Sidenote: Hippolytus the male consort of Artemis.]

To return now to Troezen, we shall probably be doing no injustice
either to Hippolytus or to Artemis if we suppose that the relation
between them was once of a tenderer nature {p39} than appears in
classical literature. We may conjecture that if he spurned the love of
women, it was because he enjoyed the love of a goddess.​[149] On the
principles of early religion, she who fertilises nature must herself
be fertile, and to be that she must necessarily have a male consort.
If I am right, Hippolytus was the consort of Artemis at Troezen, and
the shorn tresses offered to him by the Troezenian youths and maidens
before marriage were designed to strengthen his union with the goddess,
and so to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of cattle, and of
mankind. It is some confirmation of this view that within the precinct
of Hippolytus at Troezen there were worshipped two female powers named
Damia and Auxesia, whose connexion with the fertility of the ground
is unquestionable. When Epidaurus suffered from a dearth, the people,
in obedience to an oracle, carved images of Damia and Auxesia out of
sacred olive wood, and no sooner had they done so and set them up than
the earth bore fruit again. Moreover, at Troezen itself, and apparently
within the precinct of Hippolytus, a curious festival of stone-throwing
was held in honour of these maidens, as the Troezenians called them;
and it is easy to show that similar customs have been practised in many
lands for the express purpose of ensuring good crops.​[150] In the
story of the tragic death of the youthful Hippolytus we may discern an
analogy with similar tales of other fair but mortal youths who paid
with their lives for the brief rapture of the love of an immortal
goddess. These hapless lovers were probably not always mere myths, and
the legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the
violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush of the
rose were no idle poetic emblems of youth and beauty {p40} fleeting
as the summer flowers. Such fables contain a deeper philosophy of the
relation of the life of man to the life of nature—a sad philosophy
which gave birth to a tragic practice. What that philosophy and that
practice were we shall learn later on.


§ 3. _Recapitulation_

[Sidenote: Virbius the male consort of Diana.]

We can now perhaps understand why the ancients identified Hippolytus,
the consort of Artemis, with Virbius, who, according to Servius,
stood to Diana as Adonis to Venus, or Attis to the Mother of the
Gods. For Diana, like Artemis, was a goddess of fertility in general,
and of childbirth in particular.​[151] As such she, like her Greek
counterpart, needed a male partner. That partner, if Servius is right,
was Virbius. In his character of the founder of the sacred grove and
first king of Nemi, Virbius is clearly the mythical predecessor or
archetype of the line of priests who served Diana under the title of
Kings of the Wood, and who came, like him, one after the other, to
a violent end.​[152] It is natural, therefore, to conjecture that
they stood to the goddess of the grove in the same relation in which
Virbius stood to her; in short, that the mortal King of the Wood had
for his queen the woodland Diana herself.​[153] If the sacred tree
which he guarded with his life was supposed, as seems probable, to be
her special embodiment, her priest may not only have worshipped it as
his goddess but embraced it as his wife. There is at least nothing
absurd in the supposition, since even in the time of Pliny a noble
Roman used thus to treat a beautiful beech-tree in another sacred grove
of Diana on the Alban hills. He embraced it, he kissed it, he lay
under its shadow, he poured wine on its trunk. Apparently he took the
tree for the goddess.​[154] The custom of physically marrying men and
women to trees is still practised in India and other {p41} parts of the
East.​[155] Why should it not have obtained in ancient Latium?

[Sidenote: Summary of results.]

Reviewing the evidence as a whole, we may conclude that the worship
of Diana in her sacred grove at Nemi was of great importance and
immemorial antiquity; that she was revered as the goddess of woodlands
and of wild creatures, probably also of domestic cattle and of the
fruits of the earth; that she was believed to bless men and women
with offspring and to aid mothers in childbed; that her holy fire,
tended by chaste virgins, burned perpetually in a round temple within
the precinct; that associated with her was a water-nymph Egeria who
discharged one of Diana’s own functions by succouring women in travail,
and who was popularly supposed to have mated with an old Roman king
in the sacred grove; further, that Diana of the Wood herself had a
male companion, Virbius by name, who was to her what Adonis was to
Venus, or Attis to Cybele; and, lastly, that this mythical Virbius was
represented in historical times by a line of priests known as Kings of
the Wood, who regularly perished by the swords of their successors, and
whose lives were in a manner bound up with a certain tree in the grove,
because so long as that tree was uninjured they were safe from attack.

[Sidenote: The double-headed bust at Nemi probably a portrait of the
King of the Wood and his successor.]

A curious monument of the ill-fated dynasty appears to have come
down to us in a double-headed bust which was found in the sanctuary
at Nemi. It represents two men of heavy and somewhat coarse features
and a grim expression. The type of face is similar in both heads, but
there are marked differences between them; for while the one is young
and beardless with shut lips and a steadfast gaze, the other is a man
of middle life with a tossed and matted beard, wrinkled brows, a wild
anxious look in the eyes, and an open grinning mouth. But perhaps the
most singular thing about the two heads are the leaves with scalloped
edges which are plastered, so to say, on the necks of both busts and
apparently also under the eyes of the younger figure. The leaves have
been interpreted as oak leaves, and this interpretation, which is not
free from doubt, is confirmed by the resemblance to an oak leaf which
the {p42} moustache of the older figure clearly presents when viewed
in profile. Various explanations of this remarkable monument have
been proposed; but the most probable theory appears to be that the
older figure represents the priest of Nemi, the King of the Wood, in
possession, while the other face is that of his youthful adversary and
possible successor. This theory would explain the coarse heavy type of
both faces, which is neither Greek nor Roman but apparently barbarian;
for as the priest of Nemi had always to be a runaway slave, he would
commonly be a member of an alien and barbarous race. Further, it would
explain the striking contrast between the set determined gaze of the
younger man and the haggard, scared look of the older; on the one
face we seem to read the resolution to kill, on the other the fear to
die. Lastly, it would explain very simply the leaves that cling like
cerements to the necks and breasts of both; for we shall see later on
that the priest was probably regarded as an embodiment of the tree
which he guarded, and human representatives of tree spirits are most
naturally draped in the foliage of the tree which they personate. Hence
if the leaves on the two heads are indeed oak leaves, as they have been
thought to be, we should have to conclude that the tree which the King
of the Wood guarded and personated was an oak. There are independent
reasons for holding that this was so, but the consideration of them
must be deferred for the present.​[156]

[Sidenote: A wider survey required to solve the problem of Nemi.]

Clearly these conclusions do not of themselves suffice to explain the
peculiar rule of succession to the priesthood. But perhaps the survey
of a wider field may lead us to {p43} think that they contain in germ
the solution of the problem. To that wider survey we must now address
ourselves. It will be long and laborious, but may possess something
of the interest and charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall
visit many strange foreign lands, with strange foreign peoples, and
still stranger customs. The wind is in the shrouds: we shake out our
sails to it, and leave the coast of Italy behind us for a time.

{p44}




CHAPTER II

PRIESTLY KINGS


[Sidenote: The two questions to be answered.]

The questions which we have set ourselves to answer are mainly two:
first, why had Diana’s priest at Nemi, the King of the Wood, to slay
his predecessor? second, why before doing so had he to pluck the
branch of a certain tree which the public opinion of the ancients
identified with Virgil’s Golden Bough? The two questions are to some
extent distinct, and it will be convenient to consider them separately.
We begin with the first, which, with the preliminary enquiries, will
occupy this and several following volumes. In the last part of the book
I shall suggest an answer to the second question.

The first point on which we fasten is the priest’s title. Why was he
called the King of the Wood? Why was his office spoken of as a kingdom?

[Sidenote: Priestly kings in ancient Italy and Greece.

Traditional origin of these priestly kings.]

The union of a royal title with priestly duties was common in ancient
Italy and Greece. At Rome and in other cities of Latium there was
a priest called the Sacrificial King or King of the Sacred Rites,
and his wife bore the title of Queen of the Sacred Rites.​[157] In
republican Athens the second annual magistrate of the state was
called the King, and his wife the Queen; the functions of both were
religious. For example, the king superintended the celebration of
the Eleusinian mysteries, the Lenaean festival of Dionysus, and the
torch-races, which were held at several of {p45} the great Athenian
festivals. Moreover, he presided at the curious trials of animals and
inanimate objects, which had caused the death of a human being. To
him in short were assigned, in the words of Plato, “the most solemn
and most truly ancestral rites of the ancient sacrifices.”​[158] Many
other Greek democracies had titular kings, whose duties, so far as
they are known, seem to have been priestly, and to have centred round
the Common Hearth of the state.​[159] For example, in Cos the King
sacrificed to Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, the equivalent of
the Italian Vesta; and he received the hide and one leg of the victim
as his perquisite.​[160] In Mytilene the kings, of whom there were
several, invited to banquets at the Common Hearth those guests whom the
state delighted to honour.​[161] In Chios, if any herdsman or shepherd
drove his cows, his sheep, or his swine to pasture in a sacred grove,
the first person who witnessed the transgression was bound to denounce
the transgressor to the kings, under pain of incurring the wrath of
the god and, what was perhaps even worse, of having to pay a fine to
the offended deity.​[162] In the same island the king was charged
with the duty of pronouncing the public curses,​[163] a spiritual
weapon of which much use was made by the ancients.​[164] Every eighth
year the King at Delphi took part in a quaint {p46} ceremony. He sat
in public distributing barley-meal and pulse to all who chose to
apply for the bounty, whether citizens or strangers. Then an image
of a girl was brought to him, and he slapped it with his shoe. After
that the president of the Thyiads, a college of women devoted to the
orgiastic worship of Bacchus, carried away the image to a ravine and
there buried it with a rope round its neck. The ceremony was said to
be an expiation for the death of a girl who in a time of famine had
been publicly buffeted by the king and, smarting under the insult,
had hanged herself.​[165] In some cities, such as Megara, Aegosthena,
and Pagae, the kingship was an annual office and the years were dated
by the kings’ names.​[166] The people of Priene appointed a young man
king for the purpose of sacrificing a bull to Poseidon at the Panionian
festival.​[167] Some Greek states had several of these titular kings,
who held office simultaneously.​[168] At Rome the tradition was that
the Sacrificial King had been appointed after the abolition of the
monarchy in order to offer the sacrifices which before had been offered
by the kings.​[169] A similar view as to the origin of the priestly
kings appears to have prevailed in Greece.​[170] In itself the opinion
is not improbable, and it is borne out by the example of Sparta,
almost the only purely Greek state which retained the kingly form of
government in historical times. For in Sparta all state sacrifices were
offered by the kings as descendants of the god.​[171] One of the two
Spartan kings held {p47} the priesthood of Zeus Lacedaemon, the other
the priesthood of Heavenly Zeus.​[172] Sometimes the descendants of
the old kings were allowed to retain this shadowy royalty after the
real power had departed from them. Thus at Ephesus the descendants
of the Ionian kings, who traced their pedigree to Codrus of Athens,
kept the title of king and certain privileges, such as the right to
occupy a seat of honour at the games, to wear a purple robe and carry a
staff instead of a sceptre, and to preside at the rites of Eleusinian
Demeter.​[173] So at Cyrene, when the monarchy was abolished, the
deposed King Battus was assigned certain domains and allowed to retain
some priestly functions.​[174] Thus the classical evidence points
to the conclusion that in prehistoric ages, before the rise of the
republican form of government, the various tribes or cities were ruled
by kings, who discharged priestly duties and probably enjoyed a sacred
character as reputed descendants of deities.

[Sidenote: Priestly kings in various parts of the world.]

This combination of priestly functions with royal authority is familiar
to every one. Asia Minor, for example, was the seat of various great
religious capitals peopled by thousands of sacred slaves, and ruled by
pontiffs who wielded at once temporal and spiritual authority, like
the popes of mediaeval Rome. Such priest-ridden cities were Zela and
Pessinus.​[175] Teutonic kings, again, in the old heathen days seem
to have stood in the position, and to have exercised the powers, of
high priests.​[176] The Emperors of China offer public sacrifices,
the details of which are regulated by the ritual books.​[177] The
King of Madagascar was {p48} high-priest of the realm. At the great
festival of the new year, when a bullock was sacrificed for the good
of the kingdom, the king stood over the sacrifice to offer prayer and
thanksgiving, while his attendants slaughtered the animal.​[178] In
the monarchical states which still maintain their independence among
the Gallas of Eastern Africa, the king sacrifices on the mountain tops
and regulates the immolation of human victims;​[179] and the dim light
of tradition reveals a similar union of temporal and spiritual power,
of royal and priestly duties, in the kings of that delightful region
of Central America whose ancient capital, now buried under the rank
growth of the tropical forest, is marked by the stately and mysterious
ruins of Palenque.​[180] Among the Matabeles the king is high-priest.
Every year he offers sacrifices at the great and the little dance,
and also at the festival of the new fruits, which ends the dances. On
these occasions he prays to the spirits of his forefathers and likewise
to his own spirit; for it is from these higher powers that he expects
every blessing.​[181]

[Sidenote: Divinity of kings.

The Spartan kings supposed to be attended by Castor and Pollux, who
were thought to manifest themselves in certain electric lights.]

This last example is instructive because it shews that the king is
something more than a priest. He prays not only to the spirits of his
fathers but to his own spirit. He is clearly raised above the standard
of mere humanity; there is something divine about him. Similarly we may
suppose that the Spartan kings were thought not only to be descended
from the great god Zeus but also to partake of his holy spirit. This is
indeed indicated by a curious Spartan belief which has been recorded
by Herodotus. The old historian tells us that formerly both of the
Spartan kings went forth with the army to battle, but that in later
times a rule was made that when one king marched out to fight the other
should stay at home. “And accordingly,” says {p49} Herodotus, “one of
the kings remaining at home, one of the Tyndarids is left there too;
for hitherto both of them were invoked and followed the kings.”​[182]
The Tyndarids are, of course, the heavenly twins Castor and Pollux, the
sons of Zeus; and it should be remembered that the two Spartan kings
themselves were believed to be descended from twins​[183] and hence
may have been credited with the wondrous powers which superstition
often associates with twins.​[184] The belief described by Herodotus
plainly implies that one of the heavenly twins was supposed to be in
constant attendance on each of their human kinsmen the two Spartan
kings, staying with them where they stayed and going with them wherever
they went; hence they were probably thought to aid the kings with their
advice in time of need. Now Castor and Pollux are commonly represented
as spearmen, and they were constantly associated or identified,
not only with stars, but also with those lurid lights which, in an
atmosphere charged with electricity, are sometimes seen to play round
the masts of ships under a murky sky.​[185] Moreover, similar lights
were observed by the ancients to glitter in the darkness on the points
of spears. Pliny tells us that he had seen such lambent flames on the
spears of Roman sentinels {p50} as they paced their rounds by night in
front of the camp;​[186] and it is said that Cossacks riding across
the steppes on stormy nights perceive flickerings of the same sort at
their lance-heads.​[187] Since, therefore, the divine brothers Castor
and Pollux were believed to attend the Spartan kings, it seems not
impossible that they may have been thought to accompany the march of a
Spartan army in a visible form, appearing to the awe-stricken soldiers
in the twilight or the darkness either as stars in the sky or as the
sheen of spears on earth. Perhaps the stories of the appearance of the
heavenly twins in battle, charging on their milk-white steeds at the
head of the earthly chivalry, may have originated in similar lights
seen to glitter in the gloaming on a point here and there in the long
hedge of levelled or ported spears; for any two riders on white horses
whose spearheads happened to be touched by the mystic light might
easily be taken for Castor and Pollux in person. If there is any truth
in this conjecture, we should conclude that the divine brothers were
never seen in broad day, but only at dusk or in the darkness of night.
Now their most famous appearance was at the battle of Lake Regillus,
as to which we are expressly told that it was late in the evening of a
summer day before the fighting was over.​[188] Such statements should
not be lightly dismissed as late inventions of a rhetorical historian.
The memories of great battles linger long among the peasantry of the
neighbourhood.

[Sidenote: The divinity of kings in early society.]

But when we have said that the ancient kings were commonly priests
also, we are far from having exhausted the religious aspect of their
office. In those days the divinity that hedges a king was no empty form
of speech, but the expression of a sober belief. Kings were revered,
in many cases not merely as priests, that is, as intercessors between
man and god, but as themselves gods, able to bestow upon their subjects
and worshippers those blessings which are commonly supposed to be
beyond the reach of mortals, and are sought, if at all, only by prayer
and sacrifice {p51} offered to superhuman and invisible beings. Thus
kings are often expected to give rain and sunshine in due season, to
make the crops grow, and so on. Strange as this expectation appears
to us, it is quite of a piece with early modes of thought. A savage
hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced
peoples between the natural and the supernatural. To him the world is
to a great extent worked by supernatural agents, that is, by personal
beings acting on impulses and motives like his own, liable like him to
be moved by appeals to their pity, their hopes, and their fears. In a
world so conceived he sees no limit to his power of influencing the
course of nature to his own advantage. Prayers, promises, or threats
may secure him fine weather and an abundant crop from the gods; and
if a god should happen, as he sometimes believes, to become incarnate
in his own person, then he need appeal to no higher being; he, the
savage, possesses in himself all the powers necessary to further his
own well-being and that of his fellow-men.

[Sidenote: Sympathetic magic.]

This is one way in which the idea of a man-god is reached. But there
is another. Along with the view of the world as pervaded by spiritual
forces, savage man has a different, and probably still older,
conception in which we may detect a germ of the modern notion of
natural law or the view of nature as a series of events occurring in an
invariable order without the intervention of personal agency. The germ
of which I speak is involved in that sympathetic magic, as it may be
called, which plays a large part in most systems of superstition. In
early society the king is frequently a magician as well as a priest;
indeed he appears to have often attained to power by virtue of his
supposed proficiency in the black or white art. Hence in order to
understand the evolution of the kingship and the sacred character with
which the office has commonly been invested in the eyes of savage or
barbarous peoples, it is essential to have some acquaintance with the
principles of magic and to form some conception of the extraordinary
hold which that ancient system of superstition has had on the human
mind in all ages and all countries. Accordingly I propose to consider
the subject in some detail.

{p52}




CHAPTER III

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC


§ 1. _The Principles of Magic_

[Sidenote: The two principles of Sympathetic Magic are the Law of
Similarity and the Law of Contact or Contagion.]

If we analyse the principles of thought on which magic is based,
they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first,
that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause;
and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each
other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical
contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law
of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the
first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician
infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating
it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material
object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once
in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not. Charms based
on the Law of Similarity may be called Homoeopathic or Imitative
Magic.​[189] Charms based on the Law of Contact or Contagion may be
called Contagious Magic. To denote the first of these branches of magic
the term Homoeopathic is perhaps preferable, for the alternative term
Imitative or Mimetic suggests, if it does not imply, a conscious agent
who imitates, thereby limiting the scope of magic too narrowly. For
the same principles {p53} which the magician applies in the practice
of his art are implicitly believed by him to regulate the operations
of inanimate nature; in other words, he tacitly assumes that the Laws
of Similarity and Contact are of universal application and are not
limited to human actions. In short, magic is a spurious system of
natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false
science as well as an abortive art. Regarded as a system of natural
law, that is, as a statement of the rules which determine the sequence
of events throughout the world, it may be called Theoretical Magic:
regarded as a set of precepts which human beings observe in order to
compass their ends, it may be called Practical Magic. At the same time
it is to be borne in mind that the primitive magician knows magic
only on its practical side; he never analyses the mental processes on
which his practice is based, never reflects on the abstract principles
involved in his actions. With him, as with the vast majority of men,
logic is implicit, not explicit: he reasons just as he digests his food
in complete ignorance of the intellectual and physiological processes
which are essential to the one operation and to the other. In short,
to him magic is always an art, never a science; the very idea of
science is lacking in his undeveloped mind. It is for the philosophic
student to trace the train of thought which underlies the magician’s
practice; to draw out the few simple threads of which the tangled skein
is composed; to disengage the abstract principles from their concrete
applications; in short, to discern the spurious science behind the
bastard art.

[Sidenote: The two principles are misapplications of the association of
ideas.]

If my analysis of the magician’s logic is correct, its two great
principles turn out to be merely two different misapplications of
the association of ideas.​[190] Homoeopathic magic is founded on the
association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the
association of ideas by contiguity. Homoeopathic magic commits the
mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same:
contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which have
once been in contact with {p54} each other are always in contact. But
in practice the two branches are often combined; or, to be more exact,
while homoeopathic or imitative magic may be practised by itself,
contagious magic will generally be found to involve an application of
the homoeopathic or imitative principle. Thus generally stated the
two things may be a little difficult to grasp, but they will readily
become intelligible when they are illustrated by particular examples.
Both trains of thought are in fact extremely simple and elementary. It
could hardly be otherwise, since they are familiar in the concrete,
though certainly not in the abstract, to the crude intelligence not
only of the savage, but of ignorant and dull-witted people everywhere.
Both branches of magic, the homoeopathic and the contagious, may
conveniently be comprehended under the general name of Sympathetic
Magic, since both assume that things act on each other at a distance
through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to
the other by means of what we may conceive as a kind of invisible
ether, not unlike that which is postulated by modern science for a
precisely similar purpose, namely, to explain how things can physically
affect each other through a space which appears to be empty.

[Sidenote: Table of the branches of Sympathetic Magic.]

It may be convenient to tabulate as follows the branches of magic
according to the laws of thought which underlie them:—

    Sympathetic Magic (_Law of Sympathy_)
        Homoeopathic Magic (_Law of Similarity_)
        Contagious Magic​[191] (_Law of Contact_)

I will now illustrate these two great branches of sympathetic magic by
examples, beginning with homoeopathic magic. {p55}


§2. _Homeopathic or Imitative Magic_

[Sidenote: Magical images among the American Indians.]

Perhaps the most familiar application of the principle that like
produces like is the attempt which has been made by many peoples in
many ages to injure or destroy an enemy by injuring or destroying an
image of him, in the belief that, just as the image suffers, so does
the man, and that when it perishes he must die. A few instances out of
many may be given to prove at once the wide diffusion of the practice
over the world and its remarkable persistence through the ages. For
thousands of years ago it was known to the sorcerers of ancient
India, Babylon, and Egypt, as well as of Greece and Rome,​[192] and
at this day it is still resorted to by cunning and malignant savages
in Australia, Africa, and Scotland. Thus the North American Indians,
we are told, believe that by drawing the figure of a person in sand,
ashes, or clay, or by considering any object as his body, and then
pricking it with a sharp stick or doing it any other injury, they
inflict a corresponding injury on the person represented.​[193] For
example, when an Ojebway Indian desires to work evil on any one, he
makes a little wooden image of his enemy and runs a needle into its
head or heart, or he shoots an arrow into it, believing that wherever
the needle pierces or the arrow strikes the image, his foe will the
same instant be seized with a sharp pain in the corresponding part of
his body; but if he intends to kill the person outright, he burns or
buries the puppet, uttering certain magic words as he does so.​[194]
So when a Cora Indian {p56} of Mexico wishes to kill a man, he makes
a figure of him out of burnt clay, strips of cloth, and so forth, and
then, muttering incantations, runs thorns through the head or stomach
of the figure to make his victim suffer correspondingly. Sometimes the
Cora Indian makes a more beneficent use of this sort of homoeopathic
magic. When he wishes to multiply his flocks or herds, he models a
figure of the animal he wants in wax or clay, or carves it from tuff,
and deposits it in a cave of the mountains; for these Indians believe
that the mountains are masters of all riches, including cattle and
sheep. For every cow, deer, dog, or hen he wants, the Indian has to
sacrifice a corresponding image of the creature.​[195] This may help
us to understand the meaning of the figures of cattle, deer, horses,
and pigs which were dedicated to Diana at Nemi.​[196] They may have
been the offerings of farmers or huntsmen who hoped thereby to multiply
the cattle or the game. Similarly when the Todas of Southern India
desire to obtain more buffaloes, they offer silver images of these
animals in the temples.​[197] The Peruvian Indians moulded images of
fat mixed with grain to imitate the persons whom they disliked or
feared, and then burned the effigy on the road where the intended
victim was to pass. This they called burning his soul. But they drew a
delicate distinction between the kinds of materials to be used in the
manufacture of these images, according as the victim was an Indian or a
Viracocha, that is, a Spaniard. To kill an Indian they employed maize
and the fat of a llama, to kill a Spaniard they used wheat and the fat
of a pig, because Viracochas did not eat llamas and preferred wheat to
maize.​[198] {p57}

[Sidenote: Magical images among the Malays.]

A Malay charm of the same sort is as follows. Take parings of nails,
hair, eyebrows, spittle, and so forth of your intended victim, enough
to represent every part of his person, and then make them up into his
likeness with wax from a deserted bees’ comb. Scorch the figure slowly
by holding it over a lamp every night for seven nights, and say:

    “_It is not wax that I am scorching,_
    _It is the liver, hearty and spleen of So-and-so that I scorch._”

After the seventh time burn the figure, and your victim will die. This
charm obviously combines the principles of homoeopathic and contagious
magic; since the image which is made in the likeness of an enemy
contains things which once were in contact with him, namely, his nails,
hair, and spittle. Another form of the Malay charm, which resembles the
Ojebway practice still more closely, is to make a corpse of wax from
an empty bees’ comb and of the length of a footstep; then pierce the
eye of the image, and your enemy {p58} is blind; pierce the stomach,
and he is sick; pierce the head, and his head aches; pierce the breast,
and his breast will suffer. If you would kill him outright, transfix
the image from the head downwards; enshroud it as you would a corpse;
pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; then bury it in the
middle of a path where your victim will be sure to step over it. In
order that his blood may not be on your head, you should say:

    “_It is not I who am burying him,_
    _It is Gabriel who is burying him._”

Thus the guilt of the murder will be laid on the shoulders of the
archangel Gabriel, who is a great deal better able to bear it than
you are.​[199] In eastern Java an enemy may be killed by means of a
likeness of him drawn on a piece of paper, which is then incensed or
buried in the ground.​[200] Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra a man
who is tormented by the passion of hate or of unrequited love will
call in the help of a wizard in order to cause the object of his hate
or love to suffer from a dangerous ulcer known as a _tinggam_. After
giving the wizard the necessary instructions as to the name, bodily
form, dwelling, and family of the person in question, he makes a puppet
which is supposed to resemble his intended victim; and repairs with
it to a wood, where he hangs the image on a tree that stands quite
by itself. Muttering a spell, he then drives an instrument through
the navel of the puppet into the tree, till the sap of the tree oozes
through the hole thus made. The instrument which inflicts the wound
bears the same name (_tinggam_) as the ulcer which is to be raised on
the body of the victim, and the oozing sap is believed to be his or
her life-spirit. Soon afterwards the person against whom the charm is
directed begins to suffer from an ulcer, which grows worse and worse
till he dies, unless a friend can procure a piece of the wood of the
tree to which the image is attached.​[201] {p59}

[Sidenote: Magical images in Torres Straits and Borneo.]

The sorcerers of Mabuiag or Jervis Island, in Torres Straits, kept
an assortment of effigies in stock ready to be operated on at the
requirement of a customer. Some of the figures were of stone; these
were employed when short work was to be made of a man or woman. Others
were wooden; these gave the unhappy victim a little more rope, only,
however, to terminate his prolonged sufferings by a painful death.
The mode of operation in the latter case was to put poison, by means
of a magical implement, into a wooden image, to which the name of the
intended victim had been given. Next day the person aimed at would
feel chilly, then waste away and die, unless the same wizard who had
wrought the charm would consent to undo it.​[202] If the sorcerer
pulled off an arm or leg of the image, the human victim felt pain in
the corresponding limb of his body; but if the sorcerer restored the
severed arm or leg to the figure, the man recovered. Another mode of
compassing a man’s death in Torres Straits was to prick a wax effigy
of him or her with the spine of a sting-ray; so when the man whose
name had been given to the waxen image next went afishing on the reef
a sting-ray would sting him in the exact part of his body where the
waxen image had been pierced. Or the sorcerer might hang the effigy
on the bough of a tree, and as it swayed to and fro in the wind the
person represented by it would fall sick. However, he would get well
again if a friend of his could induce the magician to steady the figure
by sticking it firmly in the sandy bottom of the sea.​[203] When the
Lerons of Borneo wish to be revenged on an enemy, they make a wooden
image of him and leave it in the jungle. As it decays, he dies.​[204]
More elaborate is the proceeding adopted by the Kenyahs of Borneo in
similar circumstances. The operator retires with the image to a quiet
spot on the river bank, and when a hawk appears in a certain part of
the sky, he kills a fowl, smears its blood on the image, and puts a
bit of fat in the mouth of the figure, saying, “Put fat in his mouth.”
By that he means, “May {p60} his head be cut off, hung up in an enemy’s
house, and fed with fat in the usual way.” Then he strikes at the
breast of the image with a small wooden spear, throws it into a pool of
water reddened with red earth, and afterwards takes it out and buries
it in the ground.​[205]

[Sidenote: Magical images in Japan and China.]

If an Aino of Japan desires to compass the destruction of an enemy, he
will make a likeness of him out of mugwort or the guelder-rose and bury
it in a hole upside down or under the trunk of a rotten tree, with a
prayer to a demon to carry off the man’s soul or to make his body rot
away with the tree. Sometimes an Aino woman will attempt to get rid of
her husband in this fashion by wrapping up his head-dress in the shape
of a corpse and burying it deep in the ground, while she breathes a
prayer that her husband may rot and die with the head-dress.​[206] The
Japanese themselves are familiar with similar modes of enchantment.
In one of their ancient books we read of a rebellious minister who
made figures of the heir to the throne with intent, no doubt, to do
him grievous bodily harm thereby; and sometimes a woman who has been
deserted by her lover will make a straw effigy of the faithless gallant
and nail it to a sacred tree, adjuring the gods to spare the tree and
to visit the sacrilege on the traitor. At a shrine of Kompira there
stood a pine-tree studded with nails which had been thus driven in
for the purpose of doing people to death.​[207] The Chinese also are
perfectly aware that you can harm a man by maltreating or cursing an
image of him, especially if you have taken care to write on it his
name and horoscope. This mode of venting spite on an enemy is said to
be commonly practised in China. In Amoy such images, roughly made of
bamboo splinters and paper, are called “substitutes of persons” and may
be bought very cheap for a cash or so apiece at any shop which sells
paper articles for the use of the dead or the gods; for the frugal
Chinese are in the habit of palming off paper imitations of all kinds
of valuables on the simple-minded ghosts and gods, who take them in all
good faith for the genuine articles. As {p61} usual, the victim suffers
a hurt corresponding to the hurt done to his image. Thus if you run a
nail or a needle into the eyes of the puppet, your man will go more or
less blind; if you stick a pin in its stomach, he will be doubled up
with colic; a stab in the heart of the effigy may kill him outright;
and in general the more you prick it and the louder you speak the
spell, the more certain is the effect. To make assurance doubly sure
it is desirable to impregnate the effigy, so to say, with the personal
influence of the man by passing it clandestinely beforehand over him
or hiding it, unbeknown to him, in his clothes or under his bed. If
you do that, he is quite sure to die sooner or later.​[208] Naturally
these nefarious practices are no new thing in the Chinese empire.
There is a passage in the Chinese _Book of Rewards and Penalties_
which illustrates their prevalence in days gone by. There, under the
rubric “To hide an effigy of a man for the purpose of giving him the
nightmare,” we read as follows: “This means hiding the carved wooden
effigy of a man somewhere with intent to give him the nightmare.
Kong-sun-tcho having died suddenly some time after he had succeeded to
the post of treasurer, he appeared in a dream to the governor of his
district and said unto him: ‘I have been the victim of an odious crime,
and I am come, my lord, to pray you to avenge me. My time to die had
not yet come; but my servants gave me the nightmare, and I was choked
in my sleep. If you will send secretly some dauntless soldiers, not one
of the varlets will escape you. Under the seventh tile of the roof of
my house will be found my image carved of wood. Fetch it and punish the
criminals.’ Next day the governor of the district had all the servants
arrested, and sure enough, after some search, they found under the
aforesaid tile the figure of a man in wood, a foot high, and bristling
all over with nails. Bit by bit the wood changed into flesh and uttered
inarticulate cries when it was struck. The governor of the district
immediately reported to the prefect of the department, who condemned
several of the servants to suffer the extreme rigour of the law.”​[209]
{p62}

[Sidenote: Magical images in Australia.]

When some of the aborigines of Victoria desired to destroy an enemy,
they would occasionally retire to a lonely spot, and drawing on the
ground a rude likeness of the victim would sit round it and devote
him to destruction with cabalistic ceremonies. So dreaded was this
incantation that men and women, who learned that it had been directed
against them, have been known to pine away and die of fright.​[210]
On the Bloomfield River in Queensland the natives think they can doom
a man by making a rough wooden effigy of him and burying it in the
ground, or by painting his likeness on a bull-roarer; and they believe
that persons whose portraits are carved on a tree at Cape Bedford will
waste away.​[211] When the wife of a Central Australian native has
eloped from him and he cannot recover her, the disconsolate husband
repairs with some sympathising friends to a secluded spot, where a
man skilled in magic draws on the ground a rough figure supposed to
represent the woman lying on her back. Beside the figure is laid a
piece of green bark, which stands for her spirit or soul, and at it
the men throw miniature spears which have been made for the purpose
and charmed by singing over them. This barken effigy of the woman’s
spirit, with the little spears sticking in it, is then thrown as far as
possible in the direction which she is supposed to have taken. During
the whole of the operation the men chant in a low voice, the burden of
their song being an invitation to the magic influence to go out and
enter her body and dry up all her fat. Sooner or later—often a good
deal later—her fat does dry up, she dies, and her spirit is seen in the
sky in the form of a shooting star.​[212]

[Sidenote: Magical images in Burma, and Africa.]

In Burma a rejected lover sometimes resorts to a sorcerer and engages
him to make a small image of the scornful fair one, containing a piece
of her clothes, or of something which she has been in the habit of
wearing. Certain charms or medicines also enter into the composition
of the doll, which is then hung up or thrown into the water. As a
{p63} consequence the girl is supposed to go mad.​[213] In this
last example, as in the first of the Malay charms noticed above,
homoeopathic or imitative magic is blent with contagious magic in the
strict sense of the word, since the likeness of the victim contains
something which has been in contact with her person. A Matabele who
wishes to avenge himself on an enemy makes a clay figure of him and
pierces it with a needle; next time the man thus represented happens
to engage in a fight he will be speared, just as his effigy was
stabbed.​[214] The Ovambo of South-western Africa believe that some
people have the power of bewitching an absent person by gazing into a
vessel full of water till his image appears to them in the water; then
they spit at the image and curse the man, and that seals his fate.​[215]

[Sidenote: Magical images in ancient India.]

The ancient books of the Hindoos testify to the use of similar
enchantments among their remote ancestors. To destroy his foe a man
would fashion a figure of him in clay and transfix it with an arrow
which had been barbed with a thorn and winged with an owl’s feathers.
Or he would mould the figure of wax and melt it in a fire. Sometimes
effigies of the soldiers, horses, elephants, and chariots of a hostile
army were modelled in dough, and then pulled in pieces.​[216] Again,
to destroy an enemy the magician might kill a red-headed lizard with
the words, “I am killing So-and-so,” smear it with blood, wrap it in
a black cloth, and having pronounced an incantation burn it.​[217]
Another way was to grind up mustard into meal, with which a figure was
made of the person who was to be overcome or destroyed. Then having
muttered certain spells to give efficacy to the rite, the enchanter
chopped up the image, anointed it with melted butter, curds, or
some such thing, and finally burnt it in a sacred pot.​[218] In the
so-called “sanguinary chapter” of the _Calica Puran_ there occurs the
following passage: “On {p64} the autumnal _Maha-Navami_, or when the
month is in the lunar mansion _Scanda_, or _Bishácá_, let a figure be
made, either of barley-meal or earth, representing the person with whom
the sacrificer is at variance, and the head of the figure be struck
off; after the usual texts have been used, the following text is to
be used in invoking an axe on the occasion: ‘Effuse, effuse blood; be
terrific, be terrific; seize, destroy, for the love of _Ambica_, the
head of this enemy.’”​[219]

[Sidenote: Magical images in modern India.]

In modern India the practices described in these old books are still
carried on with mere variations of detail. The magician compounds the
fatal image of earth taken from sixty-four filthy places, and mixed
up with clippings of hair, parings of nails, bits of leather, and so
on. Upon the breast of the image he writes the name of his enemy; then
he pierces it through and through with an awl, or maims it in various
ways, hoping thus to maim or kill the object of his vengeance.​[220]
Among the Nambutiris of Malabar a figure representing the enemy to
be destroyed is drawn on a small sheet of metal, gold by preference,
on which some mystic diagrams are also inscribed. The sorcerer then
declares that the bodily injury or death of the person shall take
place at a certain time. After that he wraps up the little sheet in
another sheet or leaf of metal (gold if possible), and buries it in
a place where the victim is expected to pass. Sometimes instead of a
small sheet of metal he buries a live frog or lizard enclosed in a
coco-nut shell, after sticking nails into its eyes and stomach. At the
same moment that the animal dies the person expires also.​[221] Among
the Mohammedans of Northern India the proceeding is as follows. A
doll is made of earth taken from a grave or from a place where bodies
are cremated, and some sentences of the Coran are read backwards over
twenty-one small wooden pegs. These pegs the operator next strikes into
various parts of the body of the image, which is afterwards shrouded
like a corpse, carried to a graveyard, and buried in the name of the
enemy whom it is intended to injure. The man, it is {p65} believed,
will die without fail after the ceremony.​[222] A slightly different
form of the charm is observed by the Bâm-Margi, a very degraded sect
of Hindoos in the North-West Provinces. To kill an enemy they make an
image of flour or earth, and stick razors into the breast, navel, and
throat, while pegs are thrust into the eyes, hands, and feet. As if
this were not enough, they next construct an image of Bhairava or Durga
holding a three-pronged fork in her hand; this they place so close
to the effigy of the person to whom mischief is meant that the fork
penetrates its breast.​[223] To injure a person a Singhalese sorcerer
will procure a lock of his intended victim’s hair, a paring of his
nails, or a thread of his garment. Then he fashions an image of him and
thrusts nails made of five metals into the joints. All these he buries
where the unfortunate man is likely to pass. No sooner has he done so
than the victim falls ill with swelling or stiffness of joints, or
burning sensations in the body, or disfigurements of the mouth, legs,
and arms.​[224]

[Sidenote: Magical images among the Arabs of North Africa.]

Similar enchantments are wrought by the Moslem peoples of North Africa.
Thus an Arabic treatise on magic directs that if you wish to deprive
a man of the use of his limbs you should make a waxen image of him,
and engrave his name and his mother’s name on it with a knife of
which the handle must be made of the same wax; then smite the limb of
the image which answers to the particular limb of the man which you
desire to disable; at the same moment the limb of flesh and blood will
be paralysed.​[225] The following is another extract from the same
treatise: “To injure the eyes of an enemy, take a taper and fashion it
into the likeness of him whom you would harm. Write on it the seven
signs, along with the name of your enemy and the name of his mother
and gouge out the two eyes of the figure with two points. Then put it
in a pot with {p66} quicklime on which you must throw a little _chârib
el h’amâm_, and bury the whole near the fire. The fire will make your
victim to shriek and will hurt his eyes so that he will see nothing,
and that the pain will cause him to utter cries of distress. But do not
prolong the operation more than seven days, for he would die and you
would have to answer for it at the day of the last judgment. If you
wish to heal him, withdraw the figure and throw it into water. He will
recover, with God’s leave.”​[226]

[Sidenote: Magical images in ancient Egypt and Babylon.]

Nowhere, perhaps, were the magic arts more carefully cultivated,
nowhere did they enjoy greater esteem or exercise a deeper influence
on the national life than in the land of the Pharaohs. Little wonder,
therefore, that the practice of enchantment by means of images was
familiar to the wizards of Egypt. A drop of a man’s blood, some
clippings of his hair or parings of his nails, a rag of the garment
which he had worn, sufficed to give a sorcerer complete power over
him. These relics of his person the magician kneaded into a lump of
wax, which he moulded into the likeness and dressed after the fashion
of his intended victim, who was then at the mercy of his tormentor.
If the image was exposed to the fire, the person whom it represented
straightway fell into a burning fever; if it were stabbed with a knife,
he felt the pain of the wound.​[227] Thus, for instance, a certain
superintendent of the king’s cattle was once prosecuted in an Egyptian
court of law for having made figures of men and women in wax, thereby
causing paralysis of their limbs and other grievous bodily harm. He
had somehow obtained a book of magic which contained the spells and
directions how to act in reciting them. Armed with this powerful
instrument the rogue had shut himself up in a secret chamber, and
there proceeded to cast spells over the people of his town.​[228] In
ancient Babylonia also it was {p67} a common practice to make an image
of clay, pitch, honey, fat, or other soft material in the likeness of
an enemy, and to injure or kill him by burning, burying, or otherwise
ill-treating it. Thus in a hymn to the fire-god Nusku we read:

    _“Those who have made images of me, reproducing my features,_
    _Who have taken away my breath, torn my hairs,_
    _Who have rent my clothes, have hindered my feet from treading the
        dust,_
    _May the fire-god, the strong one, break their charm.”_​[229]

[Sidenote: Magical images in Babylon and Egypt for the discomfiture of
demons]

But both in Babylon and in Egypt this ancient tool of superstition,
so baneful in the hands of the mischievous and malignant, was also
pressed into the service of religion and turned to glorious account
for the confusion and overthrow of demons. In a Babylonian incantation
we meet with a long list of evil spirits whose effigies were burnt by
the magician in the hope that, as their images melted in the fire, so
the fiends themselves might melt away and disappear.​[230] Every night
when the sun-god Ra sank down to his home in the glowing west he was
assailed by hosts of demons under the leadership of the arch-fiend
Apepi. All night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the powers
of darkness sent up clouds even into the blue Egyptian sky to obscure
his light and weaken his power. To aid the sun-god in this daily
struggle, a ceremony was daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A
figure of his foe Apepi, represented as a crocodile with a hideous face
or a serpent with many coils, was made of wax, and on it the demon’s
name was written in green ink. Wrapt in a papyrus case, on which
another likeness of Apepi had been drawn in green ink, the figure was
then tied up with black hair, spat upon, hacked with a stone knife,
and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with his left foot
again and again, and then burned it in a fire made of a certain plant
or grass. When Apepi himself had thus been effectually disposed of,
waxen effigies of each of his principal demons, and of their fathers,
mothers, and children, were {p68} made and burnt in the same way. The
service, accompanied by the recitation of certain prescribed spells,
was repeated not merely morning, noon, and night, but whenever a storm
was raging, or heavy rain had set in, or black clouds were stealing
across the sky to hide the sun’s bright disc. The fiends of darkness,
clouds, and rain felt the injuries inflicted on their images as if they
had been done to themselves; they passed away, at least for a time, and
the beneficent sun-god shone out triumphant once more.​[231]

[Sidenote: Magical images in Scotland.]

From the azure sky, the stately fanes, and the solemn ritual of ancient
Egypt we have to travel far in space and time to the misty mountains
and the humble cottages of the Scottish Highlands of to-day; but at
our journey’s end we shall find our ignorant countrymen seeking to
attain the same end by the same means and, unhappily, with the same
malignity as the Egyptian of old. To kill a person whom he hates, a
modern Highlander will still make a rude clay image of him, called a
_corp chre_ or _corp chreadh_ (“clay body”), stick it full of pins,
nails, and broken bits of glass, and then place it in a running stream
with its head to the current. As every pin is thrust into the figure
an incantation is uttered, and the person represented feels a pain in
the corresponding part of his body. If the intention is to make him
die a lingering death, the operator is careful to stick no pins into
the region of the heart, whereas he thrusts them into that region
deliberately if he desires to rid himself of his enemy at once. And as
the clay puppet crumbles away in the running water, so the victim’s
body is believed to waste away and turn to clay. In Islay the spell
spoken over the _corp chre_, when it is ready to receive the pins, is
as follows: “From behind you are like a ram with an old fleece.” And
as the pins are being thrust in, a long incantation is pronounced,
beginning “As you waste away, may she waste away; as this wounds you,
may it wound her.” Sometimes, we are told, the effigy is set before
a blazing fire on a door which has been taken off its hinges; there
it is toasted and {p69} turned to make the human victim writhe in
agony. The _corp chre_ is reported to have been employed of late years
in the counties of Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland. A specimen from
Inverness-shire may be seen in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford.​[232]
It is remarkable, however, that in the Highlands this form of magic
has no power over a man who has lost any of his members. For example,
though Ross-shire witches made a clay figure of “Donald of the Ear,”
they could not destroy him, because he had lost an ear in battle.​[233]
A similar form of witchcraft, known as “burying the sheaf,” seems
still to linger in Ireland among the dwellers in the Bog of Ardee. The
person who works the charm goes first to a chapel and says certain
prayers with his back to the altar; then he takes a sheaf of wheat,
which he fastens into the likeness of a human body, sticking pins in
the joints of the stems and, according to one account, shaping a heart
of plaited straw. This sheaf he buries in the devil’s name near the
house of his enemy, who will, it is supposed, gradually pine away as
the sheaf decays, dying when it finally decomposes. If the enchanter
desires his foe to perish speedily, he buries the sheaf in wet ground,
where it will soon moulder away; but if on the other hand his wish is
that his victim should linger in pain, he chooses a dry spot, where
decomposition will be slow.​[234] However, in Scotland, as in Babylon
and Egypt, the destruction of an image has also been employed for the
discomfiture of fiends. When Shetland fishermen wish to disenchant
their boat, they {p70} row it out to sea before sunrise, and as the day
is dawning they burn a waxen figure in the boat, while the skipper
exclaims, “Go hence, Satan.”​[235]

[Sidenote: Magical images to procure offspring in America and Africa.]

If homoeopathic or imitative magic, working by means of images, has
commonly been practised for the spiteful purpose of putting obnoxious
people out of the world, it has also, though far more rarely, been
employed with the benevolent intention of helping others into it. In
other words, it has been used to facilitate childbirth and to procure
offspring for barren women. Thus among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait
a barren woman desirous of having a son will consult a shaman, who
commonly makes, or causes her husband to make, a small doll-like image
over which he performs certain secret rites, and the woman is directed
to sleep with it under her pillow.​[236] Amongst the many ceremonies
which a Thompson Indian girl of British Columbia had formerly to
perform at puberty was the following. She had to run four times in
the morning, carrying two small stones which had been obtained from
underneath the water. These were put in her bosom; and as she ran,
they slipped down between her body and her clothes and fell to the
ground. While she ran, she prayed to the Dawn that when she should be
with child she might be delivered as easily as she had been delivered
of these stones.​[237] Similarly among the Haida Indians of the Queen
Charlotte Islands a pregnant woman would let round stones, eels,
chips, or other small objects slip down over her abdomen for the sake
of facilitating her delivery.​[238] Among the Nishinam Indians of
California, when a woman is childless, her female friends sometimes
make out of grass a rude image of a baby and tie it in a small basket
after the Indian fashion. Some day, when the woman is from home, they
lay this grass baby in her hut. On finding it she holds it to her
breast, pretends {p71} to nurse it, and sings it lullabies. This is
done as a charm to make her conceive.​[239] The Huichol Indians of
Mexico believe in a certain Mother who is the goddess of conception
and childbirth, and lives in a cave near Santa Catarina. A woman
desirous of offspring deposits in this cave a doll made of cotton
cloth to represent the baby on which her heart is set. After a while
she goes back to the cave, puts the doll under her girdle, and soon
afterwards is supposed to be pregnant.​[240] With a like intent Indian
women in Peru used to wrap up stones like babies and leave them at
the foot of a large stone, which they revered for this purpose.​[241]
Among the Makatisses, a Caffre tribe of South Africa, a traveller
observed a woman carefully tending a doll made out of a gourd, adorned
with necklaces of glass beads, and heavily weighted with iron ore.
On enquiry he learned that she had been directed by the medicine-man
to do this as a means of obtaining a child.​[242] Among the Basutos
childless wives make rude effigies of clay, and give them the name
of some tutelar deity. They treat these dolls as if they were real
children, and beseech the divinity to whom they have dedicated them to
grant them the power of conception.​[243] In Anno, a district of West
Africa, women may often be seen carrying wooden dolls strapped, like
babies, on their backs as a cure for sterility.​[244] In Japan, when a
marriage is unfruitful, the old women of the neighbourhood come to the
house and go through a pretence of delivering the wife of a child. The
infant is represented by a doll.​[245] The Maoris had a household god
whose image was in the form of an infant. The image was very carefully
made, generally life-size, and adorned with the family jewels. Barren
women nursed it and addressed it in the most endearing terms in order
to become mothers.​[246]

[Sidenote: Magical images to procure offspring in the Eastern
Archipelago.]

Among the Battas of Sumatra a barren woman, who would become a mother,
will make a wooden image of a {p72} child and hold it in her lap,
believing that this will lead to the fulfilment of her wish.​[247]
In the Babar Archipelago, when a woman desires to have a child, she
invites a man who is himself the father of a large family to pray on
her behalf to Upulero, the spirit of the sun. A doll is made of red
cotton, which the woman clasps in her arms as if she would suckle it.
Then the father of many children takes a fowl and holds it by the legs
to the woman’s head, saying, “O Upulero, make use of the fowl; let
fall, let descend a child, I beseech you, I entreat you, let a child
fall and descend into my hands and on my lap.” Then he asks the woman,
“Has the child come?” and she answers, “Yes, it is sucking already.”
After that the man holds the fowl on the husband’s head, and mumbles
some form of words. Lastly, the bird is killed and laid, together with
some betel, on the domestic place of sacrifice. When the ceremony is
over, word goes about in the village that the woman has been brought to
bed, and her friends come and congratulate her.​[248] Here the pretence
that a child has been born is a purely magical rite designed to secure,
by means of imitation or mimicry, that a child really shall be born;
but an attempt is made to add to the efficacy of the rite by means of
prayer and sacrifice. To put it otherwise, magic is here blent with
and reinforced by religion. In Saibai, one of the islands in Torres
Straits, a similar custom of purely magical character is observed,
without any religious alloy. Here, when a woman is pregnant, all the
other women assemble. The husband’s sister makes an image of a male
child and places it before the pregnant woman; afterwards the image
is nursed until the birth of the child in order to ensure that the
baby shall be a boy. To secure male offspring a woman will also press
to her abdomen a fruit resembling the male organ of generation, which
she then passes to another woman who has borne none but boys. This, it
is clear, is imitative magic in a slightly different form.​[249] In
the seventh month of a woman’s {p73} pregnancy common people in Java
observe a ceremony which is plainly designed to facilitate the real
birth by mimicking it. Husband and wife repair to a well or to the bank
of a neighbouring river. The upper part of the woman’s body is bare,
but young banana leaves are fastened under her arms, a small opening,
or rather fold, being left in the leaves in front. Through this opening
or fold in the leaves on his wife’s body the husband lets fall from
above a weaver’s shuttle. An old woman receives the shuttle as it
falls, takes it up in her arms and dandles it as if it were a baby,
saying, “Oh, what a dear little child! Oh, what a beautiful little
child!” Then the husband lets an egg slip through the fold, and when it
lies on the ground as an emblem of the afterbirth, he takes his sword
and cuts through the banana leaf at the place of the fold, obviously
as if he were severing the navel-string.​[250] Persons of high rank in
Java observe the ceremony after a fashion in which the real meaning of
the rite is somewhat obscured. The pregnant woman is clothed in a long
robe, which her husband, kneeling before her, severs with a stroke of
his sword from bottom to top. Then he throws his sword on the ground
and runs away as fast as he can.​[251] According to another account,
the woman is wrapt round with white thread; her husband cuts it with
his sword, throws away an oblong white gourd, dashes a fowl’s egg to
the ground, rolls along a young coco-nut on which the figures of a man
and woman have been painted, and so departs in haste.​[252] Among some
of the Dyaks of Borneo, when a woman is in hard labour, a wizard is
called in, who essays to facilitate the delivery in a rational manner
by manipulating the body of the sufferer. Meantime another wizard
outside the room exerts himself to attain the same {p74} end by means
which we should regard as wholly irrational. He, in fact, pretends
to be the expectant mother; a large stone attached to his stomach by
a cloth wrapt round his body represents the child in the womb, and,
following the directions shouted to him by his colleague on the real
scene of operations, he moves this make-believe baby about on his body
in exact imitation of the movements of the real baby till the infant is
born.​[253]

[Sidenote: Simulation of birth at adoption, and after supposed death.]

The same principle of make-believe, so dear to children, has led other
peoples to employ a simulation of birth as a form of adoption, and even
as a mode of restoring a supposed dead person to life. If you pretend
to give birth to a boy, or even to a great bearded man who has not a
drop of your blood in his veins, then, in the eyes of primitive law
and philosophy, that boy or man is really your son to all intents and
purposes. Thus Diodorus tells us that when Zeus persuaded his jealous
wife Hera to adopt Hercules, the goddess got into bed, and clasping
the burly hero to her bosom, pushed him through her robes and let him
fall to the ground in imitation of a real birth; and the historian adds
that in his own day the same mode of adopting children was practised
by the barbarians.​[254] At the present time it is said to be still in
use in Bulgaria and among the Bosnian Turks. A woman will take a boy
whom she intends to adopt and push or pull him through her clothes;
ever afterwards he is regarded as her very son, and inherits the
whole property of his adoptive parents.​[255] Among the Berawans of
Sarawak, when a woman desires to adopt a grown-up man or woman, a great
many people assemble and have a feast. The adopting mother, seated
in public on a raised and covered seat, allows the adopted person to
crawl from behind between her legs. As soon as he appears in front he
is {p75} stroked with the sweet-scented blossoms of the areca palm,
and tied to the woman. Then the adopting mother and the adopted son
or daughter, thus bound together, waddle to the end of the house and
back again in front of all the spectators. The tie established between
the two by this graphic imitation of childbirth is very strict; an
offence committed against an adopted child is reckoned more heinous
than one committed against a real child.​[256] In Central Africa “the
Bahima practise adoption; the male relatives always take charge of a
brother’s children. When a man dies his brother takes any children of
the deceased and places them one by one in his wife’s lap. Then he
binds round her waist the thong used for tying the legs of restive cows
during milking, just as is done after childbirth. The children are then
brought up with his own family.”​[257] In ancient Greece any man who
had been supposed erroneously to be dead, and for whom in his absence
funeral rites had been performed, was treated as dead to society till
he had gone through the form of being born again. He was passed through
a woman’s lap, then washed, dressed in swaddling-clothes, and put out
to nurse. Not until this ceremony had been punctually performed might
he mix freely with living folk.​[258] In ancient India, under similar
circumstances, the supposed dead man had to pass the first night after
his return in a tub filled with a mixture of fat and water; there he
sat with doubled-up fists and without uttering a syllable, like a child
in the womb, while over him were performed all the sacraments that were
wont to be celebrated over a pregnant woman. Next morning he got out
of the tub and went through once more all the other sacraments he had
formerly partaken of from his youth up; in particular, he married a
wife or espoused his old one over again with due solemnity.​[259]

[Sidenote: Simulation of birth among the Akikuyu.]

Amongst the Akikuyu of British East Africa every member of the tribe,
whether male or female, has to go {p76} through a pretence of being
born again. The age at which the ceremony is performed varies with the
ability of the father to provide the goat or sheep which is required
for the due observance of the rite; but it seems that the new birth
generally takes place when a child is about ten years old or younger.
If the child’s father or mother is dead, a man or woman acts as proxy
on the occasion, and in such a case the woman is thenceforth regarded
by the child as its own mother. A goat or sheep is killed in the
afternoon and the stomach and intestines are reserved. The ceremony
takes place at evening in a hut; none but women are allowed to be
present. A circular piece of the goat-skin or sheep-skin is passed over
one shoulder and under the other arm of the child who is to be born
again; and the animal’s stomach is similarly passed over the child’s
other shoulder and under its other arm. The mother, or the woman who
acts as mother, sits on a hide on the floor with the child between
her knees. The sheep’s or goat’s gut is passed round her and brought
in front of the child. She groans as if in labour, another woman cuts
the gut as if it were the navel-string, and the child imitates the
cry of a new-born infant. Until a lad has thus been born again in
mimicry, he may not assist at the disposal of his father’s body after
death, nor help to carry him out into the wilds to breathe his last.
Formerly the ceremony of the new birth was combined with the ceremony
of circumcision; but the two are now kept separate.​[260] In origin we
may suppose that this curious pretence of being born again regularly
formed part of the initiatory rites through which every Kikuyu lad and
every Kikuyu girl had to pass before he or she was recognised as a
full-grown member of the tribe;​[261] for in many parts of the world
a simulation of death and resurrection has been enacted by candidates
on such occasions as well as on admission to the membership of certain
secret societies.​[262] The intention of the mock birth {p77} or mock
resurrection is not clear; but we may conjecture that it is designed,
on the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, either to impart
to the candidate the powers of a ghost or to enable him to be reborn
again into the world whenever he shall have died in good earnest.

[Sidenote: Magical images to procure love.]

Magical images have often been employed for the amiable purpose of
winning love. Thus to shoot an arrow into the heart of a clay image
was an ancient Hindoo mode of securing a woman’s affection; only the
bow-string must be of hemp, the shaft of the arrow must be of black
_ala_ wood, its plume an owl’s feather, and its barb a thorn.​[263]
No doubt the wound inflicted on the heart of the clay image was
supposed to make a corresponding impression on the woman’s heart.
Among the Chippeway Indians there used to be few young men or women
who had not little images of the persons whose love they wished to
win. They pricked the hearts of the images and inserted magical
powders in the punctures, while they addressed the effigies by the
names of the persons whom they represented, bidding them requite their
affection.​[264] Ancient witches and wizards melted wax in the fire in
order to make the hearts of their sweethearts to melt of love.​[265]
And as the wound of love may be inflicted by an image, so by an image
it may be healed. How that can be done is told by Heine in a poem
based on the experience of one of his own schoolfellows. It is called
_The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar_, and describes how sick people offer waxen
models of their ailing members to the Virgin Mary at Kevlaar in order
that she may heal them of their infirmities. In the poem a lover,
wasting away for love and sorrow at the death of his sweetheart, offers
to the Virgin the waxen model of a heart with a prayer that she would
heal his heart-ache.​[266] Such customs, still commonly {p78} observed
in some parts of Catholic Europe, are interesting because they shew
how in later times magic comes to be incorporated with religion. The
moulding of wax images of ailing members is in its origin purely
magical: the prayer to the Virgin or to a saint is purely religious:
the combination of the two is a crude, if pathetic, attempt to turn
both magic and religion to account for the benefit of the sufferer.

[Sidenote: Magical images to maintain domestic harmony.]

The natives of New Caledonia make use of effigies to maintain or
restore harmony between husband and wife. Two spindle-shaped bundles,
one representing the man and the other the woman, are tied firmly
together to symbolise and ensure the amity of the couple. They are
made up of various plants, together with some threads from the
woman’s girdle and a piece of the man’s apron; a bone needle forms
the axis of each. The talisman is meant to render the union of the
spouses indissoluble, and is carefully treasured by them both. If,
nevertheless, a domestic jar should unfortunately take place, the
husband repairs to the family burying-ground with the precious packet.
There he lights a fire with a wood of a particular kind, fumigates
the talisman, sprinkles it with water from a prescribed source, waves
it round his head, and then stirring the needle in the bundle which
represents himself he says, “I change the heart of this woman, that she
may love me.” If the wife still remains obdurate, he ties a sugar-cane
to the bundle, and presents it to her through a third person. If she
eats of the sugar-cane, she feels her love for her husband revive. On
her side she has the right to operate in like manner on the bundle
which represents herself, always provided that she does not go to the
burying-ground, which is strictly forbidden to women.​[267]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic in medicine.]

Another beneficent use of homoeopathic magic is to heal or prevent
sickness. In ancient Greece, when a man died of dropsy, his children
were made to sit with their feet in water until the body was burned.
This was supposed to prevent the disease from attacking them.​[268]
Similarly, on {p79} the principle of water to water, among the natives
of the hills near Rajamahall in India, the body of a person who has
died of dropsy is thrown into a river; they think that if the corpse
were buried, the disorder would return and carry off other people.​[269]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic treatment of jaundice

Homoeopathic treatment of St. Anthony’s fire.

Homoeopathic virtue of crossbills.]

The ancient Hindoos performed an elaborate ceremony, based on
homoeopathetic magic, for the cure of jaundice. Its main drift was
to banish the yellow colour to yellow creatures and yellow things,
such as the sun, to which it properly belongs, and to procure for the
patient a healthy red colour from a living, vigorous source, namely a
red bull. With this intention, a priest recited the following spell:
“Up to the sun shall go thy heart-ache and thy jaundice: in the colour
of the red bull do we envelop thee! We envelop thee in red tints, unto
long life. May this person go unscathed and be free of yellow colour!
The cows whose divinity is Rohini, they who, moreover, are themselves
red (_rohinih_)—in their every form and every strength we do envelop
thee. Into the parrots, into the thrush, do we put thy jaundice, and,
furthermore, into the yellow wagtail do we put thy jaundice.” While he
uttered these words, the priest, in order to infuse the rosy hue of
health into the sallow patient, gave him water to sip which was mixed
with the hair of a red bull; he poured water over the animal’s back
and made the sick man drink it; he seated him on the skin of a red
bull and tied a piece of the skin to him. Then in order to improve his
colour by thoroughly eradicating the yellow taint, he proceeded thus.
He first daubed him from head to foot with a yellow porridge made of
turmeric or curcuma (a yellow plant), set him on a bed, tied three
yellow birds, to wit a parrot, a thrush, and a yellow wagtail, by means
of a yellow string to the foot of the bed; then pouring water over
the patient, he washed off the yellow porridge, and with it no doubt
the jaundice, from him to the birds. After that, by way of giving a
final bloom to his complexion, he took some hairs of a red bull, wrapt
them in gold leaf, and glued them to the patient’s skin.​[270] The
{p80} ancients held that if a person suffering from jaundice looked
sharply at a stone-curlew, and the bird looked steadily at him, he
was cured of the disease. “Such is the nature,” says Plutarch, “and
such the temperament of the creature that it draws out and receives
the malady which issues, like a stream, through the eyesight.”​[271]
So well recognised among bird-fanciers was this valuable property of
the stone-curlew that when they had one of these birds for sale they
kept it carefully covered, lest a jaundiced person should look at it
and be cured for nothing.​[272] The virtue of the bird lay not in its
colour but in its large golden eye, which, if it do not pass for a
tuft of yellow lichen, is the first thing that strikes the searcher,
as the bird cowers, to escape observation, on the sandy, flint-strewn
surface of the ground which it loves to haunt, and with which its drab
plumage blends so well that only a practised eye can easily detect
it.​[273] Thus the yellow eye of the bird drew out the yellow jaundice.
Pliny tells of another, or perhaps the same, bird, to which the Greeks
gave their name for jaundice, because if a jaundiced man saw it, the
disease left him and slew the bird.​[274] He mentions also a stone
which was supposed to cure jaundice because its hue resembled that of
a jaundiced skin.​[275] In modern Greece jaundice goes by the name of
the Golden Disease, and very naturally it can be healed by gold. To
effect a perfect cure all that you have to do is this. Take a piece
of gold (best of all an English sovereign, since English gold is the
purest) and put it in a measure of wine. Expose the wine with the gold
to the stars for three nights; then drink three glasses of it daily
till it is used up. By that time the jaundice will be quite washed out
of your system. The cure is, in the strictest sense of the word, a
sovereign one.​[276] {p81} A Wend cure for jaundice, like the modern
Greek one, is to drink a glass of water in which a gold coin has been
left overnight.​[277] A remedy based on the principle of contraries is
to look steadily at pitch or other black substances.​[278] In South
Russia a Jewish remedy for jaundice is to wear golden bracelets.​[279]
Here the great homoeopathic principle is clearly the same as in the
preceding cases, though its application is different. In Germany
yellow turnips, gold coins, gold rings, saffron, and other yellow
things are still esteemed remedies for jaundice, just as a stick of
red sealing-wax carried on the person cures the red eruption popularly
known as St. Anthony’s fire, or the blood-stone with its blood-red
spots allays bleeding.​[280] Another popular remedy in Germany for the
red St. Anthony’s fire and also for bleeding is supplied by the common
crossbills. In this bird “after the first moult the difference between
the sexes is shewn by the hens inclining to yellowish-green, while
the cocks become diversified by orange-yellow and red, their plumage
finally deepening into a rich crimson-red, varied in places by a
flame-colour.”​[281] The smallest reflection may convince us that these
gorgeous hues must be endowed with very valuable medical properties.
Accordingly in some parts of Bavaria, Saxony, and Bohemia people keep
crossbills in cages in order that the red birds may draw the red St.
Antony’s fire and the inflammation of fever to themselves and so
relieve the human patient. Often in a peasant’s cottage you may see the
red bird in its cage hanging beside a sick-bed and drawing to itself
the hectic flush from the cheeks of the hot and restless patient, who
lies tossing under the blankets. And the dried body of a crossbill has
only to be placed on a wound to stop the bleeding at once. It is not
the colour only of the feathers which produces this salutary effect;
the peculiar {p82} shape of the bill, which gives the bird its English
and German name, is a contributory cause. For the horny sheaths of the
bill cross each other obliquely, and this formation undoubtedly enables
the bird to draw diseases to itself more readily than a beak of the
common shape could possibly do. Curious observers have even remarked
that when the upper bill crosses the lower to the right, the bird
will attract the diseases of men, whereas if the upper bill crosses
the lower to the left, it will attract the diseases of women. But I
cannot vouch for the accuracy of this particular observation. However
that may be, certain it is that no fire will break out in a house
where a crossbill is kept in a cage, neither will lightning strike the
dwelling; and this immunity can only be ascribed to the protective
colouring of the bird, the red hue of its plumage serving to ward off
the red lightning and to nip a red conflagration in the bud. However,
the poor bird seldom lives to old age; nor could this reasonably be
expected of a creature which has to endure so much vicarious suffering.
It generally falls a victim to one or other of the maladies of which
it has relieved our ailing humanity. The causes which have given the
crossbill its remarkable colour and the peculiar shape of its bill have
escaped many naturalists, but they are familiar to children in Germany.
The truth is that when Jesus Christ hung on the cross a flight of
crossbills fluttered round him and tugged with their bills at the nails
in his hands and feet to draw them out, till their feathers, which were
grey before, were all bedabbled with blood, and their beaks, which
had been straight, were twisted awry. So red have been their feathers
and twisted their beaks from that day to this.​[282] Another cure
prescribed in Germany for St. Anthony’s fire is to rub the patient with
ashes from a house that has been burned down;​[283] for it is easy to
see that as the fire died out in that house, so St. Anthony’s fire will
die out in that man.

[Sidenote: The shrew-mouse and the shrew-ash.

Homoeopathic prescriptions to make the hair grow.]

A curious application of homoeopathic magic to the {p83} cure of disease
is founded on the old English superstition that if a shrew-mouse runs
over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the animal suffers cruelly
and may lose the use of its limb. Against this accident the farmer
used to keep a shrew-ash at hand as a remedy. A shrew-ash was prepared
thus. A deep hole was bored in the tree, and a shrew-mouse was thrust
in alive and plugged in, probably with some incantations which have
been forgotten.​[284] An ancient Indian cure for a scanty crop of
hair was to pour a solution of certain plants over the head of the
patient; this had to be done by a doctor who was dressed in black and
had eaten black food, and the ceremony must be performed in the early
morning, while the stars were fading in the sky, and before the black
crows had risen cawing from their nests.​[285] The exact virtue of
these plants has escaped our knowledge, but we can hardly doubt that
they were dark and hairy; while the black clothes of the doctor, his
black food, and the swarthy hue of the crows unquestionably combined to
produce a crop of black hair on the patient’s head. A more disagreeable
means of attaining the same end is adopted by some of the tribes of
Central Australia. To promote the growth of a boy’s hair a man with
flowing locks bites the youth’s scalp as hard as he can, being urged
thereto by his friends, who sit round watching him at his task, while
the sufferer howls aloud with pain.​[286] Clearly, on the principle
of capillary attraction, if I may say so, he thus imparts of his own
mature abundance to the scarcity of his youthful friend.

[Sidenote: Various homoeopathic remedies.]

One of the great merits of homoeopathic magic is that it enables the
cure to be performed on the person of the doctor instead of on that
of his victim, who is thus relieved of all trouble and inconvenience,
while he sees his medical man writhe in anguish before him. For
example, the peasants of {p84} Perche, in France, labour under the
impression that a prolonged fit of vomiting is brought about by the
patient’s stomach becoming unhooked, as they call it, and so falling
down. Accordingly, a practitioner is called in to restore the organ to
its proper place. After hearing the symptoms he at once throws himself
into the most horrible contortions, for the purpose of unhooking his
own stomach. Having succeeded in the effort, he next hooks it up again
in another series of contortions and grimaces, while the patient
experiences a corresponding relief. Fee five francs.​[287] In like
manner a Dyak medicine-man, who has been fetched in a case of illness,
will lie down and pretend to be dead. He is accordingly treated like
a corpse, is bound up in mats, taken out of the house, and deposited
on the ground. After about an hour the other medicine-men loose the
pretended dead man and bring him to life; and as he recovers, the sick
person is supposed to recover too.​[288] A cure for a tumour, based
on the principle of homoeopathic magic, is prescribed by Marcellus of
Bordeaux, court physician to Theodosius the First, in his curious work
on medicine. It is as follows. Take a root of vervain, cut it across,
and hang one end of it round the patient’s neck, and the other in the
smoke of the fire. As the vervain dries up in the smoke, so the tumour
will also dry up and disappear. If the patient should afterwards prove
ungrateful to the good physician, the man of skill can avenge himself
very easily by throwing the vervain into water; for as the root absorbs
the moisture once more, the tumour will return.​[289] The same sapient
writer recommends you, if you are troubled with pimples, to watch for
a falling star, and then instantly, while the star is still shooting
from the sky, to wipe the pimples with a cloth or anything that comes
to hand. Just as the star falls from the sky, so the pimples will fall
from your body; only you must be very careful not to wipe them with
your bare hand, or the pimples will be transferred to it.​[290] {p85}

[Sidenote: Sympathetic magic to ensure the food supply.]

Further, homoeopathic and in general sympathetic magic plays a great
part in the measures taken by the rude hunter or fisherman to secure an
abundant supply of food. On the principle that like produces like, many
things are done by him and his friends in deliberate imitation of the
result which he seeks to attain; and, on the other hand, many things
are scrupulously avoided because they bear some more or less fanciful
resemblance to others which would really be disastrous.

[Sidenote: Systematic use of sympathetic magic in Central Australia.]

Nowhere is the theory of sympathetic magic more systematically carried
into practice for the maintenance of the food supply than in the barren
regions of Central Australia. Here the tribes are divided into a number
of totem clans, each of which is charged with the duty of propagating
and multiplying their totem for the good of the community by means of
magical ceremonies and incantations. The great majority of the totems
are edible animals and plants, and the general result supposed to be
accomplished by these magical totemic ceremonies or _intichiuma_, as
the Arunta call them, is that of supplying the tribe with food and
other necessaries. Often the rites consist of an imitation of the
effect which the people desire to produce; in other words, their magic
is of the homoeopathic or imitative sort.

[Sidenote: _Intichiuma_, or magical ceremonies for the increase of the
totemic animals and plants in Central Australia.

Witchetty grub ceremony.

Emu ceremony.

Hakea flower ceremony.

Kangaroo ceremony.

Grass seed ceremony.]

Thus among the Arunta the men of the witchetty grub totem perform a
series of elaborate ceremonies for multiplying the grub which the other
members of the tribe use as food. One of the ceremonies is a pantomime
representing the fully-developed insect in the act of emerging from the
chrysalis. A long narrow structure of branches is set up to imitate
the chrysalis case of the grub. In this structure a number of men, who
have the grub for their totem, sit and sing of the creature in its
various stages. Then they shuffle out of it in a squatting posture,
and as they do so they sing of the insect emerging from the chrysalis.
This is supposed to multiply the numbers of the grubs.​[291] Again, in
order to multiply emus, which are an important article of food, the men
of the emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed as follows. They clear
a small spot of level ground, and opening veins in their arms they
let the {p86} blood stream out until the surface of the ground, for a
space of about three square yards, is soaked with it. When the blood
has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable surface,
on which they paint the sacred design of the emu totem, especially the
parts of the bird which they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the
eggs. Round this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers,
wearing head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the
emu, mimic the appearance of the bird as it stands aimlessly peering
about in all directions.​[292] Again, men of the hakea flower totem
in the Arunta tribe perform a ceremony to make the hakea tree burst
into blossom. The scene of the ceremony is a little hollow, by the
side of which grows an ancient hakea tree. In the middle of the hollow
is a small worn block of stone, supposed to represent a mass of hakea
flowers. Before the ceremony begins, an old man of the totem carefully
sweeps the ground clean, and then strokes the stone all over with his
hands. After that the men sit round the stone and chant invitations to
the tree to flower much and to the blossoms to be filled with honey.
Finally, at the request of the old leader, one of the young men opens
a vein in his arm and lets the blood flow freely over the stone,
while the rest continue to sing. The flow of blood is supposed to
represent the preparation of the favourite drink of the natives, which
is made by steeping the hakea flower in water. As soon as the stone
is covered with blood the ceremony is complete.​[293] Again, the men
of the kangaroo totem in the Arunta tribe perform ceremonies for the
multiplication of kangaroos at a certain rocky ledge, which, in the
opinion of the natives, is full of the spirits of kangaroos ready to go
forth and inhabit kangaroo bodies. A little higher up on the hillside
are two blocks of stone, which represent a male and female kangaroo
respectively. At the ceremony these two blocks are rubbed with a stone
by two men. Then the rocky ledge below is decorated with alternate
vertical stripes of red and white, to indicate the red fur and white
bones of the kangaroo. After that a number of young men sit on the
ledge, open veins in {p87} their arms, and allow the blood to spurtle
over the edge of the rock on which they are seated. This pouring out
of the blood of the kangaroo men on the rock is thought to drive out
the spirits of the kangaroos in all directions, and so to increase the
number of the animals. While it is taking place, the other men sit
below watching the performers and singing songs which refer to the
expected increase of kangaroos.​[294] In the Kaitish tribe, when the
headman of the grass seed totem wishes to make the grass grow, he takes
two sacred sticks or stones (_churinga_) of the well-known bull-roarer
pattern, smears them with red-ochre, and decorates them with lines and
dots of down to represent grass seed. Then he rubs the sticks or stones
together so {p88} that the down flies off in all directions. The down is
supposed to carry with it some virtue from the sacred stick or stone
whereby the grass seed is made to grow. For days afterwards the headman
walks about by himself in the bush singing the grass seed and carrying
one of the sacred bull-roarers (_churinga_) with him. At night he hides
the implement in the bush and returns to camp, where he may have no
intercourse with his wife. For during all this time he is believed to
be so full of magic power, derived from the bull-roarer, that if he had
intercourse with her the grass seed would not grow properly and his
body would swell up when he tasted of it. When the seed begins to grow,
he still goes on singing to make it grow more, but when it is fully
grown he brings back the sacred implement to his camp hidden in bark;
and having gathered a store of the seed he leaves it with the men of
the other half of the tribe, saying, “You eat the grass seed in plenty,
it is very good and grows in my country.”​[295]

[Sidenote: Manna ceremony.]

A somewhat similar ceremony is performed by men of the manna totem
in the Arunta tribe for the increase of their totem. This manna is
a product of the mulga tree (_Acacia aneura_), and resembles the
better-known sugar-manna of gum trees. When the men of the totem wish
to multiply the manna, they resort to a great boulder of grey rock,
curiously streaked with black and white seams, which is thought to
represent a mass of manna deposited there long ago by a man of the
totem. The same significance is attributed to other smaller stones
which rest on the top of the boulder. The headman of the totem begins
the ceremony by digging up a sacred bull-roarer (_churinga_), which
is buried in the earth at the foot of the boulder. It is supposed to
represent a lump of manna and to have lain there ever since the remote
_alcheringa_ or dream time, the farthest past of which these savages
have any conception. Next the headman climbs to the top of the boulder
and rubs it with the bull-roarer, and after that he takes the smaller
stones and with them rubs the same spot on the boulder. Meantime the
other men, sitting round about, chant loudly an invitation to the dust
produced by {p89} the rubbing of the stones to go out and generate a
plentiful supply of manna on the mulga-trees. Finally, with twigs of
the mulga the leader sweeps away the dust which has gathered on the
surface of the stone; his intention is to cause the dust to settle on
the mulga-trees and so produce manna.​[296]

[Sidenote: Euro ceremony.

Cockatoo ceremony.]

Again, in a rocky gorge of the Murchison Range there are numbers of
little heaps of rounded, water-worn stones, carefully arranged on beds
of leaves and hidden away under piles of rougher quartzite blocks. In
the opinion of the Warramunga tribe, these rounded stones represent
euros, that is, a species of kangaroo. According to their size they
stand for young or old, male or female euros. Any old man of the euro
totem who happens to pass the spot may take the stones out, smear
them with red ochre and rub them well. This is supposed to cause the
spirits of euros to pass out from the stones and to be born as animals,
thus increasing the food supply.​[297] Again, in the Warramunga tribe
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen saw and heard a ceremony which was believed
to multiply white cockatoos to a wonderful extent. From ten o’clock
one evening until after sunrise next morning the headman of the white
cockatoo totem held in his hand a rude effigy of the cockatoo and
imitated the harsh cry of the bird, with exasperating monotony, all
night long. When his voice failed him, his son took up the call and
relieved the old man until such time as his father was rested enough to
begin again.​[298]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic or imitative character of these rites.

Use of human blood in these ceremonies.]

In this last ceremony the homoeopathic or imitative character of the
rite is particularly plain: the shape of the bird which is to be
multiplied is mimicked by an effigy, its cry is imitated by the human
voice. In others of the ceremonies just described the homoeopathic
principle works by means of stones, which resemble in shape the edible
animals or plants that the natives desire to increase. We shall see
presently that the Melanesians similarly attribute fertilising virtues
to stones of certain shapes.​[299] Meantime it {p90} deserves to be
noticed that in some of these Australian rites for the multiplication
of the totemic animals the blood of the men of the totem plays an
important part. Similarly in a ceremony performed by men of the
Dieri tribe for the multiplication of carpet-snakes and iguanas the
performers wound themselves and the blood that drips from their wounds
is poured on a sandhill in which a mythical ancestor is believed to
be buried and from which carpet-snakes and iguanas are confidently
expected to swarm forth.​[300] Again, when the headman of the fish
totem in the Wonkgongaru tribe desires to make fish plentiful, he
paints himself all over with red ochre, and, taking little pointed
bones, goes into a pool. There he pierces his scrotum and the skin
around the navel with the bones, and sits down in the water. The blood
from the wounds, as it mingles with the water, is supposed to give
rise to fish.​[301] In all these cases clearly a fertilising virtue
is ascribed to human blood. The ascription is interesting and may
possibly go some way to explain the widely-spread custom of voluntary
wounds and mutilations in religious or magical rites. It may therefore
be worth while, even at the cost of a digression, to enquire a little
more closely into the custom as it is practised by the rude savages of
Australia.​[302]

[Sidenote: Blood poured into graves.

Blood given to the sick and aged

Blood used by an avenging party.]

In the first place, then, the Dieri custom of pouring blood over the
supposed remains of the ancestor in his sandhill closely resembles the
custom observed by some of the Australian aborigines at the graves of
their relatives. Thus among the tribes on the River Darling several
men used to stand by the open grave and cut each other’s heads with a
boomerang, and then hold their bleeding heads over the grave so that
the blood dripped on the corpse at the bottom of it. If the deceased
was highly esteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had
been thrown on the corpse.​[303] Among {p91} the Arunta it is customary
for the women kinsfolk to cut themselves at the grave so that blood
flows upon it.​[304] Again, at the Vasse River, in Western Australia,
before the body was lowered into the grave, the natives used to gash
their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood they all said, “I have
brought blood,” and they stamped the foot forcibly on the ground,
sprinkling the blood around them; then wiping the wounds with a wisp of
leaves, they threw it, all bloody, on the dead man. After that they let
the body down into the grave.​[305] Further, it is a common practice
with the Central Australians to give human blood to the sick and aged
for the purpose of strengthening them; and in order that the blood may
have this effect it need not always be drunk by the infirm person, it
is enough to sprinkle it on his body. For example, a young man will
often open a vein in his arm and let the blood trickle over the body
of an older man in order to strengthen his aged friend; and sometimes
the old man will drink a little of the blood.​[306] So in illness
the blood is sometimes applied outwardly as well as inwardly, the
patient both drinking it and having it rubbed over his body; sometimes
apparently he only drinks it. The blood is drawn from a man or woman
who is related to the sufferer either by blood or marriage, and the
notion always is to convey to the sick person some of the strength
of the blood-giver.​[307] In the Wiimbaio tribe, if a man had nearly
killed his wife in a paroxysm of rage, the woman was laid out on the
ground, and the husband’s arms being tightly bound above the elbows,
the medicine-man opened the veins in them and allowed the blood to flow
on the prostrate body of the victim till the man grew faint.​[308] The
intention of thus bleeding the man over the woman {p92} was apparently
to restore her to life by means of the blood drawn from her assailant.
Again, before an avenging party starts to take the life of a distant
enemy, all the men stand up, open veins in their genital organs with
sharp flints or pointed sticks, and allow the blood to spurtle over
each other’s thighs. This ceremony is supposed to strengthen the men
mutually, and also to knit them so closely together that treachery
henceforth becomes impossible. Sometimes for the same purpose blood is
drawn from the arm and drunk by the men of the avenging party, and if
one of them refuses thus to pledge himself the others will force his
mouth open and pour the blood into it. After that, even if he wishes
to play the traitor and to give the doomed man warning, he cannot do
so; he is bound by a physical necessity to side with the avengers whose
blood he has swallowed.​[309]

[Sidenote: Blood of circumcision and subincision; uses made of it.

Anodynes based on the principle of homoeopathic magic.]

Further, it is worth while to notice some uses made of human blood in
connexion with the ceremonies of circumcision and subincision, which
all lads of the Central Australian tribes have to undergo before
they are recognised as full-grown men. For example, the blood drawn
from them at these operations is caught in a hollow shield and taken
to certain kinsmen or kinswomen, who drink it or have it smeared on
their breasts and foreheads.​[310] The motive of this practice is
not mentioned, but on the analogy of the preceding customs we may
conjecture that it is to strengthen the relatives who partake of
the blood. This interpretation is confirmed by an analogous use in
Queensland of the blood drawn from a woman at the operation which in
the female sex corresponds to subincision in the male; for that blood,
mixed with another ingredient, is kept and drunk as a medicine by any
sick person who may be in the camp at the time.​[311] Moreover, it is
corroborated by a similar use of the foreskin which has been removed at
circumcision; for among the southern Arunta this piece of skin is given
to the younger brother of the circumcised lad and he swallows {p93}
it, in the belief that it will make him grow strong and tall.​[312]
In the tribe at Fowler’s Bay, who practise both circumcision and
subincision, the severed foreskin is swallowed by the operator,​[313]
perhaps in order to strengthen the lad sympathetically. In some tribes
of North-West Australia it is the lad himself who swallows his own
foreskin mixed with kangaroo flesh; while in other tribes of the same
region the severed portion is taken by the relations and deposited
under the bark of a large tree.​[314] The possible significance of
this latter treatment of the foreskin will appear presently. Among the
Kolkodoons of Cloniny, in Northern Queensland, the foreskin is strung
on twine made of human hair, and is then tied round the mother’s neck
“to keep off the devil.”​[315] In the Warramunga tribe the old men
draw blood from their own subincised urethras in presence of the lads
who a few days before have undergone the operation of subincision. The
object of this custom, we are told, is to promote the healing of the
young men’s wounds and to strengthen them generally.​[316] It does
not appear that the blood of the old men is drunk by or smeared upon
the youths; seemingly it is supposed to benefit them sympathetically
without direct contact. A similar action of blood at a distance may
partly explain a very singular custom observed by the Arunta women at
the moment when a lad is being subincised. The operation is performed
at a distance from, but within hearing of, the women’s camp. When the
boy is seized in order to be operated on, the men of the {p94} party
raise a loud shout of “Pirr-rr.” At that sound the women immediately
assemble in their camp, and the boy’s mother cuts gashes across the
stomach and shoulders of the boy’s sisters, her own elder sisters, an
old woman who furnished the boy with a sacred fire at circumcision, and
all the women whose daughters he would be allowed to marry; and while
she cuts she imitates the sound made by the men who are subincising her
son. These cuts generally leave behind them a definite series of scars;
they have a name of their own (_urpma_), and are often represented by
definite lines on the bull-roarers.​[317] What the exact meaning of
this extraordinary ceremony may be, I cannot say; but perhaps one of
its supposed effects may be to relieve the boy’s pain by transferring
it to his women-kind. In like manner, when the Warramunga men are
fighting each other with blazing torches, the women burn themselves
with lighted twigs in the belief that by so doing they prevent the
men from inflicting serious injuries on each other.​[318] The theory
further receives some support from certain practices formerly observed
by the natives inhabiting the coast of New South Wales. Before lads had
their noses bored, the medicine men threw themselves into contortions
on the ground, and after pretending to suffer great pain were delivered
of bones, which were to be used at the ceremony of nose-boring. The
lads were told that the more the medicine men suffered, the less pain
they themselves would feel.​[319] Again, among the same natives, when a
woman was in labour, a female friend would tie one end of a cord round
the sufferer’s neck and rub her own gums with the other end till they
bled,​[320] probably in order to draw away the pain from the mother to
herself. For a similar reason, perhaps, in Samoa, while blood was being
drawn from a virgin bride, her friends, young and old, beat their heads
with stones till they bled.​[321]

[Sidenote: Fertilising virtue attributed to blood of circumcision and
subincision.

Fertilising virtue attributed to foreskin.

Belief of the Central Australian tribes in the reincarnation of the
dead.]

Lastly, in some tribes the blood shed at the circumcision {p95} and
subincision of lads is collected in paper bark and buried in the bank
of a pool where water-lilies grow; this is supposed to promote the
growth of the lilies.​[322] Needless to say, this rude attempt at
horticulture is not prompted by a simple delight in contemplating these
beautiful bright blue flowers which bloom in the Australian wilderness,
decking the surface of pools by countless thousands. The savages feed
on the stems and roots of the lilies; that is why they desire to
cultivate them.​[323] In this last practice a fertilising virtue is
clearly attributed to the blood of circumcision and subincision. The
Anula tribe, who among others observe the custom, obviously ascribe
the same virtue to the severed foreskin, for they bury it also by the
side of a pool.​[324] The Warramunga entertain the same opinion of
this part of the person, for they place the foreskin in a hole made by
a witchetty grub in a tree, believing that it will cause a plentiful
supply of these edible grubs.​[325] Among the Unmatjera the custom
is somewhat different, but taken in connexion with their traditions
it is even more significant. The boy puts his severed foreskin on a
shield, covers it up with a broad spear-thrower, and then carries it
in the darkness of night, lest any woman should see what he is doing,
to a hollow tree in which he deposits it. He tells no one where he has
hidden it, except a man who stands to him in the relation of father’s
sister’s son. Nowadays there is no special relation between the boy
and the tree, but formerly the case seems to have been different.
For according to {p96} tradition the early mythical ancestors of the
tribe placed their foreskins in their _nanja_ trees, that is, in
their local totem centres, the trees from which their spirits came
forth at birth and to which they would return after death.​[326]
If, as seems highly probable, such a custom as that recorded by the
tradition ever prevailed, its intention could hardly be any other
than that of securing the future birth and reincarnation of the owner
of the foreskin when he should have died and his spirit returned to
its abode in the tree. For among all these Central tribes the belief
is firmly rooted that the human soul undergoes an endless series of
reincarnations, the living men and women of one generation being
nothing but the spirits of their ancestors come to life again, and
destined to be themselves reborn in the persons of their descendants.
During the interval between two incarnations the souls live in their
_nanja_ spots or local totem centres, which are always natural objects
such as trees or rocks. Each totem clan has a number of such totem
centres scattered over the country. There the souls of the dead men
and women of the totem, but of no other, congregate during their
disembodied state, and thence they issue and are born again in human
form when a favourable opportunity presents itself.​[327] It might
well be thought that a man’s new birth would be facilitated if, in his
lifetime, he could lay up a stock of vital energy for the use of his
disembodied spirit after death. That he did, apparently, by detaching
a portion of himself, namely the foreskin, and depositing it in his
_nanja_ tree, or rock, or whatever it might be.

[Sidenote: Circumcision perhaps intended to ensure reincarnation.

Subincision possibly also designed to secure rebirth.]

Is it possible that in this belief and this practice we have the long
lost key to the meaning of circumcision? In other words, can it be
that circumcision was originally intended to ensure the rebirth at
some future time of the circumcised man by disposing of the severed
portion of his body in such a way as to provide him with a stock of
energy on which his disembodied spirit could draw when the critical
moment of reincarnation came round? The conjecture is confirmed by
the observation that among the Akikuyu of {p97} British East Africa
the ceremony of circumcision used to be regularly combined with a
graphic pretence of rebirth enacted by the novice.​[328] If this should
prove to be indeed the clue to the meaning of circumcision, it would
be natural to look for an explanation of subincision along the same
lines. Now we have seen that the blood of subincision is used both
to strengthen relatives and to make water-lilies grow. Hence we may
conjecture that the strengthening and fertilising virtue of the blood
was applied, like the foreskin at circumcision, to lay up a store of
energy in the _nanja_ spot against the time when the man’s feeble ghost
would need it. The intention of both ceremonies would thus be to ensure
the future reincarnation of the individual by quickening the local
totem centre, the home of his disembodied spirit, with a vital portion
of himself. That portion, whether the foreskin or the blood, was in a
manner seed sown to grow up and provide his immortal spirit with a new
body when his old body should have mouldered in the dust.

[Sidenote: Knocking out of teeth in Australia perhaps practised for the
same purpose.

Extraction of teeth associated with rain.]

Perhaps the same theory may serve to explain another initiatory rite
practised by some of the Australian aborigines, namely, the knocking
out of teeth. This is the principal ceremony of initiation amongst
the tribes of eastern and south-eastern Australia; and it is often
practised, though not as an initiatory rite, by the Central tribes,
with whom the essential rites of initiation are circumcision and
subincision.​[329] On the hypothesis here suggested, we should expect
to find the tooth regarded as a vital part of the man which was
sacrificed to ensure another life for him after death. The durability
of the teeth, compared to the corruptible nature of the greater part
of the body, might be a sufficient reason with a savage philosopher
for choosing this portion of the corporeal frame on which to pin his
hope of immortality. The evidence at our disposal certainly does not
suffice to establish this explanation of the rite; but there are some
facts which seem to point in that direction. In the first {p98} place,
the extracted tooth is supposed to remain in sympathetic connexion with
the man from whom it has been removed; and if proper care is not taken
of it, he may fall ill.​[330] With some Victorian tribes the practice
was for the mother of the lad to choose a young gum-tree and to insert
her son’s teeth in the bark, at the fork of two of the topmost boughs.
Ever afterwards the tree was held in a sense sacred. It was made known
only to certain persons of the tribe, and the youth himself was never
allowed to learn where his teeth had been deposited. When he died, the
tree was killed by fire.​[331] Thus in a fashion the tree might be
said to be bound up with the life of the man whose teeth it contained,
since when he died it was destroyed. Further, among some of the
Central tribes the extracted tooth is thrown away as far as possible
in the direction of the spot where the man’s mother is supposed to
have had her camp in the far-off legendary time which is known as the
_alcheringa_.​[332] May not this be done to secure the rebirth of the
man’s spirit in that place? In the Gnanji tribe the extracted tooth is
buried by the man’s or woman’s mother beside a pool, for the purpose
of stopping the rain and increasing the number of water-lilies that
grow in the pool.​[333] Thus the same fertilising virtue is ascribed to
the tooth which is attributed to the foreskin severed at circumcision
and to the blood drawn at subincision. Why the drawing of teeth should
be supposed to stop rain, I cannot guess. Curiously enough, among
the Central tribes generally, the extraction of teeth has a special
association with rain and water. Thus among the Arunta it is practised
chiefly by the members of the rain or water totem; and it is nearly if
not quite obligatory on all the men and women of that totem, whereas
it is merely optional with members of the other clans. Further, the
ceremony is always performed among the {p99} Arunta immediately after
the magical ceremony for the making of rain.​[334] In the Warramunga
tribe the knocking out of the teeth generally takes place towards the
end of the wet season, when the water-holes are full, and the natives
do not wish any more rain to fall. Moreover, it is always performed
on the banks of a water-hole. The persons to be operated on enter the
pool, fill their mouths with water, spit it out in all directions, and
splash the water over themselves, taking care to wet thoroughly the
crown of the head. Immediately afterwards the tooth is knocked out. The
Chingilli also knock out teeth towards the close of the wet season,
when they think they have had enough of rain. The extracted tooth is
thrown into a water-hole, in the belief that it will drive rain and
clouds away.​[335] I merely note, without attempting to account for,
this association between the extraction of teeth and the stopping of
rain.

[Sidenote: Extraction of tooth used to determine a man’s country and
totem.

Belief in reincarnation among the natives of the Pennefather River in
Queensland.]

The natives of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland use the extraction
of the tooth to determine both a man’s totem and the country to which
he belongs. While the tooth is being knocked out, they mention the
various districts owned or frequented by the lad’s mother, her father,
or other of her relatives. The one which happens to be mentioned at
the moment when the tooth breaks away is the country to which the lad
belongs in future, that is, the country where he will have the right
to hunt and to gather roots and fruits. Further, the bloody spittle
which he ejects after the extraction of the tooth is examined by the
old men, who trace some likeness between it and a natural object,
such as an animal, a plant, or a stone. Henceforth that object will
be the young man’s _ari_ or totem.​[336] Some light is thrown on this
ceremony by a parallel custom which the natives of the Pennefather
River in Queensland observe at the birth of a child. They believe that
every person’s spirit undergoes a series of reincarnations, and that
during the interval between two {p100} successive reincarnations the
spirit stays in one or other of the haunts of Anjea, the being who
causes conception in women by putting mud babies into their wombs.
Hence, in order to determine where the new baby’s spirit resided since
it was last in the flesh, they mention Anjea’s haunts one after the
other while the grandmother is cutting the child’s navel-string; and
the place which happens to be mentioned when the navel-string breaks
is the spot where the spirit lodged since its last incarnation. That
is the country to which the child belongs; there he will have the
right of hunting when he grows up. Hence, according to the home from
which its spirit came to dwell among men, a child may be known as a
baby obtained from a tree, a rock, or a pool of fresh water. Anjea,
with whom the souls of the dead live till their time comes to be born
again, is never seen; but you may hear him laughing in the depths of
the woods, among the rocks, down in the lagoons, and along the mangrove
swamps.​[337] Hence we may fairly infer that the country assigned to a
man of the Cape York Peninsula at the extraction of his tooth is the
one where his spirit tarried during the interval which elapsed since
its last incarnation. His totem, which is determined at the same time,
may possibly be the animal, plant, or other natural object in which
his spirit resided since its last embodiment in human form, or perhaps
rather in which a part of his spirit may be supposed to lodge outside
of his body during life. The latter view is favoured by the belief
of the tribe of the Pennefather River, whose practice at childbirth
so closely resembles that of the Cape York natives at puberty; for
the Pennefather people hold that during a man’s life a portion of his
spirit lodges outside of his body in his afterbirth.​[338] However that
may be, it seems probable that among the Cape York natives the custom
of knocking out the tooth is closely associated with a theory of {p101}
reincarnation. Perhaps the same theory explains a privilege enjoyed by
the Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales. They claimed a superiority over
the surrounding tribes, and enforced their claim by exacting from them
the teeth knocked out at puberty. The exaction of this tribute might
have passed for a mere assertion of suzerainty, were it not that the
Kamilaroi knocked out their own teeth also.​[339] Perhaps the extracted
teeth were believed to secure to their present possessors a magical
control over their former owners, not only during life but after death,
so that armed with them the Kamilaroi could help or hinder the rebirth
of their departed friends or enemies.​[340]

[Sidenote: Australian initiatory rites meant to secure rebirth.

Certain funeral rites also intended to ensure reincarnation.

Australian funeral ceremonies intended to ensure the reincarnation of
the dead.]

Thus, if I am right, the essential feature in all the three great
initiatory rites of the Australians is the removal of a vital part
of the person which shall serve as a link between two successive
incarnations by preparing for the novice a new body to house his
spirit when its present tabernacle shall have been worn out. Now, if
there is any truth in this suggestion, we should expect to find that
measures to ensure reincarnation are also taken at death and burial.
This seems in fact to be done. For, in the first place, the practice of
pouring the blood of kinsmen and kinswomen into the grave is obviously
susceptible of this explanation, since, in accordance with the
Australian usages which I have cited, the blood might well be thought
{p102} to strengthen the feeble ghost for a new birth. The same may be
said of the Australian custom of depositing hair with the dead,​[341]
for it is a common notion that the hair is the seat of strength.​[342]
Again, it has been a rule with some Australian tribes to bury their
dead on the spot where they were born.​[343] This was very natural
if they desired the dead man to be born again. Further, the common
Australian practice of depositing the dead in trees​[344] may, in
some cases at least, have been designed to facilitate rebirth; for
trees are often the places in which the souls of the dead reside, and
from which they come forth to be born again in human shape. Thus the
Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes bury very aged women and decrepit old men
in the ground; but the bodies of children, young women, and men in the
prime of life are laid on platforms among the boughs of trees; and in
regard to children we are definitely told that this is done in the hope
that “before very long its spirit may come back again and enter the
body of a woman—in all probability that of its former mother.”​[345]
Further, the Arunta, who bury their dead, are careful to leave a low
depression on one side of the mound, in order that the spirit may pass
out and in; and this depression always faces towards the dead man’s or
woman’s camping-ground in the _alcheringa_ or remote past, that is,
the spot which he or she inhabited in spirit form.​[346] Is not this
done to let the spirit rid itself of its decaying tabernacle and repair
to the place where in due time it will find a new and better body?
In this connexion the final burial rites in the Binbinga, Anula, and
Mara tribes are worthy of remark. Among these people the bones of the
dead are, after a series of ceremonies, deposited in a hollow log, on
which the dead man’s totem is painted. This log is then placed, with
the {p103} bones, in the boughs of a tree beside a pool, so that if
possible it overhangs the water. For about three wet seasons the father
and son of the deceased, who placed the log there, are alone allowed
to eat water-lilies out of that pool, and no woman is permitted to go
near the spot. There the bones of the dead man remain till the log rots
and they fall into the water or are carried away by a flood. When the
burial rites are all over, the spirit of the deceased returns to its
_mungai_ spot, that is, to the place where it dwells in the interval
between two successive incarnations. Sooner or later it will be born
again.​[347] These rites seem, therefore, clearly to be a preparation
for the new birth.

[Sidenote: Belief in reincarnation and measures taken to secure it
among other peoples.

Reincarnation among the Bagishu of Mount Elgon.

Reincarnation among the tribes of the Lower Congo.

Reincarnation in India.

Reincarnation among the Hurons.

Reincarnation among the ancient Greeks.]

As the belief in reincarnation is shared by many peoples besides the
Australians, it is natural to suppose that funeral rites intended to
facilitate the rebirth of the deceased may be found in other parts of
the world. Elsewhere I have cited examples of these rites:​[348] here
I will add a few more. It is especially the bodies of dead infants
which are the object of such ceremonies; for since their lives have
been cut prematurely short, it seems reasonable to give their souls
a chance of beginning again and lengthening out their existence on
earth to its natural close. But it is not always dead babies only whom
the living seek thus to bring back to life. For example, we read that
round about Mount Elgon in East Africa “the custom of throwing out the
dead is universal among all the clans of Bagishu, except in the case
of the youngest child or the old grandfather or grandmother, for whom,
like the child, a prolonged life on earth is desired. . . . When it is
desired to perpetuate on the earth the life of some old man or woman,
or that of some young baby, the corpse is buried inside the house
or just under the eaves, until another child is born to the nearest
relation of the corpse. This child, male or female, takes the name of
the corpse, and the Bagishu firmly believe that the spirit of the dead
has passed into this new child and lives again on earth. The remains
are then dug up and thrown out into the open.”​[349] Similarly among
the {p104} tribes of the Lower Congo “a baby is always buried near
the house of its mother, never in the bush. They think that, if the
child is not buried near its mother’s house, she will be unlucky and
never have any more children. It is believed that the only new thing
about a child is its body. The spirit is old and formerly belonged to
some deceased person, or it may have the spirit of some living person.
They have two reasons for believing this. The child speaks early of
strange things the mother has never taught it, so that they believe the
old spirit is talking in the child. Again, if the child is like its
mother, father, or uncle, they think it has the spirit of the person
it resembles, and that that person will soon die. Hence a parent will
resent it if you say that the baby is like him or her.”​[350] Thus it
appears that the argument for the pre-existence of the human soul,
which Plato and Wordsworth​[351] drew from reminiscence, is fully
accepted by some negro tribes of West Africa. In the Bilaspore district
of India “a still-born child, or one who has passed away before the
_Chhatti_ (the sixth day, the day of purification) is not taken out of
the house for burial, but is placed in an earthen vessel (a _gharā_)
and is buried in the doorway or in the yard of the house. Some say that
this is done in order that the mother may bear another child.”​[352]
It is said that among the Kondhs of India, on the day after a death,
some boiled rice and a small fowl are taken to the place where the body
was burned; there the fowl is split down the breast and placed on the
spot, after which it is eaten and the soul of the departed is invited
to enter a new-born child.​[353] On the fifth day after a death the
Gonds perform the ceremony of bringing back the soul. They go to the
riverside and call aloud the name of the deceased. {p105} Then they
enter the river, catch a fish or an insect, and taking it home place
it among the sainted dead of the family, believing that the spirit of
their lost one has thus been brought back to the house. Sometimes the
fish or insect is eaten in order that the spirit which it contains may
be born again as a child.​[354] When a baby died within a month or two
of birth, the Hurons did not dispose of its little body like those of
grown people by depositing it on a scaffold; they buried it beside
the road in order, so they said, that the child might enter secretly
into the womb of some woman passing by and be born again into the
world.​[355] Some of the ancient rules observed with regard to funerals
in the Greek island of Ceos have been ingeniously explained by Mr. F.
B. Jevons as designed to secure the rebirth of the departed in one of
the women of the family.​[356] The widespread custom of burying the
dead in the house was perhaps instituted for the same purpose,​[357]
and the ancient Greek practice of sacrificing to the dead man at the
grave on his birthday may possibly have originated in the same train of
thought.​[358] For example, sacrifices were annually offered on their
birthdays to Hippocrates by the Coans, to Aratus by the Sicyonians, and
to Epicurus by his disciples.​[359]

[Sidenote: Rites to procure the rebirth of edible animals and plants.]

Now too we can fully understand the meaning of the bloody ritual in the
ceremonies for the multiplication of the totem animals and plants. We
have seen that a strengthening and fertilising virtue is attributed to
human blood. What {p106} more natural than that it should be poured out
by the men of the totem on the spot in which the disembodied spirits
of the totem animals or plants are waiting for reincarnation? Clearly
the rite seems intended to enable these spirits to take bodily shape
and be born again, in order that they may again serve as food, if not
to the men of the totem clan, at least to all the other numbers of the
tribe. Later on we shall find that the attempt to reincarnate the souls
of dead animals, in order that their bodies may be eaten over again,
is not peculiar to the Australian savages, but is practised with many
curious rites by peoples in other parts of the world.

[Sidenote: General theory of _intichiuma_ and initiatory rites in
Australia.

Cannibalism in Australia.

Australian totemism not a religion.

Present function of totemism in Central Australia.]

To sum up briefly the general theory to which the foregoing facts have
thus far led us, I would say that just as the _intichiuma_ rites of
the Australians are, for the most part, magical ceremonies intended to
secure the reimbodiment of the spirits of edible animals and plants, so
their initiatory rites may perhaps be regarded as magical ceremonies
designed mainly to ensure the reincarnation of human souls. Now the
motive for procuring the rebirth of animals and plants is simply the
desire to eat them. May not this have been one motive for attempting
to resuscitate the human dead? It would seem so, for all the tribes on
the Gulf of Carpentaria who have been examined by Spencer and Gillen
eat their dead,​[360] and the ceremonies and traditions of the Arunta
indicate that their ancestors also ate the bodies of their fellow
tribesmen.​[361] In this respect the practice of the Binbinga tribe
is particularly instructive. For among them the bodies of the dead
are cut up and eaten, not by men of the same tribal subclass as the
deceased, but by men belonging to the subclasses which compose the
other intermarrying half of the tribe.​[362] This is exactly analogous
to the practice which at present prevails as to the eating of the totem
animal or plant among all these central and northern tribes. Among them
each clan that has an edible animal or plant for its totem is supposed
to provide that animal or {p107} plant for all the other clans to eat;
and similarly among the Binbinga the men of any particular subclass
do actually provide their own bodies for the members of the other
intermarrying half of the tribe to devour. And just as in the far past
the members of a totem clan appear to have subsisted regularly (though
not exclusively, and perhaps not even mainly) on their totem animal
or plant,​[363] so at a remote time they seem regularly to have eaten
each other. Thus the Wild Dog clan of the Arunta has many traditions
that their ancestors killed and ate Wild Dog men and women.​[364]
Such traditions probably preserve a true reminiscence of a state of
things still more savage than the present practice of the Binbinga. At
that more or less remote time, if we may trust the scattered hints of
custom and legend which are the only evidence we have to go upon, the
men and women of a totem clan, in defiance of the customs of a later
age, regularly cohabited with each other,​[365] ate their totems,
and devoured each other’s dead bodies. In such a state of things
there was no sharp line of distinction drawn, either in theory or in
practice, between a man and his totem; and this confusion is again
confirmed by the legends, from which it is often difficult to make out
whether the totemic ancestor spoken of is a man or an animal.​[366]
And if measures were taken to resuscitate both, it may well have been
primarily in order that both might be eaten again. The system was
thoroughly practical in its aim; only the means it took to compass
its ends were mistaken. It was in no sense a religion, unless we are
prepared to bestow the name of religion on the business of the grazier
and the market-gardener; for these savages certainly bred animals and
plants, and perhaps bred men, for much the same reasons that a grazier
and a market-gardener breed cattle and vegetables. {p108} But whereas
the methods of the grazier and market-gardener rest upon the laws of
nature, and therefore do really produce the effects they aim at, the
methods of these savages are based on a mistaken conception of natural
law, and therefore totally fail to bring about the intended result.
Only they do not perceive their failure. Kindly nature, if we may
personify her for a moment, draws a veil before their eyes, and herself
works behind the veil those wonders of reproduction which the poor
savage vainly fancies that he has wrought by his magical ceremonies
and incantations. In short, totemism, as it exists at present among
these tribes, appears to be mainly a crude, almost childlike attempt
to satisfy the primary wants of man, especially under the hard
conditions to which he is subject in the deserts of Central Australia,
by magically creating everything that a savage stands in need of,
and food first of all. But to say so is not to affirm that this has
been the purpose, and the only purpose, of Australian totemism from
the beginning. That beginning lies far behind us in the past, and is
therefore necessarily much more obscure and uncertain than the function
of totemism as a fully developed system, to which alone the preceding
remarks are applicable.

Our examination of the magical rites performed by the Australians for
the maintenance of the food supply has led us into this digression. It
is time to pass to ceremonies practised for the same purpose and on the
same principles by peoples in other parts of the world.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.]

The Indians of British Columbia live largely upon the fish which abound
in their seas and rivers. If the fish do not come in due season,
and the Indians are hungry, a Nootka wizard will make an image of a
swimming fish and put it into the water in the direction from which the
fish generally appear. This ceremony, accompanied by a prayer to the
fish to come, will cause them to arrive at once.​[367] The islanders
of Torres Straits use models of dugong and turtles to charm dugong
and turtle to their destruction.​[368] {p109} The Toradjas of Central
Celebes believe that things of the same sort attract each other by
means of their indwelling spirits or vital ether. Hence they hang up
the jawbones of deer and wild pigs in their houses, in order that the
spirits which animate these bones may draw the living creatures of the
same kind into the path of the hunter.​[369] In the island of Nias,
when a wild pig has fallen into the pit prepared for it, the animal
is taken out and its back is rubbed with nine fallen leaves, in the
belief that this will make nine more wild pigs fall into the pit, just
as the nine leaves fell from the tree.​[370] In the East Indian islands
of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, when a fisherman is about to
set a trap for fish in the sea, he looks out for a tree, of which the
fruit has been much pecked at by birds. From such a tree he cuts a
stout branch and makes of it the principal post in his fish-trap; for
he believes that just as the tree lured many birds to its fruit, so the
branch cut from that tree will lure many fish to the trap.​[371]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.

Homoeopathic or imitative magic in fishing and hunting.]

The western tribes of British New Guinea employ a charm to aid the
hunter in spearing dugong or turtle. A small beetle, which haunts
coco-nut trees, is placed in the hole of the spear-haft into which the
spear-head fits. This is supposed to make the spear-head stick fast in
the dugong or turtle, just as the beetle sticks fast to a man’s skin
when it bites him.​[372] When a Cambodian hunter has set his nets and
{p110} taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off, then
strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be caught
in it, and cries, “Hillo! what’s this? I’m afraid I’m caught.” After
that the net is sure to catch game.​[373] A pantomime of the same sort
has been acted within living memory in our Scottish Highlands. The Rev.
James Macdonald, now of Reay in Caithness, tells us that in his boyhood
when he was fishing with companions about Loch Aline and they had had
no bites for a long time, they used to make a pretence of throwing
one of their fellows overboard and hauling him out of the water, as
if he were a fish; after that the trout or silloch would begin to
nibble, according as the boat was on fresh or salt water.​[374] Before
a Carrier Indian goes out to snare martens, he sleeps by himself for
about ten nights beside the fire with a little stick pressed down on
his neck. This naturally causes the fall-stick of his trap to drop down
on the neck of the marten.​[375] Among the Galelareese, who inhabit a
district in the northern part of Halmahera, a large island to the west
of New Guinea, it is a maxim that when you are loading your gun to go
out shooting, you should always put the bullet in your mouth before
you insert it in the gun; for by so doing you practically eat the game
that is to be hit by the bullet, which therefore cannot possibly miss
the mark.​[376] A Malay who has baited a trap for crocodiles, and is
awaiting results, is careful in eating his curry always to begin by
swallowing three lumps of rice successively; for this helps the bait to
slide more easily down the crocodile’s throat. He is equally scrupulous
not to take any bones out of his curry; for, if he {p111} did, it seems
clear that the sharp-pointed stick on which the bait is skewered would
similarly work itself loose, and the crocodile would get off with the
bait. Hence in these circumstances it is prudent for the hunter, before
he begins his meal, to get somebody else to take the bones out of his
curry, otherwise he may at any moment have to choose between swallowing
a bone and losing the crocodile.​[377]

[Sidenote: Negative magic or taboo.]

This last rule is an instance of the things which the hunter abstains
from doing lest, on the principle that like produces like, they should
spoil his luck. For it is to be observed that the system of sympathetic
magic is not merely composed of positive precepts; it comprises a very
large number of negative precepts, that is, prohibitions. It tells you
not merely what to do, but also what to leave undone. The positive
precepts are charms: the negative precepts are taboos. In fact the
whole doctrine of taboo, or at all events a large part of it, would
seem to be only a special application of sympathetic magic, with its
two great laws of similarity and contact.​[378] Though these laws {p112}
are certainly not formulated in so many words nor even conceived in
the abstract by the savage, they are nevertheless implicitly believed
by him to regulate the course of nature quite independently of human
will. He thinks that if he acts in a certain way, certain consequences
will inevitably follow in virtue of one or other of these laws; and
if the consequences of a particular act appear to him likely to prove
disagreeable or dangerous, he is naturally careful not to act in that
way lest he should incur them. In other words, he abstains from doing
that which, in accordance with his mistaken notions of cause and
effect, he falsely believes would injure him; in short, he subjects
himself to a taboo. Thus taboo is so far a negative application of
practical magic. Positive magic or sorcery says, “Do this in order that
so and so may happen.” Negative magic or taboo says, “Do not do this,
lest so and so should happen.” The aim of positive magic or sorcery is
to produce a desired event; the aim of negative magic or taboo is to
avoid an undesirable one. But both consequences, the desirable and the
undesirable, are supposed to be brought about in accordance with the
laws of similarity and contact. And just as the desired consequence is
not really effected by the observance of a magical ceremony, so the
dreaded consequence does not really result from the violation of a
taboo. If the supposed evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the
taboo would not be a taboo but a precept of morality or common sense.
It is not a taboo to say, “Do not put your hand in the fire”; it is
a rule of common sense, because the forbidden action entails a real,
not an imaginary evil. In short, those negative precepts which we call
taboo are just as vain and futile as those positive precepts which we
call sorcery. The two things are merely opposite sides or poles of one
great disastrous fallacy, a mistaken conception of the association of
ideas. Of that fallacy, sorcery is the positive, and taboo the negative
pole. If we give the general name of magic to the whole erroneous
system, both theoretical and practical, then taboo may be defined as
the negative side of practical magic. To put this in tabular form:—
{p113}

    Magic
        Theoretical (Magic as a pseudo-science)
        Practical (Magic as a pseudo-art)
            Positive Magic or Sorcery
            Negative Magic or Taboo

[Sidenote: Taboos to be observed in fishing and hunting on the
principle of sympathetic magic.

Spinning tabooed in certain cases on the principle of homoeopathic
magic.

Taboos observed in the search for camphor on the principle of
homoeopathic magic.

Taboos observed by hunters on the principle of homoeopathic magic.]

I have made these remarks on taboo and its relations to magic because
I am about to give some instances of taboos observed by hunters,
fishermen, and others, and I wished to shew that they fall under the
head of Sympathetic Magic, being only particular applications of that
general theory. Thus, it is a rule with the Galelareese that when you
have caught fish and strung them on a line, you may not cut the line
through, or next time you go a-fishing your fishing-line will be sure
to break.​[379] Among the Esquimaux of Baffin Land boys are forbidden
to play cat’s cradle, because if they did so their fingers might in
later life become entangled in the harpoon-line.​[380] Here the taboo
is obviously an application of the law of similarity, which is the
basis of homoeopathic magic: as the child’s fingers are entangled
by the string in playing cat’s cradle, so they will be entangled by
the harpoon-line when he is a man and hunts whales. Again, among the
Huzuls, who inhabit the wooded north-eastern slopes of the Carpathian
Mountains, the wife of a hunter may not spin while her husband is
eating, or the game will turn and wind like the spindle, and the hunter
will be unable to hit it.​[381] Here again the taboo is clearly derived
from the law of similarity. So, too, in most parts of ancient Italy
women were forbidden by law to spin on the highroads as they walked,
or even to carry their spindles openly, because any such action was
believed to injure the crops.​[382] Probably the notion was that the
{p114} twirling of the spindle would twirl the corn-stalks and prevent
them from growing straight. So, too, among the Ainos of Saghalien a
pregnant woman may not spin nor twist ropes for two months before her
delivery, because they think that if she did so the child’s guts might
be entangled like the thread.​[383] For a like reason in Bilaspore, a
district of India, when the chief men of a village meet in council,
no one present should twirl a spindle; for they think that if such a
thing were to happen, the discussion, like the spindle, would move in
a circle and never be wound up.​[384] In the East Indian islands of
Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, any one who comes to the house
of a hunter must walk straight in; he may not loiter at the door, for
were he to do so, the game would in like manner stop in front of the
hunter’s snares and then turn back, instead of being caught in the
trap.​[385] For a similar reason it is a rule with the Toradjas of
Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter on the ladder of a
house where there is a pregnant woman, for such delay would retard the
birth of the child;​[386] and in various parts of Sumatra the woman
herself in these circumstances is forbidden to stand at the door or on
the top rung of the house-ladder under pain of suffering hard labour
for her imprudence in neglecting so elementary a precaution.​[387]
Malays engaged in the search for camphor eat their food dry and take
care not to pound their salt fine. The reason is that the camphor
occurs in the form of small grains {p115} deposited in the cracks of
the trunk of the camphor-tree. Accordingly it seems plain to the Malay
that if, while seeking for camphor, he were to eat his salt finely
ground, the camphor would be found also in fine grains; whereas by
eating his salt coarse he ensures that the grains of the camphor will
also be large.​[388] Camphor hunters in Borneo use the leathery sheath
of the leaf-stalk of the Penang palm as a plate for food, and during
the whole of the expedition they will never wash the plate, for fear
that the camphor might dissolve and disappear from the crevices of
the tree.​[389] Apparently they think that to wash their plates would
be to wash out the camphor crystals from the trees in which they are
imbedded. In Laos, a province of Siam, a rhinoceros hunter will not
wash himself for fear that as a consequence the wounds inflicted on the
rhinoceros might not be mortal, and that the animal might disappear
in one of the caves full of water in the mountains.​[390] The chief
product of some parts of Laos is lac. This is a resinous gum exuded
by a red insect on the young branches of trees, to which the little
creatures have to be attached by hand. All who engage in the business
of gathering the gum abstain from washing themselves and especially
from cleansing their heads, lest by removing the parasites from their
hair they should detach the other insects from the boughs.​[391] Some
of the Brazilian Indians would never bring a slaughtered deer into
their hut without first hamstringing it, believing that if they failed
to do so, they and their children would never be able to run down their
enemies.​[392] Apparently they thought that by hamstringing the animal
they at the same stroke deprived their foemen of the use of their legs.
No Arikara Indian would break a marrow bone in a hut; for {p116} they
think that were he to do so their horses would break their legs in
the prairie.​[393] Again, a Blackfoot Indian who has set a trap for
eagles, and is watching it, would not eat rosebuds on any account; for
he argues that if he did so, and an eagle alighted near the trap, the
rosebuds in his own stomach would make the bird itch, with the result
that instead of swallowing the bait the eagle would merely sit and
scratch himself. Following this train of thought the eagle hunter also
refrains from using an awl when he is looking after his snares; for
surely if he were to scratch with an awl, the eagles would scratch him.
The same disastrous consequence would follow if his wives and children
at home used an awl while he is out after eagles, and accordingly they
are forbidden to handle the tool in his absence for fear of putting him
in bodily danger.​[394]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic taboos and contagious taboos.]

All the foregoing taboos being based on the law of similarity may be
called homoeopathic taboos. The Cholones, an Indian tribe of eastern
Peru, make use of poisoned arrows in the chase, but there are some
animals, such as armadillos, certain kinds of falcons, and a species of
vulture, which they would on no account shoot at with these weapons.
For they believe that between the poisoned arrows which they use and
the supply of poison at home there exists a sympathetic relation of
such a sort that if they shot at any of these creatures with poisoned
shafts, all the poison at home would be spoilt, which would be a great
loss to them.​[395] Here the exact train of thought is not clear; but
we may suppose that the animals in question are believed to possess a
power of counteracting and annulling the effect of the poison, and that
consequently if they are touched by it, all the poison, including the
store of it at home, would be robbed of its virtue. However that may
be, it is plain that the superstition rests on the law of contact, on
the notion, namely, that things which have once been in contact remain
sympathetically in contact with each other always. The poison with
which the hunter wounds an animal has once {p117} been in contact with
the store of poison at home; hence if the poison in the wound loses its
venom, so necessarily will all the poison at home. These may be called
contagious taboos.

[Sidenote: Foods tabooed on the principle of homoeopathic magic.

Malagasy taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic magic.

Caffre and Zulu taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic
magic.]

Among the taboos observed by savages none perhaps are more numerous
or important than the prohibitions to eat certain foods, and of such
prohibitions many are demonstrably derived from the law of similarity
and are accordingly examples of negative magic. Just as the savage
eats many animals or plants in order to acquire certain desirable
qualities with which he believes them to be endowed, so he avoids
eating many other animals and plants lest he should acquire certain
undesirable qualities with which he believes them to be infected. In
eating the former he practises positive magic; in abstaining from the
latter he practises negative magic. Many examples of such positive
magic will meet us later on;​[396] here I will give a few instances
of such negative magic or taboo. For example, in Madagascar soldiers
are forbidden to eat a number of foods lest on the principle of
homoeopathic magic they should be tainted by certain dangerous or
undesirable properties which are supposed to inhere in these particular
viands. Thus they may not taste hedgehog, “as it is feared that this
animal, from its propensity of coiling up into a ball when alarmed,
will impart a timid shrinking disposition to those who partake of it.”
Again, no soldier should eat an ox’s knee, lest like an ox he should
become weak in the knees and unable to march. Further, the warrior
should be careful to avoid partaking of a cock that has died fighting
or anything that has been speared to death; and no male animal may on
any account be killed in his house while he is away at the wars. For it
seems obvious that if he were to eat a cock that had died fighting, he
would himself be slain on the field of battle; if he were to partake
of an animal that had been speared, he would be speared himself; if
a male animal were killed in his house during his absence, he would
himself be killed in like manner and perhaps at the same instant.
Further, the Malagasy soldier must eschew kidneys, because in the
Malagasy language the word for kidney is the same as that {p118} for
“shot”; so shot he would certainly be if he ate a kidney.​[397] Again,
a Caffre has been known to refuse to eat two mice caught at the same
time in one trap, alleging that were he to do so his wife would give
birth to twins; yet the same man would eat freely of mice if they were
caught singly.​[398] Clearly he imagined that if he ate the two mice
he would be infected with the virus of doublets and would communicate
the infection to his wife. Amongst the Zulus there are many foods which
are similarly forbidden on homoeopathic principles. It may be well to
give some specimens of these prohibitions as they have been described
by the Zulus themselves. “There is among the black men,” they say,
“the custom of abstaining from certain foods. If a cow has the calf
taken from her dead, and the mother too dies before the calf is taken
away, young people who have never had a child abstain from the flesh
of that cow. I do not mean to speak of girls; there is not even a
thought of whether they can eat it; for it is said that the cow will
produce a similar evil among the women, so that one of them will be
like the cow when she is in childbirth, be unable to give birth, like
the cow, and die together with her child. On this account, therefore,
the flesh of such a cow is abstained from. Further, pig’s flesh is not
eaten by girls on any account; for it is an ugly animal; its mouth is
ugly, its snout is long; therefore girls do not eat it, thinking if
they eat it, a resemblance to the pig will appear among their children.
They abstain from it on that account. There are many things which are
abstained from among black people through fear of bad resemblance; for
it is said there was a person who once gave birth to an elephant, and a
horse; but we do not know if that is true; but they are now abstained
from on that account, through thinking that they will produce an evil
resemblance if eaten; and the elephant is said to produce an evil
resemblance, for when it is killed many parts of its body resemble
those of a female; its breasts, for instance, are just like those of a
woman. Young people, {p119} therefore, fear to eat it; it is only eaten
on account of famine, when there is no food; and each of the young
women say, ‘It is no matter if I do give birth to an elephant and live;
that is better than not to give birth to it, and die of famine.’ So it
is eaten from mere necessity. Another thing which is abstained from is
the entrails of cattle. Men do not eat them, because they are afraid
if they eat them, the enemy will stab them in the bowels. Young men do
not eat them; they are eaten by old people. Another thing which is not
eaten is the under lip of a bullock; for it is said, a young person
must not eat it, for it will produce an evil resemblance in the child;
the lip of the child will tremble continually, for the lower lip of a
bullock moves constantly. They do not therefore eat it; for if a child
of a young person is seen with its mouth trembling, it is said, ‘It
was injured by its father, who ate the lower lip of a bullock.’ Also
another thing which is abstained from is that portion of the paunch of
a bullock which is called _umtala_; for the _umtala_ has no _villi_, it
has no pile; it is merely smooth and hard. It is therefore said, if it
is eaten by young people, their children will be born without hair, and
their heads will be bare like a man’s knee. It is therefore abstained
from.”​[399]

[Sidenote: Magical telepathy]

The reader may have observed that in some of the foregoing examples of
taboos the magical influence is supposed to operate at considerable
distances; thus among the Blackfeet Indians the wives and children of
an eagle hunter are forbidden to use an awl during his absence, lest
the eagles should scratch the distant husband and father;​[400] and
again no male animal may be killed in the house of a Malagasy soldier
while he is away at the wars, lest the killing of the animal should
entail the killing of the man.​[401] This belief in the sympathetic
influence exerted on each other by persons or things at a distance
is of the essence of magic. Whatever doubts science may entertain as
to the possibility of action at a distance, magic has none; faith in
telepathy is one of its first principles. A modern advocate of the
influence of mind upon mind at a distance would have no difficulty in
{p120} convincing a savage; the savage believed in it long ago, and
what is more, he acted on his belief with a logical consistency such as
his civilised brother in the faith has not yet, so far as I am aware,
exhibited in his conduct. For the savage is convinced not only that
magical ceremonies affect persons and things afar off, but that the
simplest acts of daily life may do so too. Hence on important occasions
the behaviour of friends and relations at a distance is often regulated
by a more or less elaborate code of rules, the neglect of which by the
one set of persons would, it is supposed, entail misfortune or even
death on the absent ones. In particular when a party of men are out
hunting or fighting, their kinsfolk at home are often expected to do
certain things or to abstain from doing certain others, for the sake
of ensuring the safety and success of the distant hunters or warriors.
I will now give some instances of this magical telepathy both in its
positive and in its negative aspect.

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Dyaks, Chams, Hottentots,
etc.]

In Laos when an elephant hunter is starting for the chase, he warns his
wife not to cut her hair or oil her body in his absence; for if she cut
her hair the elephant would burst the toils, if she oiled herself it
would slip through them.​[402] When a Dyak village has turned out to
hunt wild pigs in the jungle, the people who stay at home may not touch
oil or water with their hands during the absence of their friends; for
if they did so, the hunters would all be “butter-fingered” and the prey
would slip through their hands.​[403] In setting out to look for the
rare and precious eagle-wood on the mountains, Cham peasants enjoin
their wives, whom they leave at home, not to scold or quarrel in their
absence, for such domestic brawls would lead to their husbands being
rent in pieces by bears and tigers.​[404] A Hottentot woman whose
husband is out hunting must do one of two things all the time he is
away. Either she must light a fire and keep it burning till he comes
back; or if she does not choose to do that, she must go to the water
{p121} and continue to splash it about on the ground. When she is tired
with throwing the water about, her place may be taken by her servant,
but the exercise must in any case be kept up without cessation. To
cease splashing the water or to let the fire out would be equally fatal
to the husband’s prospect of a successful bag.​[405] In Yule Island,
Torres Straits, when the men are gone to fetch sago, a fire is lit and
carefully kept burning the whole time of their absence; for the people
believe that if it went out the voyagers would fare ill.​[406] At the
other end of the world the Lapps similarly object to extinguish a brand
in water while any members of the family are out fishing, since to do
so would spoil their luck.​[407]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Koniags, Esquimaux and
Californian Indians.]

Among the Koniags of Alaska a traveller once observed a young woman
lying wrapt in a bearskin in the corner of a hut. On asking whether
she were ill, he learned that her husband was out whale-fishing, and
that until his return she had to lie fasting in order to ensure a good
catch.​[408] Among the Esquimaux of Alaska similar notions prevail.
The women during the whaling season remain in comparative idleness, as
it is considered not good for them to sew while the men are out in the
boats. If during this period any garments should need to be repaired,
the women must take them far back out of sight of the sea and mend them
there in little tents in which just one person can sit. And while the
crews are at sea no work should be done at home which would necessitate
pounding or hewing or any kind of noise; and in the huts of men who
are away in the boats no work of any kind whatever should be carried
on.​[409] When the Esquimaux of Aivilik and Iglulik are away hunting on
the ice, the bedding may not be raised up, because they think that to
do so would cause the ice to crack and drift off, and so the men might
be lost. And among these people in the winter, {p122} when the new moon
appears, boys must run out of the snow-house, take a handful of snow,
and put it into the kettle. It is believed that this helps the hunter
to capture the seal and to bring it home.​[410] When the Maidu Indians
of California were engaged in driving deer into the snares which they
had prepared for them, and which consisted of fences stretched from
tree to tree, the women and children who were left behind in the
village had to observe a variety of regulations. The women had to keep
quiet and spend much of the time indoors, and children might not romp,
shout, jump over things, kick, run, fall down, or throw stones. If
these rules were broken, it was believed that the deer would become
unmanageable and would jump the fence, so that the whole drive would be
unsuccessful.​[411]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting among the Gilyaks, Jukagirs, etc.]

While a Gilyak hunter is pursuing the game in the forest, his children
at home are forbidden to make drawings on wood or on sand; for they
fear that if the children did so, the paths in the forest would become
as perplexed as the lines in the drawings, so that the hunter might
lose his way and never return. A Russian political prisoner once taught
some Gilyak children to read and write; but their parents forbade them
to write when any of their fathers was away from home; for it seemed
to them that writing was a peculiarly complicated form of drawing, and
they stood aghast at the idea of the danger to which such a drawing
would expose the hunters out in the wild woods.​[412] Among the
Jukagirs of north-eastern Siberia, when a young man is out hunting, his
unmarried sister at home may not look at his footprints nor eat certain
parts of the game killed by him. If she leaves the house while he is
absent at the chase, she must keep her eyes fixed on the ground, and
may not speak of the chase nor ask any questions about it.​[413] When
a Nuba of north-eastern Africa goes to El Obeid for the first time, he
tells his wife not to wash or oil herself and not to wear pearls {p123}
round her neck during his absence, because by doing so she would draw
down on him the most terrible misfortunes.​[414] When Bushmen are out
hunting, any bad shots they may make are set down to such causes as
that the children at home are playing on the men’s beds or the like,
and the wives who allow such things to happen are blamed for their
husbands’ indifferent marksmanship.​[415]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in hunting: supposed disastrous effect of wife’s
infidelity.]

Elephant-hunters in East Africa believe that, if their wives prove
unfaithful in their absence, this gives the elephant power over his
pursuer, who will accordingly be killed or severely wounded. Hence if
a hunter hears of his wife’s misconduct, he abandons the chase and
returns home.​[416] If a Wagogo hunter is unsuccessful, or is attacked
by a lion, he attributes it to his wife’s misbehaviour at home, and
returns to her in great wrath. While he is away hunting, she may not
let any one pass behind her or stand in front of her as she sits; and
she must lie on her face in bed.​[417] The Moxos Indians of eastern
Bolivia thought that if a hunter’s wife was unfaithful to him in his
absence he would be bitten by a serpent or a jaguar. Accordingly, if
such an accident happened to him, it was sure to entail the punishment,
and often the death, of the woman, whether she was innocent or
guilty.​[418] An Aleutian hunter of sea-otters thinks that he cannot
kill a single animal if during his absence from home his wife should be
unfaithful or his sister unchaste.​[419]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in the search for the sacred cactus.]

The Huichol Indians of Mexico treat as a demi-god a species of cactus
which throws the eater into a state of ecstasy. The plant does not
grow in their country, and has to be fetched every year by men who
make a journey of forty-three days for the purpose. Meanwhile the
wives at home contribute to the safety of their absent husbands by
never walking fast, much less running, while the men are on the road.
They also do their best to ensure the benefits which, in the shape of
rain, {p124} good crops, and so forth, are expected to flow from the
sacred mission. With this intention they subject themselves to severe
restrictions like those imposed upon their husbands. During the whole
of the time which elapses till the festival of the cactus is held,
neither party washes except on certain occasions, and then only with
water brought from the distant country where the holy plant grows.
They also fast much, eat no salt, and are bound to strict continence.
Any one who breaks this law is punished with illness, and, moreover,
jeopardises the result which all are striving for. Health, luck, and
life are to be gained by gathering the cactus, the gourd of the God of
Fire; but inasmuch as the pure fire cannot benefit the impure, men and
women must not only remain chaste for the time being, but must also
purge themselves from the taint of past sin. Hence four days after the
men have started the women gather and confess to Grandfather Fire with
what men they have been in love from childhood till now. They may not
omit a single one, for if they did so the men would not find a single
cactus. So to refresh their memories each one prepares a string with
as many knots as she has had lovers. This she brings to the temple,
and, standing before the fire, she mentions aloud all the men she has
scored on her string, name after name. Having ended her confession,
she throws the string into the fire, and when the god has consumed it
in his pure flame, her sins are forgiven her and she departs in peace.
From now on the women are averse even to letting men pass near them.
The cactus-seekers themselves make in like manner a clean breast of all
their frailties. For every peccadillo they tie a knot on a string, and
after they have “talked to all the five winds” they deliver the rosary
of their sins to the leader, who burns it in the fire.​[420]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in the search for camphor.

Telepathy in hunting, fishing, and trading.

Telepathy in New Guinea.

Telepathy in the Kei Islands.]

Many of the indigenous tribes of Sarawak are firmly persuaded that
were the wives to commit adultery while their husbands are searching
for camphor in the jungle, the camphor obtained by the men would
evaporate.​[421] {p125} Husbands can discover, by certain knots in
the tree, when their wives are unfaithful; and it is said that in
former days many women were killed by jealous husbands on no better
evidence than that of these knots. Further, the wives dare not touch
a comb while their husbands are away collecting the camphor; for if
they did so, the interstices between the fibres of the tree, instead
of being filled with the precious crystals, would be empty like the
spaces between the teeth of a comb.​[422] While men of the Toaripi
or Motumotu tribe of eastern New Guinea are away hunting, fishing,
fighting, or on any long journey, the people who remain at home must
observe strict chastity, and may not let the fire go out. Those of them
who stay in the men’s club-houses must further abstain from eating
certain foods and from touching anything that belongs to others. A
breach of these rules might, it is believed, entail the failure of the
expedition.​[423] Among the tribes of Geelvink Bay, in north-western
New Guinea, when the men are gone on a long journey, as to Ceram
or Tidore, the wives and sisters left at home sing to the moon,
accompanying the lay with the booming music of gongs. The singing takes
place in the afternoons, beginning two or three days before the new
moon, and lasting for the same time after it. If the silver sickle of
the moon is seen in the sky, they raise a loud cry of joy. Asked why
they do so, they answer, “Now we see the moon, and so do our husbands,
and now we know that they are well; if we did not sing, they would be
sick or some other misfortune would befall them.”​[424] On nights when
the moon is at the full the natives of Doreh, in north-western New
Guinea, go out fishing on the lagoons. Their mode of proceeding is to
poison the water with the pounded roots of a certain plant which has
a powerful narcotic effect; the fish are stunned by it, and so easily
caught. While the men are at work on the moonlit water, the people on
the shore must {p126} keep as still as death with their eyes fixed on
the fishermen; but no woman with child may be among them, for if she
were there and looked at the water, the poison would at once lose its
effect and the fish would escape.​[425] In the Kei Islands, to the
south-west of New Guinea, as soon as a vessel that is about to sail
for a distant port has been launched, the part of the beach on which
it lay is covered as speedily as possible with palm branches, and
becomes sacred. No one may thenceforth cross that spot till the ship
comes home. To cross it sooner would cause the vessel to perish.​[426]
Moreover, all the time that the voyage lasts three or four young girls,
specially chosen for the duty, are supposed to remain in sympathetic
connexion with the mariners and to contribute by their behaviour to the
safety and success of the voyage. On no account, except for the most
necessary purpose, may they quit the room that has been assigned to
them. More than that, so long as the vessel is believed to be at sea
they must remain absolutely motionless, crouched on their mats with
their hands clasped between their knees. They may not turn their heads
to the left or to the right or make any other movement whatsoever. If
they did, it would cause the boat to pitch and toss; and they may not
eat any sticky stuff, such as rice boiled in coco-nut milk, for the
stickiness of the food would clog the passage of the boat through the
water. When the sailors are supposed to have reached their destination,
the strictness of these rules is somewhat relaxed; but during the whole
time that the voyage lasts the girls are forbidden to eat fish which
have sharp bones or stings, such as the sting-ray, lest their friends
at sea should be involved in sharp, stinging trouble.​[427]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war.

Telepathy in war among the Dyaks.]

Where beliefs like these prevail as to the sympathetic connexion
between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above everything
else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of the deepest
and tenderest of human {p127} emotions, should quicken in the anxious
relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the
utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment
be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end so natural
and laudable, friends at home are apt to resort to devices which will
strike us as pathetic or ludicrous, according as we consider their
object or the means adopted to effect it. Thus in some districts
of Borneo, when a Dyak is out head-hunting, his wife or, if he is
unmarried, his sister must wear a sword day and night in order that he
may always be thinking of his weapons; and she may not sleep during
the day nor go to bed before two in the morning, lest her husband or
brother should thereby be surprised in his sleep by an enemy.​[428] In
other parts of Borneo, when the men are away on a warlike expedition,
their mats are spread in their houses just as if they were at home, and
the fires are kept up till late in the evening and lighted again before
dawn, in order that the men may not be cold. Further, the roofing of
the house is opened before daylight to prevent the distant husbands,
brothers, and sons from sleeping too late, and so being surprised by
the enemy.​[429] While a Malay of the Peninsula is away at the wars,
his pillows and sleeping-mat at home must be kept rolled up. If any
one else were to use them, the absent warrior’s courage would fail and
disaster would befall him. His wife and children may not have their
hair cut in his absence, nor may he himself have his hair shorn.​[430]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Sea Dyaks.]

Among the Sea Dyaks of Banting in Sarawak the women strictly observe an
elaborate code of rules while the men are away fighting. Some of the
rules are negative and some are positive, but all alike are based on
the principles of magical homoeopathy and telepathy. Amongst them are
the following. The women must wake very early in the morning and open
the windows as soon as it is light; otherwise their absent husbands
will oversleep themselves. The women may not oil their hair, or the
men will slip. The women may neither sleep nor doze by day, {p128} or
the men will be drowsy on the march. The women must cook and scatter
popcorn on the verandah every morning; so will the men be agile in
their movements. The rooms must be kept very tidy, all boxes being
placed near the walls; for if any one were to stumble over them, the
absent husbands would fall and be at the mercy of the foe. At every
meal a little rice must be left in the pot and put aside; so will the
men far away always have something to eat and need never go hungry. On
no account may the women sit at the loom till their legs grow cramped,
otherwise their husbands will likewise be stiff in their joints and
unable to rise up quickly or to run away from the foe. So in order to
keep their husband’s joints supple the women often vary their labours
at the loom by walking up and down the verandah. Further, they may not
cover up their faces, or the men would not be able to find their way
through the tall grass or jungle. Again, the women may not sew with a
needle, or the men will tread on the sharp spikes set by the enemy in
the path. Should a wife prove unfaithful while her husband is away, he
will lose his life in the enemy’s country. Some years ago all these
rules and more were observed by the women of Banting, while their
husbands were fighting for the English against rebels. But alas! these
tender precautions availed them little; for many a man, whose faithful
wife was keeping watch and ward for him at home, found a soldier’s
grave.​[431]

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Shans, the Timorese, and the
Toradjas.]

Among the Shans of Burma the wife of an absent warrior has to observe
certain rules. Every fifth day she rests and does no work. She fills an
earthen goblet with water to the brim and puts flowers into it every
day. If the water sinks or the flowers fade, it is an omen of death.
Moreover, she may not sleep on her husband’s bed during his absence,
but she sweeps the bedding clean and lays it out every night.​[432] In
the island of Timor, while war is being waged, the high-priest never
quits the temple; his food is brought to him or cooked inside; day and
night he must keep the fire burning, for if he were to let it die out,
disaster would befall the warriors and would continue so {p129} long as
the hearth was cold. Moreover, he must drink only hot water during the
time the army is absent; for every draught of cold water would damp the
spirits of the people, so that they could not vanquish the enemy.​[433]
Among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, when a party of men is out
hunting for heads, the villagers who stay at home, and especially the
wives of the head-hunters, have to observe certain rules in order
not to hinder the absent men at their task. In the first place, the
entrance to the _lobo_ or spirit-house is shut. For the spirits of
their fathers, who live in that house, are now away with the warriors,
watching over and guarding them; and if any one entered their house in
their absence they would hear the noise and return and be very angry at
being thus called back from the campaign. Moreover, the people at home
have to keep the house tidy: the sleeping-mats of the absent men must
be hung on beams, not rolled up as if they were to be away a long time:
their wives and next-of-kin may not quit the house at night: every
night a light burns in the house, and a fire must be kept up constantly
at the foot of the house-ladder: garments, turbans, and head-dresses
may not be laid aside at night, for if the turban or head-dress were
put off the warrior’s turban might drop from his head in the battle;
and the wives may sew no garments. When the spirit of the head-hunter
returns home in his sleep (which is the Toradja expression for a
soldier’s dream) he must find everything there in good order and
nothing that could vex him. By the observance of these rules, say the
Toradjas, the souls of the head-hunters are “covered” or protected. And
in order to make them strong, that they may not soon grow weary, rice
is strewed morning and evening on the floor of the house. The women too
go about constantly with a certain plant of which the pods are so light
and feathery that they are easily wafted by the wind, for that helps to
make the men nimble-footed.​[434] {p130}

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Galelareese and the Kei
Islanders.]

When Galelareese men are going away to war, they are accompanied down
to the boats by the women. But after the leave-taking is over, the
women, in returning to their houses, must be careful not to stumble or
fall, and in the house they may neither be angry nor lift up weapons
against each other; otherwise the men will fall and be killed in
battle.​[435] Similarly, we saw that among the Chams domestic brawls
at home are supposed to cause the searcher for eagle-wood to fall a
prey to wild beasts on the mountains.​[436] Further, Galelareese women
may not lay down the chopping knives in the house while their husbands
are at the wars; the knives must always be hung up on hooks.​[437]
The reason for the rule is not given; we may conjecture that it is
a fear lest, if the chopping knives were laid down by the women at
home, the men would be apt to lay down their weapons in the battle or
at other inopportune moments. In the Kei Islands, when the warriors
have departed, the women return indoors and bring out certain baskets
containing fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they anoint and
place on a board, murmuring as they do so, “O lord sun, moon, let the
bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and other
relations, just as raindrops rebound from these objects which are
smeared with oil.” As soon as the first shot is heard, the baskets are
put aside, and the women, seizing their fans, rush out of the houses.
Then, waving their fans in the direction of the enemy, they run through
the village, while they sing, “O golden fans! let our bullets hit,
and those of the enemy miss.”​[438] In this custom the ceremony of
anointing stones, in order that the bullets may recoil from the men
like raindrops from the stones, is a piece of pure homoeopathic or
imitative magic; but the prayer to the sun, that he will be pleased to
give effect to the charm, is a religious and perhaps later addition.
The waving of the fans seems to be a charm to direct the bullets
towards or away from their {p131} mark, according as they are discharged
from the guns of friends or foes.

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the Malagasy.]

An old historian of Madagascar informs us that “while the men are at
the wars, and until their return, the women and girls cease not day
and night to dance, and neither lie down nor take food in their own
houses. And although they are very voluptuously inclined, they would
not for anything in the world have an intrigue with another man while
their husband is at the war, believing firmly that if that happened,
their husband would be either killed or wounded. They believe that
by dancing they impart strength, courage, and good fortune to their
husbands; accordingly during such times they give themselves no rest,
and this custom they observe very religiously.”​[439] Similarly a
traveller of the seventeenth century writes that in Madagascar “when
the man is in battle or under march, the wife continually dances and
sings, and will not sleep or eat in her own house, nor admit of the
use of any other man, unless she be desirous to be rid of her own; for
they entertain this opinion among them, that if they suffer themselves
to be overcome in an _intestin war_ at home, their husbands must
suffer for it, being ingaged in a _forreign expedition_; but, on the
contrary, if they behave themselves chastely, and dance lustily, that
then their husbands, by some certain sympathetical operation, will be
able to vanquish all their combatants.”​[440] We have seen that among
hunters in various parts of the world the infidelity of the wife at
home is believed to have a disastrous effect on her absent husband.
In the Babar Archipelago, and among the Wagogo of East Africa, when
the men are at the wars the women at home are bound to chastity, and
in the Babar Archipelago they must fast besides.​[441] Under similar
circumstances in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor the women and
children are forbidden to remain inside of the houses and to twine
thread or weave.​[442] {p132}

[Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the natives of West Africa.

Telepathy in war among the American Indians.

Telepathy in war among the Kafirs of the Hindoo Koosh.]

Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast the wives of men who
are away with the army paint themselves white, and adorn their persons
with beads and charms. On the day when a battle is expected to take
place, they run about armed with guns, or sticks carved to look like
guns, and taking green paw-paws (fruits shaped somewhat like a melon),
they hack them with knives, as if they were chopping off the heads of
the foe.​[443] The pantomime is no doubt merely an imitative charm, to
enable the men to do to the enemy as the women do to the paw-paws. In
the West African town of Framin, while the Ashantee war was raging some
years ago, Mr. Fitzgerald Marriott saw a dance performed by women whose
husbands had gone as carriers to the war. They were painted white and
wore nothing but a short petticoat. At their head was a shrivelled old
sorceress in a very short white petticoat, her black hair arranged in
a sort of long projecting horn, and her black face, breasts, arms, and
legs profusely adorned with white circles and crescents. All carried
long white brushes made of buffalo or horse tails, and as they danced
they sang, “Our husbands have gone to Ashanteeland; may they sweep
their enemies off the face of the earth!”​[444] Among the Thompson
Indians of British Columbia, when the men were on the war-path,
the women performed dances at frequent intervals. These dances
were believed to ensure the success of the expedition. The dancers
flourished their knives, threw long sharp-pointed sticks forward, or
drew sticks with hooked ends repeatedly backward and forward. Throwing
the sticks forward was symbolic of piercing or warding off the enemy,
and drawing them back was symbolic of drawing their own men from
danger. The hook at the end of the stick was particularly well adapted
to serve the purpose of a life-saving apparatus. The women always
pointed their weapons towards the enemy’s country. They painted their
faces red and sang as they danced, and they prayed to the weapons to
preserve their husbands and help them to kill many foes. Some had {p133}
eagle-down stuck on the points of their sticks. When the dance was
over, these weapons were hidden. If a woman whose husband was at the
war thought she saw hair or a piece of a scalp on the weapon when she
took it out, she knew that her husband had killed an enemy. But if she
saw a stain of blood on it, she knew he was wounded or dead.​[445] When
the men of the Yuki tribe of Indians in California were away fighting,
the women at home did not sleep; they danced continually in a circle,
chanting and waving leafy wands. For they said that if they danced all
the time, their husbands would not grow tired.​[446] Among the Haida
Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, when the men had gone to war,
the women at home would get up very early in the morning and pretend
to make war by falling upon their children and feigning to take them
for slaves. This was supposed to help their husbands to go and do
likewise. If a wife were unfaithful to her husband while he was away
on the war-path, he would probably be killed. For ten nights all the
women at home lay with their heads towards the point of the compass to
which the war-canoes had paddled away. Then they changed about, for
the warriors were supposed to be coming home across the sea. At Masset
the Haida women danced and sang war-songs all the time their husbands
were away at the wars, and they had to keep everything about them in
a certain order. It was thought that a wife might kill her husband by
not observing these customs.​[447] In the Kafir district of the Hindoo
Koosh, while the men are out raiding, the women abandon their work in
the fields and assemble in the villages to dance day and night. The
dances are kept up most of each day and the whole of each night. Sir
George Robertson, who reports the custom, more than once watched the
dancers dancing at midnight and in the early morning, and could see
by the fitful glow of the {p134} woodfire how haggard and tired they
looked, yet how gravely and earnestly they persisted in what they
regarded as a serious duty.​[448] The dances of these Kafirs are said
to be performed in honour of certain of the national gods, but when
we consider the custom in connexion with the others which have just
been passed in review, we may reasonably surmise that it is or was
originally in its essence a sympathetic charm intended to keep the
absent warriors wakeful, lest they should be surprised in their sleep
by the enemy. When a band of Carib Indians of the Orinoco had gone on
the war-path, their friends left in the village used to calculate as
nearly as they could the exact moment when the absent warriors would be
advancing to attack the enemy. Then they took two lads, laid them down
on a bench, and inflicted a most severe scourging on their bare backs.
This the youths submitted to without a murmur, supported in their
sufferings by the firm conviction, in which they had been bred from
childhood, that on the constancy and fortitude with which they bore the
cruel ordeal depended the valour and success of their comrades in the
battle.​[449]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic at making drums.

Various applications of homoeopathic magic.]

So much for the savage theory of telepathy in war and the chase.
We pass now to other cases of homoeopathic or imitative magic.
While marriageable boys of the Mekeo district in British New Guinea
are making their drums, they have to live alone in the forest and
to observe a number of rules which are based on the principle of
homoeopathic magic. The drums will be used in the dances, and in order
that they may give out a resonant sonorous note, great care must be
taken in their construction. The boys may spend from two days to a week
at the task. Having chosen a suitable piece of wood, they scrape the
outside into shape with a shell, and hollow out the inside by burning
it with a hot coal till the sides are very thin. The skin of an iguana,
made supple by being steeped in coco-nut milk, is then stretched over
the hollow and tightened with string and glue. All the time a boy is at
work on his drum, he must carefully avoid {p135} women; for if a woman
or a girl were to see him, the drum would split and sound like an old
cracked pot. If he ate fish, a bone would prick him and the skin of the
drum would burst. If he ate a red banana it would choke him, and the
drum would give a dull stifled note; if he tasted grated coco-nut, the
white ants, like the white particles of the nut, would gnaw the body
of the drum; if he cooked his food in the ordinary round-bellied pot,
he would grow fat and would not be able to dance, and the girls would
despise him and say, “Your belly is big; it is a pot!” Moreover, he
must strictly shun water; for if he accidentally touched it with his
feet, his hands, or his lips before the drum was quite hollowed out,
he would throw the instrument away, saying: “I have touched water;
my hot coal will be put out, and I shall never be able to hollow out
my drum.”​[450] A Highland witch can sink a ship by homoeopathic or
imitative magic. She has only to set a small round dish floating in
a milk-pan full of water, and then to croon her spell. When the dish
upsets in the pan, the ship will go down in the sea. They say that once
three witches from Harris left home at night after placing the milk-pan
thus on the floor, and strictly charging a serving-maid to let nothing
come near it. But while the girl was not looking a duck came in and
squattered about in the water on the floor. Next morning the witches
returned and asked if anything had come near the pan. The girl said
“No,” whereupon one of the witches said to the others, “What a heavy
sea we had last night coming round Cabag head!”​[451] If a wolf has
carried off a sheep or a pig, the Esthonians have a very simple mode of
making him drop it. They let fall anything that they happen to have at
hand, such as a cap or a glove, or, what is perhaps still better, they
lift a heavy stone and then let it go. By that act, on the principle of
homoeopathic magic, they compel the wolf to let go his booty.​[452]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic applied to make plants grow.

Magic at sowing and planting.]

Among the many beneficent uses to which a mistaken {p136} ingenuity has
applied the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic, is that of
causing trees and plants to bear fruit in due season. In Thüringen the
man who sows flax carries the seed in a long bag which reaches from his
shoulders to his knees, and he walks with long strides, so that the bag
sways to and fro on his back. It is believed that this will cause the
flax to wave in the wind.​[453] In the interior of Sumatra rice is sown
by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down their back, in
order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and have long stalks.​[454]
Similarly, in ancient Mexico a festival was held in honour of the
goddess of maize, or “the long-haired mother,” as she was called. It
began at the time “when the plant had attained its full growth, and
fibres shooting forth from the top of the green ear indicated that
the grain was fully formed. During this festival the women wore their
long hair unbound, shaking and tossing it in the dances which were the
chief feature in the ceremonial, in order that the tassel of the maize
might grow in like profusion, that the grain might be correspondingly
large and flat, and that the people might have abundance.”​[455] It
is a Malay maxim to plant maize when your stomach is full, and to see
to it that your dibble is thick; for this will swell the ear of the
maize.​[456] And they say that you should sow rice also with a full
stomach, for then the ears will be full.​[457] The eminent novelist,
Mr. Thomas Hardy, was once told that the reason why certain trees in
front of his house, near Weymouth, did not thrive, was that he looked
at them before breakfast on an empty stomach.​[458] More elaborate
still are the measures taken by an Esthonian peasant woman to make her
cabbages thrive. On the day when they are {p137} sown she bakes great
pancakes, in order that the cabbages may have great broad leaves; and
she wears a dazzling white hood in the belief that this will cause the
cabbages to have fine white heads. Moreover, as soon as the cabbages
are transplanted, a small round stone is wrapt up tightly in a white
linen rag and set at the end of the cabbage bed, because in this way
the cabbage heads will grow very white and firm.​[459] Among the Huzuls
of the Carpathians, when a woman is planting cabbages, she winds many
cloths about her head, in order that the heads of the cabbages may also
be thick. And as soon as she has sown parsley, she grasps the calf of
her leg with both hands, saying, “May it be as thick as that!”​[460]
Among the Kurs of East Prussia, who inhabit the long sandy tongue of
land known as the Nehrung which parts the Baltic from a lagoon, when a
farmer sows his fields in spring, he carries an axe and chops the earth
with it, in order that the cornstalks may be so sturdy that an axe will
be needed to hew them down.​[461] For much the same reason a Bavarian
sower in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that
the corn may have a fine yellow colour.​[462] The Malagasy think that
only people with a good even set of teeth should plant maize, for
otherwise there will be empty spaces in the maize cob corresponding to
the empty spaces in the planter’s teeth.​[463]

[Sidenote: Dancing and leaping high as a charm to make the crops grow
high.]

In many parts of Europe dancing or leaping high in the air are approved
homoeopathic modes of making the crops grow high. Thus in Franche-Comté
they say that you should dance at the Carnival in order to make the
hemp grow tall.​[464] In the Vosges mountains the sower of hemp pulls
his nether garments up as far as he can, because he imagines that
the hemp he is sowing will {p138} attain the precise height to which
he has succeeded in hitching up his breeches;​[465] and in the same
region another way of ensuring a good crop of hemp is to dance on
the roof of the house on Twelfth Day.​[466] In Swabia and among the
Transylvanian Saxons it is a common custom for a man who has sown hemp
to leap high on the field, in the belief that this will make the hemp
grow tall.​[467] All over Baden till recently it was the custom for
the farmer’s wife to give the sower a dish of eggs or a cake baked
with eggs either before or after sowing, in order that he might leap
as high as possible. This was deemed the best way of making the hemp
grow high. For the same purpose some people who had sown hemp used to
dance the hemp dance, as it was called, on Shrove Tuesday, and in this
dance also the dancers jumped as high as they could. In some parts
of Baden the hemp seed is thrown in the air as high as possible, and
in Katzenthal the urchins leap over fires in order that the hemp may
grow tall.​[468] Similarly in many other parts of Germany and Austria
the peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or
leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table; the higher the leap
the taller will the flax be that year. The special season for thus
promoting the growth of flax is Shrove Tuesday, but in some places
it is Candlemas or Walpurgis Night (the eve of May Day). The scene
of the performance is the flax field, the farmhouse, or the village
tavern.​[469] In {p139} some parts of Eastern Prussia the girls dance
one by one in a large hoop at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The hoop is
adorned with leaves, flowers, and ribbons, and attached to it are a
small bell and some flax. Strictly speaking, the hoop should be wrapt
in white linen handkerchiefs, but the place of these is often taken by
many-coloured bits of cloth, wool, and so forth. While dancing within
the hoop each girl has to wave her arms vigorously and cry “Flax grow!”
or words to that effect. When she has done, she leaps out of the hoop,
or is lifted out of it by her partner.​[470] In Anhalt, when the sower
had sown the flax, he leaped up and flung the seed-bag high in the air,
saying, “Grow and turn green! You have nothing else to do.” He hoped
that the flax would grow as high as he flung the seed-bag in the air.
At Quellendorff, in Anhalt, the first bushel of seed-corn had to be
heaped up high in order that the corn-stalks should grow tall and bear
plenty of grain.​[471] When Macedonian farmers have done digging their
fields, they throw their spades up into the air, and catching them
again, exclaim, “May the crop grow as high as the spade has gone!”​[472]

[Sidenote: Plants and trees influenced homoeopathically by a person’s
act or state.

Fertilising influence supposed to be exercised on plants by pregnant
women or by women who have borne many children.

Barren women supposed to make the fruit-trees barren.]

The notion that a person can influence a plant homoeopathically by
his act or condition comes out clearly in a remark made by a Malay
woman. Being asked why she stripped the upper part of her body naked in
reaping the rice, she explained that she did it to make the rice-husks
{p140} thinner, as she was tired of pounding thick-husked rice.​[473]
Clearly, she thought that the less clothing she wore the less husk
there would be on the rice. Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra, when a
rice barn has been built a feast is held, of which a woman far advanced
in pregnancy must partake. Her condition will obviously help the rice
to be fruitful and multiply.​[474] Among the Zulus a pregnant woman
sometimes grinds corn, which is afterwards burnt among the half-grown
crops in order to fertilise them.​[475] For a similar reason in Syria
when a fruit-tree does not bear, the gardener gets a pregnant woman to
fasten a stone to one of its branches; then the tree will be sure to
bear fruit, but the woman will run a risk of miscarriage,​[476] having
transferred her fertility, or part of it, to the tree. The practice
of loading with stones a tree which casts its fruit is mentioned by
Maimonides,​[477] though the Rabbis apparently did not understand it.
The proceeding was most probably a homoeopathic charm designed to load
the tree with fruit.​[478] In Swabia they say that if a fruit-tree does
not bear, you should keep it loaded with a heavy stone all summer, and
next year it will be sure to bear.​[479] The custom of tying stones
to fruit-trees in order to ensure a crop of fruit is followed also
in Sicily.​[480] The magic virtue of a pregnant woman to communicate
fertility is known to Bavarian and Austrian peasants, who {p141} think
that if you give the first fruit of a tree to a woman with child to
eat, the tree will bring forth abundantly next year.​[481] In Bohemia
for a similar purpose the first apple of a young tree is sometimes
plucked and eaten by a woman who has borne many children, for then the
tree will be sure to bear many apples.​[482] In the Zürcher Oberland,
Switzerland, they think that a cherry-tree will bear abundantly if its
first fruit is eaten by a woman who has just given birth to her first
child.​[483] In Macedonia the first fruit of a tree should not be eaten
by a barren woman but by one who has many children.​[484] The Nicobar
Islanders think it lucky to get a pregnant woman and her husband to
plant seed in gardens.​[485] The Greeks and Romans sacrificed pregnant
victims to the goddesses of the corn and of the earth, doubtless in
order that the earth might teem and the corn swell in the ear.​[486]
When a Catholic priest remonstrated with the Indians of the Orinoco on
allowing their women to sow the fields in the blazing sun, with infants
at their breasts, the men answered, “Father, you don’t understand
these things, and that is why they vex you. You know that women are
accustomed to bear children, and that we men are not. When the women
sow, the stalk of the maize bears two or three ears, the root of the
yucca yields two or three {p142} basketfuls, and everything multiplies
in proportion. Now why is that? Simply because the women know how to
bring forth, and know how to make the seed which they sow bring forth
also. Let them sow, then; we men don’t know as much about it as they
do.”​[487] For the same reason, probably, the Tupinambas of Brazil
thought that if a certain earth-almond were planted by the men, it
would not grow.​[488] Among the Ilocans of Luzon the men sow bananas,
but the sower must have a young child on his shoulder, or the bananas
will bear no fruit.​[489] When a tree bears no fruit, the Galelareese
think it is a male; and their remedy is simple. They put a woman’s
petticoat on the tree, which, being thus converted into a female, will
naturally prove prolific.​[490] On the other hand the Baganda believe
that a barren wife infects her husband’s garden with her own sterility
and prevents the trees from bearing fruit; hence a childless woman is
generally divorced.​[491] For a like reason, probably, the Wajagga of
East Africa throw away the corpse of a childless woman, with all her
belongings, in the forest or in any other place where the land is never
cultivated; moreover her body is not carried out of the door of the
hut, but a special passage is broken for it through the wall,​[492] no
doubt to prevent her dangerous ghost from finding its way back.​[493]

[Sidenote: Taboos based on the belief that persons can influence
vegetation homoeopathically by their acts or states.]

Thus on the theory of homoeopathic magic a person can influence
vegetation either for good or for evil according to the good or the bad
character of his acts or states: for example, a fruitful woman makes
plants fruitful, a barren woman makes them barren. Hence this belief
in the noxious and infectious nature of certain personal qualities or
accidents {p143} has given rise to a number of prohibitions or rules
of avoidance: people abstain from doing certain things lest they
should homoeopathically infect the fruits of the earth with their
own undesirable state or condition. All such customs of abstention
or rules of avoidance are examples of negative magic or taboo.​[494]
Thus, for example, arguing from what may be called the infectiousness
of personal acts or states, the Galelareese say that you ought not to
shoot with a bow and arrows under a fruit-tree, or the tree will cast
its fruit even as the arrows fall to the ground;​[495] and that when
you are eating water-melon you ought not to mix the pips which you
spit out of your mouth with the pips which you have put aside to serve
as seed; for if you do, though the pips you spat out may certainly
spring up and blossom, yet the blossoms will keep falling off just as
the pips fell from your mouth, and thus these pips will never bear
fruit.​[496] Precisely the same train of thought leads the Bavarian
peasant to believe that if he allows the graft of a fruit-tree to fall
on the ground, the tree that springs from that graft will let its
fruit fall untimely.​[497] The Indians of Santiago Tepehuacan suppose
that if a single grain of the maize which they are about to sow were
eaten by an animal, the birds and the wild boars would come and devour
all the rest, and nothing would grow. And if any of these Indians has
ever in his life buried a corpse, he will never be allowed to plant
a fruit-tree, for they say that the tree would wither. And they will
not let such a man go fishing with them, for the fish would flee from
him.​[498] Clearly these Indians imagine that anybody who has buried
a corpse is thereby tainted, so to say, with an infection of death,
which might prove fatal to fruits and fish. In Nias, the day after a
man has made preparations for planting rice he may not use fire, or the
crop would be parched; he may not spread his mats on the ground, or the
young plants would droop towards the earth.​[499] {p144} When the Chams
of Cochinchina are sowing their dry rice-fields and desire that no
rain should fall, they eat their rice dry instead of moistening it, as
they usually do, with the water in which vegetables and fish have been
boiled. That prevents rain from spoiling the rice.​[500]

[Sidenote: Persons influenced homoeopathically by plants.

People supposed to be influenced homoeopathically by the nature of the
timber of which their houses are built.]

In the foregoing cases a person is supposed to influence vegetation
homoeopathically. He infects trees or plants with qualities or
accidents, good or bad, resembling and derived from his own. But on the
principle of homoeopathic magic the influence is mutual: the plant can
infect the man just as much as the man can infect the plant. In magic,
as I believe in physics, action and reaction are equal and opposite.
The Cherokee Indians are adepts in practical botany of the homoeopathic
sort. Thus wiry roots of the catgut plant or devil’s shoestring
(_Tephrosia_) are so tough that they can almost stop a ploughshare in
the furrow. Hence Cherokee women wash their heads with a decoction
of the roots to make the hair strong, and Cherokee ball-players wash
themselves with it to toughen their muscles. To help them to spring
quickly to their feet when they are thrown to the ground, these Indian
ball-players also bathe their limbs with a decoction of the small rush
(_Juncus tenuis_), which, they say, always recovers its erect position,
no matter how often it is trampled down. To improve a child’s memory
the Cherokees beat up burs in water which has been fetched from a
roaring waterfall. The virtue of the potion is threefold. The voice
of the Long Man or river-god is heard in the roar of the cataract;
the stream seizes and holds things cast upon its surface; and there
is nothing that sticks like a bur. Hence it seems clear that with the
potion the child will drink in the lessons taught by the voice of the
waters, will seize them like the stream, and stick fast to them like
a bur. For a like reason the Cherokee fisherman ties the plant called
Venus’ flytrap (_Dionaea_) to his fishtrap, and he chews the plant and
spits it on the bait. That will be sure to make the trap and the bait
catch fish, just as Venus’ flytrap catches and digests the insects
which alight on it.​[501] {p145} The Kei islanders think that certain
creepers which adhere firmly to the trunks of trees prevent voyagers at
sea from being wafted hither and thither at the mercy of the wind and
the waves; the adhesive power of the plants enables the mariners to go
straight to their destination.​[502] It is a Galelareese belief that
if you eat a fruit which has fallen to the ground, you will yourself
contract a disposition to stumble and fall; and that if you partake
of something which has been forgotten (such as a sweet potato left in
the pot or a banana in the fire), you will become forgetful.​[503] The
Galelareese are also of opinion that if a woman were to consume two
bananas growing from a single head she would give birth to twins.​[504]
The Guarani Indians of South America thought that a woman would become
a mother of twins if she ate a double grain of millet.​[505] In Vedic
times a curious application of this principle supplied a charm by
which a banished prince might be restored to his kingdom. He had to
eat food cooked on a fire which was fed with wood which had grown out
of the stump of a tree which had been cut down. The recuperative power
manifested by such a tree would in due course be communicated through
the fire to the food, and so to the prince, who ate the food which
was cooked on the fire which was fed with the wood which grew out
of the tree.​[506] Among the Lkuñgen Indians of Vancouver Island an
infallible means of making your hair grow long is to rub it with fish
oil and the pulverised fruit of a particular kind of poplar (_Populus
trichocarpa_). As the fruit grows a long way up the tree, it cannot
fail to make your hair grow long too.​[507] At Allumba, in Central
Australia, there is a tree to {p146} which the sun, in the shape of a
woman, is said to have travelled from the east. The natives believe
that if the tree were destroyed, they would all be burned up; and that
were any man to kill and eat an opossum from this tree, the food would
burn up all his inward parts so that he would die.​[508] The Sundanese
of the Indian Archipelago regard certain kinds of wood as unsuitable
for use in house-building, especially such trees as have prickles or
thorns on their trunks. They think that the life of people who lived
in a house made of such timber would be thorny and full of trouble.
Again, if a house is built of trees that have fallen, or lost their
leaves through age, the inmates would die soon or would be hard put to
it to earn their bread. Again, wood from a house that has been burnt
down should never be used in building, for it would cause a fire to
break out in the new house.​[509] In Java some people would not build a
house with the wood of a tree that has been uprooted by a storm, lest
the house should fall down in like manner; and they take care not to
construct the upright and the horizontal parts (the standing and lying
parts, as they call them) of the edifice out of the same tree. The
reason for this precaution is a belief that if the standing and lying
woodwork was made out of the same tree, the inmates of the house would
constantly suffer from ill health; no sooner had one of them got up
from a bed of sickness than another would have to lie down on it; and
so it would go on, one up and another down, perpetually.​[510] Before
Cherokee braves went forth to war the medicine-man used to give each
man a small charmed root which made him absolutely invulnerable. On the
eve of battle the warrior bathed in a running stream, chewed a portion
of the root and spat the juice on his body in order that the bullets
might slide from his skin like the drops of water. Some of my readers
perhaps doubt whether this really made the men bomb-proof. There is a
barren and paralysing spirit of scepticism abroad at {p147} the present
day which is most deplorable. However, the efficacy of this particular
charm was proved in the Civil War, for three hundred Cherokees served
in the army of the South; and they were never, or hardly ever, wounded
in action.​[511] Near Charlotte Waters, in Central Australia, there is
a tree which sprang up to mark the spot where a blind man died. It is
called the Blind Tree by the natives, who think that if it were cut
down all the people of the neighbourhood would become blind. A man
who wishes to deprive his enemy of sight need only go to the tree by
himself and rub it, muttering his wish and exhorting the magic virtue
to go forth and do its baleful work.​[512]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the dead.

Homoeopathic magic of the dead employed by burglars for the purpose of
concealment.]

In this last example the infectious quality, though it emanates
directly from a tree, is derived originally from a man—namely, the
blind man—who was buried at the place where the tree grew. Similarly,
the Central Australians believe that a certain group of stones at
Undiara are the petrified boils of an old man who long ago plucked them
from his body and left them there; hence any man who wishes to infect
his enemy with boils will go to these stones and throw miniature spears
at them, taking care that the points of the spears strike the stones.
Then the spears are picked up, and thrown one by one in the direction
of the person whom it is intended to injure. The spears carry with
them the magic virtue from the stones, and the result is an eruption
of painful boils on the body of the victim. Sometimes a whole group
of people can be afflicted in this way by a skilful magician.​[513]
These examples introduce us to a fruitful branch of homoeopathic magic,
namely to that department of it which works by means of the dead; for
just as the dead can neither see nor hear nor speak, so you may on
homoeopathic principles render people blind, deaf, and dumb by the use
of dead men’s bones or anything else that is tainted by the infection
of death. Thus among the Galelareese, when a young man goes a-wooing
at night, he takes a little earth from a grave and strews it on the
{p148} roof of his sweetheart’s house just above the place where her
parents sleep. This, he fancies, will prevent them from waking while he
converses with his beloved, since the earth from the grave will make
them sleep as sound as the dead.​[514] Burglars in all ages and many
lands have been patrons of this species of magic, which is very useful
to them in the exercise of their profession. Thus a South Slavonian
housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead man’s
bone over the house, saying, with pungent sarcasm, “As this bone may
waken, so may these people waken”; after that not a soul in the house
can keep his or her eyes open.​[515] Similarly, in Java the burglar
takes earth from a grave and sprinkles it round the house which he
intends to rob; this throws the inmates into a deep sleep.​[516] With
the same intention a Hindoo will strew ashes from a pyre at the door
of the house;​[517] Indians of Peru scatter the dust of dead men’s
bones;​[518] and Ruthenian burglars remove the marrow from a human
shin-bone, pour tallow into it, and having kindled the tallow, march
thrice round the house with this candle burning, which causes the
inmates to sleep a death-like sleep. Or the Ruthenian will make a flute
out of a human leg-bone and play upon it; whereupon all persons within
hearing are overcome with drowsiness.​[519] The Indians of Mexico
employed for this maleficent purpose the left fore-arm of a woman who
had died in giving birth to her first child; but the arm had to be
stolen. With it they beat the ground before they entered the house
which they designed to plunder; this caused every one in the house to
lose all power of speech and motion; they were as dead, hearing and
seeing everything, but perfectly powerless; some of them, however,
really slept and even snored.​[520] In Europe similar properties were
{p149} ascribed to the Hand of Glory, which was the dried and pickled
hand of a man who had been hanged. If a candle made of the fat of a
malefactor who had also died on the gallows was lighted and placed
in the Hand of Glory as in a candlestick, it rendered motionless all
persons to whom it was presented; they could not stir a finger any
more than if they were dead.​[521] Sometimes the dead man’s hand is
itself the candle, or rather bunch of candles, all its withered fingers
being set on fire; but should any member of the household be awake,
one of the fingers will not kindle. Such nefarious lights can only be
extinguished with milk.​[522] Often it is prescribed that the thief’s
candle should be made of the finger of a new-born or, still better,
unborn child; sometimes it is thought needful that the thief should
have one such candle for every person in the house, for if he has one
candle too little somebody in the house will wake and catch him. Once
these tapers begin to burn, there is nothing but milk that will put
them out. In the seventeenth century robbers used to murder pregnant
women in order thus to extract candles from their wombs.​[523] An
ancient Greek robber or burglar thought he could silence and put to
flight the fiercest watchdogs by carrying with him a brand plucked from
a funeral pyre.​[524]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the dead employed for various
purposes.]

Again, Servian and Bulgarian women who chafe at the restraints of
domestic life will take the copper coins from the eyes of a corpse,
wash them in wine or water, and give the liquid to their husbands
to drink. After swallowing it, the husband will be as blind to his
wife’s peccadilloes as the dead man was on whose eyes the coins were
laid.​[525] When a {p150} Blackfoot Indian went out eagle-hunting,
he used to take a skull with him, because he believed that the skull
would make him invisible, like the dead person to whom it had belonged,
and so the eagles would not be able to see and attack him.​[526] The
Tarahumares of Mexico are great runners, and parties of them engage in
races with each other. They believe that human bones induce fatigue;
hence before a race the friends of one side will bury dead men’s bones
in the track, hoping that the runners of the other side will pass over
them and so be weakened. Naturally they warn their own men to shun the
spot where the bones are buried.​[527] The Belep of New Caledonia think
that they can disable an enemy from flight by means of the leg-bone of
a dead foe. They stick certain plants into the bone, and then smash it
between stones before the skulls of their ancestors. It is easy to see
that this breaks the leg of the living enemy and so hinders him from
running away. Hence in time of war men fortify themselves with amulets
of this sort.​[528] The ancient Greeks seem to have thought that to
set a young male child on a tomb would be to rob him of his manhood by
infecting him with the impotence of the dead.​[529] And as there is no
memory in the grave the Arabs think that earth from a grave can make a
man forget his griefs and sorrows, especially the sorrow of an unhappy
love.​[530]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of animals.]

Again, animals are often conceived to possess qualities or properties
which might be useful to man, and homoeopathic or imitative magic
seeks to communicate these properties to human beings in various ways.
Thus some Bechuanas wear a ferret as a charm, because, being very
tenacious of life, it will make them difficult to kill.​[531] Others
{p151} wear a certain insect, mutilated, but living, for a similar
purpose.​[532] Yet other Bechuana warriors wear the hair of a hornless
ox among their own hair, and the skin of a frog on their mantle,
because a frog is slippery, and the ox, having no horns, is hard to
catch; so the man who is provided with these charms believes that he
will be as hard to hold as the ox and the frog.​[533] Again, it seems
plain that a South African warrior who twists tufts of rats’ hair among
his own curly black locks will have just as many chances of avoiding
the enemy’s spear as the nimble rat has of avoiding things thrown at
it; hence in these regions rats’ hair is in great demand when war is
expected.​[534] In Morocco a fowl or a pigeon may sometimes be seen
with a little red bundle tied to its foot; the bundle contains a charm,
and it is believed that as the charm is kept in constant motion by
the bird, a corresponding restlessness is kept up in the mind of him
or her against whom the charm is directed.​[535] When a Galla sees a
tortoise, he will take off his sandals and step on it, believing that
the soles of his feet are thereby made hard and strong like the shell
of the animal.​[536] The Wajaggas of Eastern Africa think that if they
wear a piece of the wing-bone of a vulture tied round their leg they
will be able to run and not grow weary, just as the vulture flies
unwearied through the sky.​[537] The Esquimaux of Baffin Land fancy
that if part of the intestines of a fox is placed under the feet of a
baby boy, he will become active and skilful in walking over thin ice,
like a fox.​[538] One of the ancient books of India prescribes that
when a sacrifice is offered for victory, the earth out of which the
altar is to be made should be taken from a place where a boar has been
wallowing, since the strength of the boar will be in that earth.​[539]
{p152} When you are playing the one-stringed lute, and your fingers are
stiff, the thing to do is to catch some long-legged field spiders and
roast them, and then rub your fingers with the ashes; that will make
your fingers as lithe and nimble as the spiders’ legs—at least so think
the Galelareese.​[540] As the sea-eagle is very expert at seizing fish
in its talons, the Kei islanders use its claws as a charm to enable
them to make great gain on their trading voyages.​[541] The children
of the Baronga on Delagoa Bay are much troubled by a small worm which
burrows under their skin, where its meanderings are visible to the eye.
To guard her little one against this insect pest a Baronga mother will
attach to its wrist the skin of a mole which burrows just under the
surface of the ground, exactly as the worm burrows under the infant’s
skin.​[542] To bring back a runaway slave an Arab of North Africa will
trace a magic circle on the ground, stick a nail in the middle of it,
and attach a beetle by a thread to the nail, taking care that the sex
of the beetle is that of the fugitive. As the beetle crawls round and
round it will coil the thread about the nail, thus shortening its
tether and drawing nearer to the centre at every circuit. So by virtue
of homoeopathic magic the runaway slave will be drawn back to his
master.​[543] The Patagonian Indians kill a mare and put a new-born boy
in its body, believing that this will make him a good horseman.​[544]
The Lkuñgen Indians of Vancouver’s Island believe that the ashes of
wasps rubbed on the faces of warriors going to battle will render the
men as pugnacious as wasps, and that a decoction of wasps’ nests or of
flies administered internally to barren women will make them prolific
like the insects.​[545]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of snakes and other animals.]

Among the western tribes of British New Guinea, a {p153} man who has
killed a snake will burn it and smear his legs with the ashes when
he goes into the forest; for no snake will bite him for some days
afterwards.​[546] The Baronga of Delagoa Bay carry the powdered ashes
of a serpent in a little bag as a talisman which guards them from
snake-bites.​[547] Among the Arabs of Moab a woman will give her infant
daughter the ashes of a scorpion mixed with milk to drink in order to
protect her against the stings of scorpions.​[548] The Cholones of
eastern Peru think that to carry the poison tooth of a serpent is a
protection against the bite of a serpent, and that to rub the cheek
with the tooth of an ounce is an infallible remedy for toothache and
face-ache.​[549] In order to strengthen her teeth some Brazilian
Indians used to hang round a girl’s neck at puberty the teeth of an
animal which they called _capugouare_, that is “grass-eating.”​[550]
When a thoroughbred mare has drunk at a trough, an Arab woman will
hasten to drink any water that remains in order that she may give birth
to strong children.​[551] If a South Slavonian has a mind to pilfer and
steal at market, he has nothing to do but to burn a blind cat, and then
throw a pinch of its ashes over the person with whom he is higgling;
after that he can take what he likes from the booth, and the owner
will not be a bit the wiser, having become as blind as the deceased
cat with whose ashes he has been sprinkled. The thief may even ask
boldly “Did I pay for it?” and the deluded huckster will reply, “Why,
certainly.”​[552] Equally simple and effectual is the expedient adopted
by natives of Central Australia who desire to cultivate their beards.
They prick the chin all over with a pointed bone, and then stroke it
carefully with a magic stick or stone, which represents a kind of rat
that has very long whiskers. The virtue of these whiskers naturally
passes into the representative stick or {p154} stone, and thence by an
easy transition to the chin, which, consequently, is soon adorned with
a rich growth of beard.​[553] When a party of these same natives has
returned from killing a foe, and they fear to be attacked by the ghost
of the dead man in their sleep, every one of them takes care to wear
the tip of the tail of a rabbit-kangaroo in his hair. Why? Because the
rabbit-kangaroo, being a nocturnal animal, does not sleep of nights;
and therefore a man who wears a tip of its tail in his hair will
clearly be wakeful during the hours of darkness.​[554] The Unmatjera
tribe of Central Australia use the tip of the tail of the same animal
for the same purpose, but they draw out the sympathetic chain one link
farther. For among them, when a boy has undergone subincision and is
leading a solitary life in the bush, it is not he but his mother who
wears the tip of the nocturnal creature’s tail in order that he may
be watchful at nights, lest harm should befall him from snakes and so
forth.​[555] The ancient Greeks thought that to eat the flesh of the
wakeful nightingale would prevent a man from sleeping; that to smear
the eyes of a blear-sighted person with the gall of an eagle would
give him the eagle’s vision; and that a raven’s eggs would restore the
blackness of the raven to silvery hair. Only the person who adopted
this last mode of concealing the ravages of time had to be most careful
to keep his mouth full of oil all the time he applied the eggs to his
venerable locks, else his teeth as well as his hair would be dyed raven
black, and no amount of scrubbing and scouring would avail to whiten
them again.​[556] The hair-restorer was in fact a shade too powerful,
and in applying it you might get more than you bargained for.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of animals among the Cherokees and other
American Indians.]

The Huichol Indians of Mexico admire the beautiful markings on the
backs of serpents. Hence when a Huichol woman is about to weave or
embroider, her husband catches a large serpent and holds it in a
cleft stick, while the woman strokes the reptile with one hand down
the whole length of its back; then she passes the same hand over her
forehead {p155} and eyes, that she may be able to work as beautiful
patterns in the web as the markings on the back of the serpent.​[557]
Among the Tarahumares of Mexico men who run races tie deer-hoofs to
their backs in the belief that this will make them swift-footed like
the deer.​[558] Cherokee ball-players rub their bodies with eel-skins
in order to make themselves as slippery and hard to hold as eels; and
they also apply land-tortoises to their legs in the hope of making
them as thick and strong as the legs of these animals. But they are
careful not to eat frogs, lest the brittleness of the frog’s bones
should infect their own bones. Moreover, they will not eat the flesh
of the sluggish hog-sucker, lest they should lose their speed, nor the
flesh of rabbits, lest, like the rabbit, they should become confused
in running. On the other hand, their friends sprinkle a soup made of
rabbit hamstrings along the path to be taken by their rivals, in order
to make these rivals timorous in action. Moreover, the ball-players
will not wear the feathers of the bald-headed buzzard, for fear of
themselves becoming bald, nor turkey feathers, lest they should suffer
from a goitrous growth on the throat like the red appendage on the
throat of a turkey.​[559] The flesh of the common grey squirrel is
forbidden to Cherokees who suffer from rheumatism, because the squirrel
eats in a cramped position, which would clearly aggravate the pangs of
the rheumatic patient.​[560] And a Cherokee woman who is with child
may not eat the flesh of the ruffed grouse, because that bird hatches
a large brood, but loses most of them before maturity. Strict people,
indeed, will not allow a woman to taste of the bird till she is past
child-bearing.​[561] When a Cherokee is starting on a journey on a
cold winter morning he rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and
sings four verses by means of which he can set the cold at defiance,
like the wolf, the deer, the fox, and the opossum, whose feet, so the
Indians think, are never frost-bitten. After each verse he imitates
the cry and action of the animal, thus homoeopathically identifying
himself with the creature. The {p156} song he sings may be rendered,
“I become a real wolf, a real deer, a real fox, and a real opossum.”
After stating that he has become a real wolf, the songster utters a
prolonged howl and paws the ground like a wolf with his feet. After
giving notice that he has become a real deer, he imitates the call and
jumping of a deer. And after announcing his identification, for all
practical purposes, with a fox and an opossum, he mimicks the barking
and scratching of a fox and the cry of an opossum when it is driven to
bay, also throwing his head back just as an opossum does when it feigns
death.​[562] Some Cherokees are said to drink tea made of crickets in
order to become good singers like the insects.​[563] If the eyes of a
Cherokee child be bathed with water in which a feather of an owl has
been soaked, the child will be able, like the owl, to keep awake all
night. The mole-cricket has claws with which it burrows in the earth,
and among the Cherokees it is reputed to be an excellent singer.
Hence when children are long of learning to speak, their tongues are
scratched with the claw of a live mole-cricket in order that they may
soon talk as distinctly as the insect. Grown persons also, who are
slow of speech, may acquire a ready flow of eloquence, if only the
inside of their throat be scratched on four successive mornings with
a mole-cricket.​[564] The negroes of the Maroni river in Guiana have
a somewhat similar cure for stammering. Day and night the shrieks of
a certain species of ape resound through the forest. Hence when the
negroes kill one of these pests, they remove its larynx and make a
cup out of it. If a stammering child drinks out of such a cup for
a few months, it ceases to stammer.​[565] Cherokee parents scratch
the hands of their children with the pincers of a live red crawfish,
resembling a lobster, in order to give the infants a strong grip, like
that of the crawfish.​[566] This may help us to understand why on
the fifth day after birth a Greek child used to receive presents of
octopuses and cuttle-fish from its friends and relations.​[567] For the
numerous arms, legs, and tentacles of {p157} these creatures seem well
calculated to strengthen the grip of a baby’s hands and to impart the
power of toddling to its little toes.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of inanimate things.]

On the principle of homoeopathic magic, inanimate things, as well
as plants and animals, may diffuse blessing or bane around them,
according to their own intrinsic nature and the skill of the wizard to
tap or dam, as the case may be, the stream of weal or woe. Thus, for
example, the Galelareese think that when your teeth are being filed you
should keep spitting on a pebble, for this establishes a homoeopathic
connexion between you and the pebble, by virtue of which your teeth
will henceforth be as hard and durable as a stone. On the other hand,
you ought not to comb a child before it has teethed, for if you do,
its teeth will afterwards be separated from each other like the teeth
of a comb.​[568] Nor should children look at a sieve, otherwise they
will suffer from a skin disease, and will have as many sores on their
bodies as there are holes in the sieve.​[569] In Samaracand women
give a baby sugar candy to suck and put glue in the palm of its hand,
in order that, when the child grows up, his words may be sweet and
precious things may stick to his hands as if they were glued.​[570]
The Greeks thought that a garment made from the fleece of a sheep that
had been torn by a wolf would hurt the wearer, setting up an itch or
irritation in his skin. They were also of opinion that if a stone which
had been bitten by a dog were dropped in wine, it would make all who
drank of that wine to fall out among themselves.​[571] Among the Arabs
of Moab a childless woman often borrows the robe of a woman who has had
many children, hoping with the robe to acquire the fruitfulness of its
owner.​[572] The Caffres of Sofala, in East Africa, had a great dread
of being struck with anything hollow, such as a reed or a straw, and
greatly preferred being thrashed with a good thick cudgel or an iron
bar, even though it hurt very much. For they thought that if a man
{p158} were beaten with anything hollow, his inside would waste away
till he died.​[573] In eastern seas there is a large shell which the
Buginese of Celebes call the “old man” (_kadjâwo_). On Fridays they
turn these “old men” upside down and place them on the thresholds of
their houses, believing that whoever then steps over the threshold
of the house will live to be old.​[574] Again, the Galelareese think
that, if you are imprudent enough to eat while somebody is sharpening
a knife, your throat will be cut that same evening, or next morning at
latest.​[575] The disastrous influence thus attributed, under certain
circumstances, to a knife in the East Indies, finds its counterpart in
a curious old Greek story. A certain king had no child, and he asked a
wise man how he could get one. The wise man himself did not know, but
he thought that the birds of the air might, and he undertook to enquire
of them. For you must know that the sage understood the language of
birds, having learned it through some serpents whose life he had saved,
and who, out of gratitude, had cleansed his ears as he slept. So he
sacrificed two bulls, and cut them up, and prayed the fowls to come and
feast on the flesh; only the vulture he did not invite. When the birds
came, the wise man asked them what the king must do to get a son; but
none of them knew. At last up came the vulture, and he knew all about
it. He said that once when the king was a child his royal father was
gelding rams in the field, and laid down the bloody knife beside his
little son; nay, he threatened the boy with it. The child was afraid
and ran away, and the father stuck the knife in a tree, either a sacred
oak or a wild pear-tree. Meanwhile, the bark of the tree had grown
round the knife and hidden it. The vulture said that if they found the
knife, scraped the rust off it, and gave the rust, mixed with wine,
to the king to drink for ten days, he would beget a son. They did so,
and it fell out exactly as the vulture had said.​[576] In this story a
knife {p159} which had gelded rams is supposed to have deprived a boy
of his virility merely by being brought near his person. Through simple
proximity it infected him, so to say, with the same disability which it
had already inflicted on the rams; and the loss he thus sustained was
afterwards repaired by administering to him in a potion the rust which,
having been left on the blade by the blood of the animals, might be
supposed to be still imbued with their generative faculty.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of iron.

Homoeopathic magic of stones.

Oaths upon stones.]

The strengthening virtue of iron is highly appreciated by the Toradjas
of Central Celebes, only they apply it externally, not internally, as
we do in Europe. For this purpose the people of a village assemble
once a year in the smithy. The master of the ceremonies opens the
proceedings by carrying a little pig and a white fowl round the
smithy, after which he kills them and smears a little of their blood
on the forehead of every person present. Next he takes a doit, a
chopping-knife, and a bunch of leaves in his hand, and strikes with
them the palm of the right hand of every man, woman, and child, and
ties a leaf of the _Dracaena terminalis_ to every wrist. Then a little
fire is made in the furnace and blown up with the bellows. Every one
who feels sick or unwell now steps up to the anvil, and the master of
the ceremonies sprinkles a mixture of pigs’ blood, water, and herbs on
the joints of his body, and finally on his head, wishing him a long
life. Lastly, the patient takes the chopping-knife, heats it in the
furnace, lays it on the anvil, and strikes it seven times with the
hammer. After that he has only to cool the knife in water and the iron
cure is complete. Again, on the seventh day after a birth the Toradjas
hold a little feast, at which the child is carried down the house
ladder and its feet set on a piece of iron, in order to strengthen its
feeble soul with the strong soul of the iron.​[577] At critical times
the Mahakam Dyaks of Central Borneo seek to strengthen their souls
{p160} by biting on an old sword or setting their feet upon it.​[578]
At initiation a Brahman boy is made to tread with his right foot on
a stone, while the words are repeated, “Tread on this stone; like a
stone be firm”;​[579] and the same ceremony is performed, with the
same words, by a Brahman bride at her marriage.​[580] In Madagascar
a mode of counteracting the levity of fortune is to bury a stone at
the foot of the heavy house-post.​[581] The common custom of swearing
upon a stone may be based partly on a belief that the strength and
stability of the stone lend confirmation to an oath. Thus the old
Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells us that “the ancients, when
they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stones planted in
the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to foreshadow from
the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting.”​[582]
There was a stone at Athens on which the nine archons stood when they
swore to rule justly and according to the laws.​[583] A little to the
west of St. Columba’s tomb in Iona “lie the black stones, which are so
called, not from their colour, for that is grey, but from the effects
that tradition says ensued upon perjury, if any one became guilty of it
after swearing on these stones in the usual manner; for an oath made on
them was decisive in all controversies. Mac-Donald, king of the isles,
delivered the rights of their lands to his vassals in the isles and
{p161} continent, with uplifted hands and bended knees, on the black
stones; and in this posture, before many witnesses, he solemnly swore
that he would never recall those rights which he then granted: and this
was instead of his great seal. Hence it is that when one was certain
of what he affirmed, he said positively, I have freedom to swear this
matter upon the black stones.”​[584] Again, in the island of Arran
there was a green globular stone, about the size of a goose’s egg, on
which oaths were taken. It was also endowed with healing virtue, for it
cured stitches in the sides of sick people if only it was laid on the
affected part. They say that Macdonald, the Lord of the Isles, carried
this stone about with him, and that victory was always on his side when
he threw it among the enemy.​[585] Once more, in the island of Fladda
there was a round blue stone, on which people swore decisive oaths, and
it too healed stitches in the side like the green stone of Arran.​[586]
When two Bogos of eastern Africa have a dispute, they will sometimes
settle it at a certain stone, which one of them mounts. His adversary
calls down the most dreadful curses on him if he forswears himself, and
to every curse the man on the stone answers “Amen!”​[587] In Laconia
an unwrought stone was shewn which, according to the legend, relieved
the matricide Orestes of his madness as soon as he had sat down on
it;​[588] and Zeus is said to have often cured himself of his love for
Hera by sitting down on a certain rock in the island of Leucadia.​[589]
In these cases it may have been thought that the wayward and flighty
impulses of love and madness were counteracted by the steadying
influence of a heavy stone.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of special kinds of stones.]

But while a general magical efficacy may be supposed {p162} to reside in
all stones by reason of their common properties of weight and solidity,
special magical virtues are attributed to particular stones, or kinds
of stone, in accordance with their individual or specific qualities of
shape and colour. For example, a pot-hole in a rocky gorge of Central
Australia contains many rounded boulders which, in the opinion of the
Warramunga tribe, represent the kidneys, heart, tail, intestines, and
so forth of an old euro, a species of kangaroo. Hence the natives jump
into the pool, and after splashing the water all over their bodies rub
one another with the stones, believing that this will enable them to
catch euros.​[590] Again, not very far from Alice Springs, in Central
Australia, there is a heap of stones supposed to be the vomit of two
men of the eagle-hawk totem who had dined too copiously on eagle-hawk
men, women, and children. The natives think that if any person caught
sight of these stones he would be taken very sick on the spot; hence
the heap is covered with sticks, to which every passer-by adds one
in order to prevent the evil magic from coming out and turning his
stomach.​[591] The Indians of Peru employed certain stones for the
increase of maize, others for the increase of potatoes, and others
again for the increase of cattle. The stones used to make maize grow
were fashioned in the likeness of cobs of maize, and the stones
destined to multiply cattle had the shape of sheep.​[592]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of stones in New Caledonia.]

No people perhaps employ stones more freely for the purposes of
homoeopathic magic than the natives of New Caledonia. They have stones
of the most diverse shapes and colours to serve the most diverse
ends—stones for sunshine, rain, famine, war, madness, death, fishing,
sailing, and so forth. Thus in order to make a plantation of taro
thrive they bury in the field certain stones resembling taros, praying
to their ancestors at the same time. A stone marked with black lines
like the leaves of the coco-nut palm helps to produce a good crop of
coco-nuts. To make bread-fruit grow they use two stones of different
sizes representing the unripe and the ripe fruit respectively. {p163}
As soon as the fruit begins to form, they bury the small stone at the
foot of the tree; and later on, when the fruit approaches maturity,
they replace the small stone by the large one. The yam is the chief
crop of the New Caledonians; hence the number of stones used to foster
its growth is correspondingly great. Different families have different
kinds of stones which, according to their diverse shapes and colours,
are supposed to promote the cultivation of the various species of
yams. Before the stones are buried in the yam field they are deposited
beside the ancestral skulls, wetted with water, and wiped with the
leaves of certain trees. Sacrifices, too, of yams and fish are offered
to the dead, with the words, “Here are your offerings, in order that
the crop of yams may be good.” Again, a stone carved in the shape of
a canoe can make a voyage prosperous or the reverse according as it
is placed before the ancestral skulls with the opening upwards or
downwards, the ceremony being accompanied with prayers and offerings
to the dead. Again, fish is a very important article of diet with the
New Caledonians, and every kind of fish has its sacred stone, which is
enclosed in a large shell and kept in the graveyard. In performing the
rite to secure a good catch, the wizard swathes the stone in bandages
of various colours, spits some chewed leaves on it, and, setting it up
before the skulls, says, “Help us to be lucky at the fishing.”​[593]
In these and many similar practices of the New Caledonians the magical
efficacy of the stones appears to be deemed insufficient of itself to
accomplish the end in view; it has to be reinforced by the spirits of
the dead, whose help is sought by prayer and sacrifice. Moreover, the
stones are regularly kept in the burial-grounds, as if to saturate them
with the powerful influence of the ancestors; they are brought from
the cemetery to be buried in the fields or at the foot of trees for
the sake of quickening the fruits of the earth, and they are restored
to the cemetery when they {p164} have discharged this duty. Thus in New
Caledonia magic is blent with the worship of the dead.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of stones in Melanesia.]

In other parts of Melanesia a like belief prevails that certain sacred
stones are endowed with miraculous powers which correspond in their
nature to the shape of the stone. Thus a piece of water-worn coral on
the beach often bears a surprising likeness to a bread-fruit. Hence
in the Banks Islands a man who finds such a coral will lay it at the
root of one of his bread-fruit trees in the expectation that it will
make the tree bear well. If the result answers his expectation, he will
then, for a proper remuneration, take stones of less-marked character
from other men and let them lie near his, in order to imbue them with
the magic virtue which resides in it. Similarly, a stone with little
discs upon it is good to bring in money; and if a man found a large
stone with a number of small ones under it, like a sow among her
litter, he was sure that to offer money upon it would bring him pigs.
In these and similar cases the Melanesians ascribe the marvellous
power, not to the stone itself, but to its indwelling spirit; and
sometimes, as we have just seen, a man endeavours to propitiate the
spirit by laying down offerings on the stone.​[594] But the conception
of spirits that must be propitiated lies outside the sphere of magic,
and within that of religion. Where such a conception is found, as here,
in conjunction with purely magical ideas and practices, the latter may
generally be assumed to be the original stock on which the religious
conception has been at some later time engrafted. For there are strong
grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has
preceded religion. But to this point we shall return presently.

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of precious stones.]

The ancients set great store on the magical qualities of precious
stones; indeed it has been maintained, with great show of reason, that
such stones were used as amulets long before they were worn as mere
ornaments.​[595] Thus the Greeks gave the name of tree-agate to a stone
which exhibits tree-like markings, and they thought that if two {p165}
of these gems were tied to the horns or neck of oxen at the plough,
the crop would be sure to be plentiful.​[596] Again, they recognised
a milk-stone which produced an abundant supply of milk in women if
only they drank it dissolved in honey-mead.​[597] Milk-stones are used
for the same purpose by Greek women in Crete and Melos at the present
day;​[598] in Albania nursing mothers wear the stones in order to
ensure an abundant flow of milk.​[599] In Lechrain down to modern times
German women have attempted to increase their milk by stroking their
breasts with a kind of alum which they call a milk-stone.​[600] Again,
the Greeks believed in a stone which cured snake-bites, and hence was
named the snake-stone; to test its efficacy you had only to grind
the stone to powder and sprinkle the powder on the wound.​[601] The
wine-coloured amethyst received its name, which means “not drunken,”
because it was supposed to keep the wearer of it sober;​[602] and two
brothers who desired to live at unity were advised to carry magnets
about with them, which, by drawing the twain together, would clearly
prevent them from falling out.​[603] In Albania people think that if
the blood-stone is laid on a wound it will stop the flow of blood.​[604]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the
sea.

Homoeopathic magic of the setting sun.

Homoeopathic magic of the pole-star.]

Amongst the things which homoeopathic magic seeks to turn to account
are the great powers of nature, such as the waxing and the waning moon,
the rising and the setting sun, the stars, and the sea. Elsewhere I
have illustrated the homoeopathic virtues ascribed to the waxing and
the waning moon:​[605] here I will give an Arab charm of the {p166}
setting sun. When a husband is far away and his wife would bring him
home to her, she procures pepper and coriander seed from a shop that
faces the east, and throws them on a lighted brasier at sunset. Then
turning to the east she waves a napkin with which she has wiped herself
and says: “Let the setting sun return having found such and such an
one, son of such and such a woman, in grief and pain. May the grief
that my absence causes him make him weep, may the grief that my absence
causes him make him lament, may the grief that my absence causes him
make him break the obstacles that part us and bring him back to me.” If
the charm is unsuccessful, she repeats it one day at sunrise, burning
the same perfumes. Clearly she imagines that as the sun goes away in
the west and comes back in the east, it should at its return bring the
absent one home.​[606] The ancient books of the Hindoos lay down a
rule that after sunset on his marriage night a man should sit silent
with his wife till the stars begin to twinkle in the sky. When the
pole-star appears, he should point it out to her, and, addressing the
star, say, “Firm art thou; I see thee, the firm one. Firm be thou with
me, O thriving one!” Then, turning to his wife, he should say, “To me
Brihaspati has given thee; obtaining offspring through me, thy husband,
live with me a hundred autumns.”​[607] The intention of the ceremony is
plainly to guard against the fickleness of fortune and the instability
of earthly bliss by the steadfast influence of the constant star. It is
the wish expressed in Keats’s last sonnet:—

    _Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—_
    _Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night._

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of the tides.]

Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its
ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the {p167} principles of that
rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance which here engages our
attention, to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its
tides and the life of man, of animals, and of plants. In the flowing
tide they see not merely a symbol, but a cause of exuberance, of
prosperity, and of life, while in the ebbing tide they discern a real
agent as well as a melancholy emblem of failure, of weakness, and of
death. The Breton peasant fancies that clover sown when the tide is
coming in will grow well, but that if the plant be sown at low water
or when the tide is going out, it will never reach maturity, and that
the cows which feed on it will burst.​[608] His wife believes that the
best butter is made when the tide has just turned and is beginning
to flow, that milk which foams in the churn will go on foaming till
the hour of high water is past, and that water drawn from the well or
milk extracted from the cow while the tide is rising will boil up in
the pot or saucepan and overflow into the fire.​[609] The Galelareese
say that if you wish to make oil, you should do it when the tide is
high, for then you will get plenty of oil.​[610] According to some
of the ancients, the skins of seals, even after they had been parted
from their bodies, remained in secret sympathy with the sea, and
were observed to ruffle when the tide was on the ebb.​[611] Another
ancient belief, attributed to Aristotle, was that no creature can die
except at ebb tide. The belief, if we can trust Pliny, was confirmed
by experience, so far as regards human beings, on the coast of
France.​[612] Philostratus also assures us that at Cadiz dying people
never yielded up the ghost while the water was high.​[613] A like fancy
still lingers in some parts of Europe. On the Cantabrian coast of Spain
they think that persons who die of chronic or acute disease expire
at the moment when the tide begins to recede.​[614] In Portugal, all
along the coast of Wales, and on some parts of the coast of Brittany,
{p168} a belief is said to prevail that people are born when the tide
comes in, and die when it goes out.​[615] Dickens attests the existence
of the same superstition in England. “People can’t die, along the
coast,” said Mr. Peggotty, “except when the tide’s pretty nigh out.
They can’t be born, unless it’s pretty nigh in—not properly born till
flood.”​[616] The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said
to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to
Kent.​[617] Shakespeare must have been familiar with it, for he makes
Falstaff die “even just between twelve and one, e’en at the turning o’
the tide.”​[618] We meet the belief again on the Pacific coast of North
America among the Haidas of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Whenever a
good Haida is about to die he sees a canoe manned by some of his dead
friends, who come with the tide to bid him welcome to the spirit land.
“Come with us now,” they say, “for the tide is about to ebb and we
must depart.”​[619] At the other extremity of America the same fancy
has been noted among the Indians of Southern Chili. A Chilote Indian
in the last stage of consumption, after preparing to die like a good
Catholic, was heard to ask how the tide was running. When his sister
told him that it was still coming in, he smiled and said that he had
yet a little while to live. It was his firm conviction that with the
ebbing tide his soul would pass to the ocean of eternity.​[620] At Port
Stephens, in New South Wales, the natives always buried their dead at
flood tide, never at ebb, lest the retiring water should bear the soul
of the departed to some distant country.​[621]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic of grave-clothes in China.]

To ensure a long life the Chinese have recourse to certain complicated
charms, which concentrate in themselves the magical essence emanating,
on homoeopathic principles, from times and seasons, from persons and
from things. The vehicles employed to transmit these happy influences
{p169} are no other than grave-clothes. These are provided by many
Chinese in their lifetime, and most people have them cut out and sewn
by an unmarried girl or a very young woman, wisely calculating that,
since such a person is likely to live a great many years to come, a
part of her capacity to live long must surely pass into the clothes,
and thus stave off for many years the time when they shall be put to
their proper use. Further, the garments are made by preference in a
year which has an intercalary month; for to the Chinese mind it seems
plain that grave-clothes made in a year which is unusually long will
possess the capacity of prolonging life in an unusually high degree.
Amongst the clothes there is one robe in particular on which special
pains have been lavished to imbue it with this priceless quality.
It is a long silken gown of the deepest blue colour, with the word
“longevity” embroidered all over it in thread of gold. To present an
aged parent with one of these costly and splendid mantles, known as
“longevity garments,” is esteemed by the Chinese an act of filial
piety and a delicate mark of attention. As the garment purports to
prolong the life of its owner, he often wears it, especially on festive
occasions, in order to allow the influence of longevity, created by
the many golden letters with which it is bespangled, to work their
full effect upon his person. On his birthday, above all, he hardly
ever fails to don it, for in China common sense bids a man lay in a
large stock of vital energy on his birthday, to be expended in the
form of health and vigour during the rest of the year. Attired in the
gorgeous pall, and absorbing its blessed influence at every pore, the
happy owner receives complacently the congratulations of friends and
relations, who warmly express their admiration of these magnificent
cerements, and of the filial piety which prompted the children to
bestow so beautiful and useful a present on the author of their
being.​[622]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic applied to the sites of cities in China.]

Another application of the maxim that like produces {p170} like is seen
in the Chinese belief that the fortunes of a town are deeply affected
by its shape, and that they must vary according to the character of
the thing which that shape most nearly resembles. Thus it is related
that long ago the town of Tsuen-cheu-fu, the outlines of which are like
those of a carp, frequently fell a prey to the depredations of the
neighbouring city of Yung-chun, which is shaped like a fishing-net,
until the inhabitants of the former town conceived the plan of erecting
two tall pagodas in their midst. These pagodas, which still tower above
the city of Tsuen-cheu-fu, have ever since exercised the happiest
influence over its destiny by intercepting the imaginary net before
it could descend and entangle in its meshes the imaginary carp.​[623]
Some thirty years ago the wise men of Shanghai were much exercised
to discover the cause of a local rebellion. On careful enquiry they
ascertained that the rebellion was due to the shape of a large new
temple which had most unfortunately been built in the shape of a
tortoise, an animal of the very worst character. The difficulty was
serious, the danger was pressing; for to pull down the temple would
have been impious, and to let it stand as it was would be to court a
succession of similar or worse disasters. However, the genius of the
local professors of geomancy, rising to the occasion, triumphantly
surmounted the difficulty and obviated the danger. By filling up two
wells, which represented the eyes of the tortoise, they at once blinded
that disreputable animal and rendered him incapable of doing further
mischief.​[624]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic to avert threatened misfortune.]

Sometimes homoeopathic or imitative magic is called in to annul an
evil omen by accomplishing it in mimicry. The effect is to circumvent
destiny by substituting a mock calamity for a real one. At Kampot, a
small seaport of Cambodia, a French official saw one morning a troop
of armed guards escorting a man who was loaded with chains. They
passed his house and went away towards the country, preceded by a man
who drew lugubrious sounds from a gong, and followed by a score of
idlers. The official thought it must be an execution and was surprised
to have heard nothing {p171} about it. Afterwards he received from
his interpreter the following lucid explanation of the affair. “In
our country it sometimes happens that a man walking in the fields
has nothing but the upper part of his body visible to people at a
distance. Such an appearance is a sign that he will certainly die
soon, and that is what happened last evening to the man you saw. Going
homewards across the plain he carried over his shoulder a bundle of
palms with long slender stems ending in fan-like tufts of leaves. His
family, returning from their work, followed him at a distance, and
soon they saw his head, shoulders, and arms moving along the road and
carrying the branches, while his body and legs were invisible. Struck
with consternation at the sight, his mother and wife repaired in all
haste to the magistrate and implored him to proceed against the man
after the fashion customary in such cases. The magistrate replied that
the custom was ridiculous, and that he would be still more ridiculous
if he complied with it. However, the two women insisted on it so
vehemently, saying it was the only way to avert the omen, that he
decided to do as they wished, and gave them his word that he would
have the man arrested next morning at sunrise. So this morning the
guards came to seize the poor man, telling him that he was accused of
rebellion against the king, and without listening to his protestations
of innocence they dragged him off to court. His family pretended to be
surprised and followed him weeping. The judges had him clapped into
irons and ordered him to instant execution. His own entreaties and the
prayers of his family being all in vain, he begged that the priests
of the pagoda might come and bear witness to his innocence and join
their supplications to those of his friends. They came in haste, but
receiving a hint how the wind lay they advised the condemned man to
submit to his fate and departed to pray for his soul at the temple.
Then the man was led away to a rice-field, in the middle of which a
banana-tree, stripped of its leaves, had been set up as a stake. To
this he was tied, and while his friends took their last leave of him,
the sword of the executioner flashed through the air and at a single
stroke swept off the top of the banana-tree above the head of the {p172}
pretended victim. The man had given himself up for dead. His friends,
while they knocked off his irons, explained to him the meaning of it
all and led him away to thank the magistrates and priests for what they
had done to save him from the threatened catastrophe.” The writer who
reports the case adds that if the magistrates had not good-naturedly
lent themselves to the pious fraud, the man’s family would have
contrived in some other way to impress him with the terror of death in
order to save his life.​[625]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic to avert threatened misfortune.]

Again, two missionaries were journeying not long ago through Central
Celebes, accompanied by some Toradjas. Unfortunately the note of a
certain bird called _teka-teka_ was heard to the left. This boded
ill, and the natives insisted that they must either turn back or pass
the night on the spot. When the missionaries refused to do either, an
expedient was hit upon which allowed them to continue the journey in
safety. A miniature hut was made out of a leafy branch, and in it were
deposited a leaf moistened with spittle and a hair from the head of one
of the party. Then one of the Toradjas said, “We shall pass the night
here,” and addressing the hair he spoke thus: “If any misfortune should
happen through the cry of that bird, may it fall on you.” In this way
the evil omen was diverted from the real men and directed against
their substitute the hair, and perhaps also the spittle, in the tiny
hut.​[626] When a Cherokee has dreamed of being stung by a snake, he is
treated just in the same way as if he had really been stung; otherwise
the place would swell and ulcerate in the usual manner, though perhaps
years might pass before it did so. It is the ghost of a snake that has
bitten him in sleep.​[627] One night a Huron Indian dreamed that he had
been taken and burned alive by his hereditary foes the Iroquois. Next
morning a council was held on the affair, and the following measures
{p173} were adopted to save the man’s life. Twelve or thirteen fires
were kindled in the large hut where they usually burned their prisoners
to death. Every man seized a flaming brand and applied it to the naked
body of the dreamer, who shrieked with pain. Thrice he ran round the
hut, escaping from one fire only to fall into another. As each man
thrust his blazing torch at the sufferer he said, “Courage, my brother,
it is thus that we have pity on you.” At last he was allowed to escape.
Passing out of the hut he caught up a dog which was held ready for
the purpose, and throwing it over his shoulder carried it through the
wigwams as a sacred offering to the war-god, praying him to accept the
animal instead of himself. Afterwards the dog was killed, roasted,
and eaten, exactly as the Indians were wont to roast and eat their
captives.​[628]

[Sidenote: Homoeopathic magic to avert misfortune in Madagascar.]

In Madagascar this mode of cheating the fates is reduced to a regular
system. Here every man’s fortune is determined by the day or hour of
his birth, and if that happens to be an unlucky one his fate is sealed,
unless the mischief can be extracted, as the phrase goes, by means
of a substitute. The ways of extracting the mischief are various.
For example, if a man is born on the first day of the second month
(February), his house will be burnt down when he comes of age. To take
time by the forelock and avoid this catastrophe, the friends of the
infant will set up a shed in a field or in the cattle-fold and burn it.
If the ceremony is to be really effective, the child and his mother
should be placed in the shed and only plucked, like brands, from the
burning hut before it is too late. Again, dripping November is the
month of tears, and he who is born in it is born to sorrow. But in
order to disperse the clouds that thus gather over his future, he has
nothing to do but to take the lid off a boiling pot and wave it about.
The drops that fall from it will accomplish his destiny and so prevent
the tears from trickling from his eyes. Again, if fate has decreed
that a young girl, still unwed, should see her children, still unborn,
descend before her with sorrow to the grave, she can avert the calamity
as follows. She kills a grasshopper, wraps it in a rag to represent a
shroud, and mourns over it like {p174} Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted. Moreover, she takes a dozen or more other
grasshoppers, and having removed some of their superfluous legs and
wings she lays them about their dead and shrouded fellow. The buzz of
the tortured insects and the agitated motions of their mutilated limbs
represent the shrieks and contortions of the mourners at a funeral.
After burying the deceased grasshopper she leaves the rest to continue
their mourning till death releases them from their pain; and having
bound up her dishevelled hair she retires from the grave with the
step and carriage of a person plunged in grief. Thenceforth she looks
cheerfully forward to seeing her children survive her; for it cannot be
that she should mourn and bury them twice over. Once more, if fortune
has frowned on a man at his birth and penury has marked him for her
own, he can easily eraze the mark in question by purchasing a couple of
cheap pearls, price three halfpence, and burying them. For who but the
rich of this world can thus afford to fling pearls away?​[629]


§ 3. _Contagious Magic_

[Sidenote: Contagious magic working by contact, not resemblance.

Magical sympathy between a man and the severed portions of his person,
such as his hair or nails.

Beneficial effect of this superstition in causing the removal of
refuse.]

Thus far we have been considering chiefly that branch of sympathetic
magic which may be called homoeopathic or imitative. Its leading
principle, as we have seen, is that like produces like, or, in other
words, that an effect resembles its cause. The other great branch of
sympathetic magic, which I have called Contagious Magic, proceeds upon
the notion that things which have once been conjoined must remain ever
afterwards, even when quite dissevered from each other, in such a
sympathetic relation that whatever is done to the one must similarly
affect the other.​[630] Thus the logical basis of Contagious Magic,
like that of Homoeopathic Magic, is a mistaken association of ideas;
its physical basis, if we may speak of such a thing, {p175} like the
physical basis of Homoeopathic Magic, is a material medium of some
sort which, like the ether of modern physics, is assumed to unite
distant objects and to convey impressions from one to the other. The
most familiar example of Contagious Magic is the magical sympathy
which is supposed to exist between a man and any severed portion of
his person, as his hair or nails; so that whoever gets possession
of human hair or nails may work his will, at any distance, upon the
person from whom they were cut. This superstition is world-wide;
instances of it in regard to hair and nails will be noticed later on
in this work.​[631] While like other superstitions it has had its
absurd and mischievous consequences, it has nevertheless indirectly
done much good by furnishing savages with strong, though irrational,
motives for observing rules of cleanliness which they might never
have adopted on rational grounds. How the superstition has produced
this salutary effect will appear from a single instance, which I will
give in the words of an experienced observer. Amongst the natives of
the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain “it is as a rule necessary for
the efficiency of a charm that it should contain a part of the person
who is to be enchanted (for example, his hair), or a piece of his
clothing, or something that stands in some relation to him, such as
his excrements, the refuse of his food, his spittle, his footprints,
etc. All such objects can be employed as _panait_, that is, as a medium
for a _papait_ or charm, consisting of an incantation or murmuring
of a certain formula, together with the blowing into the air of some
burnt lime which is held in the hand. It need hardly, therefore, be
said that the native removes all such objects as well as he can. Thus
the cleanliness which is usual in the houses and consists in sweeping
the floor carefully every day, is by no means based on a desire for
cleanliness and neatness in themselves, but purely on the effort
to put out of the way anything that might serve an ill-wisher as a
charm.”​[632] I will now illustrate the principles of Contagious Magic
by examples, beginning with its application to various parts of the
human body. {p176}

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of teeth in Australia.]

Among the Australian tribes it was a common practice to knock out
one or more of a boy’s front teeth at those ceremonies of initiation
to which every male member had to submit before he could enjoy the
rights and privileges of a full-grown man.​[633] The reason of the
practice is obscure; a conjecture on this subject has been hazarded
above.​[634] All that concerns us here is the evidence of a belief
that a sympathetic relation continued to exist between the lad and his
teeth after the latter had been extracted from his gums. Thus among
some of the tribes about the river Darling, in New South Wales, the
extracted tooth was placed under the bark of a tree near a river or
water-hole; if the bark grew over the tooth, or if the tooth fell into
the water, all was well; but if it were exposed and the ants ran over
it, the natives believed that the boy would suffer from a disease of
the mouth.​[635] Among the Murring and other tribes of New South Wales
the extracted tooth was at first taken care of by an old man, and then
passed from one headman to another, until it had gone all round the
community, when it came back to the lad’s father, and finally to the
lad himself. But however it was thus conveyed from hand to hand, it
might on no account be placed in a bag containing magical substances,
for to do so would, they believed, put the owner of the tooth in great
danger.​[636] The late Dr. Howitt once acted as custodian of the teeth
which had been extracted from some novices at a ceremony of initiation,
and the old men earnestly besought him not to carry them in a bag in
which they knew that he had some quartz crystals. They declared that
if he did so the magic of the crystals would pass into the teeth, and
so injure the boys. Nearly a year after Dr. Howitt’s return from the
ceremony he was visited by one of the principal men of the Murring
tribe, who had travelled some two hundred and fifty miles from his home
to fetch back the teeth. This man explained that he had been {p177}
sent for them because one of the boys had fallen into ill health,
and it was believed that the teeth had received some injury which had
affected him. He was assured that the teeth had been kept in a box
apart from any substances, like quartz crystals, which could influence
them; and he returned home bearing the teeth with him carefully wrapt
up and concealed.​[637] In the Dieri tribe of South Australia the teeth
knocked out at initiation were bound up in emu feathers, and kept by
the boy’s father or his next-of-kin until the mouth had healed, and
even for long afterwards. Then the father, accompanied by a few old
men, performed a ceremony for the purpose of taking all the supposed
life out of the teeth. He made a low rumbling noise without uttering
any words, blew two or three times with his mouth, and jerked the teeth
through his hand to some little distance. After that he buried them
about eighteen inches under ground. The jerking movement was meant
to shew that he thereby took all the life out of the teeth. Had he
failed to do so, the boy would, in the opinion of the natives, have
been liable to an ulcerated and wry mouth, impediment in speech, and
ultimately a distorted face.​[638] This ceremony is interesting as a
rare instance of an attempt to break the sympathetic link between a man
and a severed part of himself by rendering the part insensitive.

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of teeth in Africa, Europe, America, etc.

Teeth of mice and rats.]

The Basutos are careful to conceal their extracted teeth, lest these
should fall into the hands of certain mythical beings called _baloi_,
who haunt graves, and could harm the owner of the tooth by working
magic on it.​[639] In Sussex some forty years ago a maid-servant
remonstrated strongly against the throwing away of children’s cast
teeth, affirming that should they be found and gnawed by any animal,
the child’s new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth of
the animal that had bitten the old one. In proof of this she named
old Master Simmons, who had a {p178} very large pig’s tooth in his
upper jaw, a personal defect that he always averred was caused by his
mother, who threw away one of his cast teeth by accident into the
hog’s trough.​[640] A similar belief has led to practices intended, on
the principles of homoeopathic magic, to replace old teeth by new and
better ones. Thus in many parts of the world it is customary to put
extracted teeth in some place where they will be found by a mouse or a
rat, in the hope that, through the sympathy which continues to subsist
between them and their former owner, his other teeth may acquire the
same firmness and excellence as the teeth of these rodents. Thus in
Germany it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people
that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert it in a
mouse’s hole. To do so with a child’s milk-tooth which has fallen out
will prevent the child from having toothache. Or you should go behind
the stove and throw your tooth backwards over your head, saying,
“Mouse, give me your iron tooth; I will give you my bone tooth.” After
that your other teeth will remain good. German children say, “Mouse,
mouse, come out and bring me out a new tooth”; or “Mouse, I give you a
little bone; give me a little stone”; or “Mouse, there is an old tooth
for you; make me a new one.” In Bavaria they say that if this ceremony
be observed the child’s second teeth will be as white as the teeth of
mice.​[641] Amongst the South Slavonians, too, the child is taught to
throw his tooth into a dark corner and say, “Mouse, mouse, there is a
bone tooth; give me an iron tooth instead.”​[642] Jewish children in
South Russia throw their cast teeth on the roof with the same request
to the mouse to give them an iron tooth for a tooth of bone.​[643] Far
away {p179} from Europe, at Raratonga, in the Pacific, when a child’s
tooth was extracted, the following prayer used to be recited:—

    “_Big rat! little rat!_
    _Here is my old tooth._
    _Pray give me a new one._”

Then the tooth was thrown on the thatch of the house, because rats make
their nests in the decayed thatch. The reason assigned for invoking
the rats on these occasions was that rats’ teeth were the strongest
known to the natives.​[644] In the Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes,
between New Guinea and Celebes, when a child loses his first tooth, he
must throw it on the roof, saying, “Mouse, I give you my tooth; give
me yours instead.”​[645] In Amboyna the custom is the same, and the
form of words is, “Take this tooth, thrown on the roof, as the mouse’s
share, and give me a better one instead.”​[646] In the Kei Islands, to
the south-west of New Guinea, when a child begins to get his second
teeth, he is lifted up to the top of the roof in order that he may
there deposit, as an offering to the rats, the tooth which has fallen
out. At the same time some one cries aloud, “O rats, here you have
his tooth; give him a golden one instead.”​[647] Among the Ilocans of
Luzon, in the Philippines, when children’s teeth are loose, they are
pulled out with a string and put in a place where rats will be likely
to find and drag them away.​[648] In ancient Mexico, when a child was
getting a new tooth, the father or mother used to put the old one
in a mouse’s hole, believing that if this precaution were not taken
the new tooth would not issue from the gums.​[649] A different and
more barbarous {p180} application of the same principle is the Swabian
superstition that when a child is teething you should bite off the
head of a living mouse, and hang the head round the child’s neck by a
string, taking care, however, to make no knot in the string; then the
child will teethe easily.​[650] In Bohemia the treatment prescribed is
similar, though there they recommend you to use a red thread and to
string three heads of mice on it instead of one.​[651]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of teeth: teeth of squirrels, foxes,
beavers, etc.

Teeth thrown towards the sun.]

But it is not always a mouse or a rat that brings the child a new and
stronger tooth. Apparently any strong-toothed animal will serve the
purpose. Thus when his or her tooth drops out, a Singhalese will throw
it on the roof, saying, “Squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth
and give me a dainty tooth.”​[652] In Bohemia a child will sometimes
throw its cast tooth behind the stove, asking the fox to give him an
iron tooth instead of the bone one.​[653] In Berlin the teeth of a fox
worn as an amulet round a child’s neck make teething easy for him,
and ensure that his teeth will be good and lasting.​[654] Similarly,
in order to help a child to cut its teeth, the aborigines of Victoria
fastened to its wrist the front tooth of a kangaroo, which the child
used as a coral to rub its gums with.​[655] Again, the beaver can
gnaw through the hardest wood. Hence among the Cherokee Indians, when
the loosened milk tooth of a child has been pulled out or has dropped
out of itself, the child runs round the house with it, repeating four
times, “Beaver, put a new tooth into my jaw,” after which he throws the
tooth on the roof of the house.​[656] In Macedonia, a child carefully
keeps for a time its first drawn tooth, and then throws it on the roof
with the following invocation to the crow:— {p181}

    “_O dear crow, here is a tooth of bone,_
    _Take it and give me a tooth of iron instead,_
    _That I may be able to chew beans_
    _And to crunch dry biscuits._”​[657]

We can now understand a custom of the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia, which the writer who records it is unable to explain. When
a child lost its teeth, the father used to take each one as it fell
out and to hide it in a piece of raw venison, which he gave to a dog
to eat. The animal swallowed the venison and the tooth with it.​[658]
Doubtless the custom was intended to ensure that the child’s new teeth
should be as strong as those of a dog. In Silesia mothers sometimes
swallow their children’s cast teeth in order to save their offspring
from toothache. The intention is perhaps to strengthen the weak teeth
of the child by the strong teeth of the grown woman.​[659] Amongst the
Warramunga of Central Australia, when a girl’s tooth has been knocked
out as a solemn ceremony, it is pounded up and the fragments placed in
a piece of flesh, which has to be eaten by the girl’s mother. When the
same rite has been performed on a man, his pounded tooth must be eaten
in a piece of meat by his mother-in-law.​[660] Among the heathen Arabs,
when a boy’s tooth fell out, he used to take it between his finger and
thumb and throw it towards the sun, saying, “Give me a better for it.”
After that his teeth were sure to grow straight, and close, and strong.
“The sun,” says Tharafah, “gave the lad from his own nursery-ground a
tooth like a hailstone, white and polished.”​[661] Thus the reason for
throwing the old teeth towards the sun would seem to have been a notion
that the sun sends hail, from which it naturally follows that he can
send you a tooth as smooth and white and hard as a hailstone. Among the
peasants of the Lebanon, when a child loses a milk tooth, he throws it
{p182} towards the sun, saying, “Sun, sun, take the ass’s tooth and give
me the deer’s tooth.” They sometimes say jestingly that the child’s
tooth has been carried off by a mouse.​[662] An Armenian generally
buries his extracted teeth at the edge of the hearth with the prayer:
“Grandfather, take a dog’s tooth and give me a golden tooth.”​[663]
In the light of the preceding examples, we may conjecture that the
grandfather here invoked is not so much the soul of a dead ancestor as
a mouse or a rat.

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string and afterbirth among the
Maoris and the aborigines of Australia.]

Other parts which are commonly believed to remain in a sympathetic
union with the body, after the physical connexion has been severed,
are the navel-string and the afterbirth, including the placenta. So
intimate, indeed, is the union conceived to be, that the fortunes of
the individual for good or evil throughout life are often supposed
to be bound up with one or other of these portions of his person,
so that if his navel-string or afterbirth is preserved and properly
treated, he will be prosperous; whereas if it be injured or lost, he
will suffer accordingly. Thus among the Maoris, when the navel-string
dropped off, the child was carried to a priest to be solemnly named
by him. But before the ceremony of naming began, the navel-string was
buried in a sacred place and a young sapling was planted over it.
Ever afterwards that tree, as it grew, was a _tohu oranga_ or sign of
life for the child.​[664] In the Upper Whakatane valley, in the North
Island of New Zealand, there is a famous _hinau_ tree, to which the
Maoris used to attach the navel-strings of their children; and barren
women were in the habit of embracing the tree in the hope of thereby
obtaining offspring.​[665] Again, among the Maoris, “the placenta
is named _fenua_, which word signifies land. It is applied by the
natives to the placenta, from their supposing it to be the residence
of the child: on being discharged it is immediately buried with {p183}
great care, as they have the superstitious idea that the priests, if
offended, would procure it; and, by praying over it, occasion the death
of both mother and child, by ‘praying them to death,’ to use their
own expression.”​[666] Again, some of the natives of South Australia
regarded the placenta as sacred and carefully put it away out of reach
of the dogs,​[667] doubtless because they thought that harm would come
to the child if this part of himself were eaten by the animals. Certain
tribes of Western Australia believe that a man swims well or ill,
according as his mother at his birth threw the navel-string into water
or not.​[668] Among the Arunta of Central Australia the navel-string
is swathed in fur-string and made into a necklace, which is placed
round the child’s neck. The necklace is supposed to facilitate the
growth of the child, to keep it quiet and contented, and to avert
illness generally.​[669] In the Kaitish tribe of Central Australia the
practice and belief are similar.​[670] In the Warramunga tribe, after
the string has hung round the child’s neck for a time, it is given to
the wife’s brother, who wears it in his armlet, and who may not see the
child till it can walk. In return for the navel-string, the man makes a
present of weapons to the infant’s father. When the child can walk, the
father gives fur-string to the man, who now comes to the camp, sees the
child, and makes another present to the father. After that he keeps the
navel-string for some time longer, and finally places it in a hollow
tree known only to himself.​[671] Among the natives on the Pennefather
river in Queensland it is {p184} believed that a part of the child’s
spirit (_cho-i_) stays in the afterbirth. Hence the grandmother takes
the afterbirth away and buries it in the sand. She marks the spot by a
number of twigs which she sticks in the ground in a circle, tying their
tops together so that the structure resembles a cone. When Anjea, the
being who causes conception in women by putting mud babies into their
wombs, comes along and sees the place, he takes out the spirit and
carries it away to one of his haunts, such as a tree, a hole in a rock,
or a lagoon, where it may remain for years. But sometime or other he
will put the spirit again into a baby, and it will be born once more
into the world.​[672]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string in New Guinea, Fiji, the
Caroline Islands, and the Gilbert Islands.]

In the Yabim tribe of German New Guinea the mother ties the
navel-string to the net in which she carries the child, lest any
one should use the string to the child’s hurt.​[673] “In some parts
of Fiji the navel-string of a male infant is planted together with
a cocoanut, or slip of a bread-fruit tree, and the child’s life is
supposed to be intimately connected with that of the tree. Moreover,
the planting is supposed to have the effect of making the boy a good
climber. If the child be a girl, the mother or her sister will take
the navel-string to the sea-water when she goes out fishing for the
first time after the childbirth, and she will throw it into the sea
when the nets are stretched in line. Thus the girl will grow up into a
skilful fisherwoman. But the queerest use I ever saw the string put to
was at Rotuma. There it has become almost obligatory for a young man,
who wants the girls to respect him, to make a voyage in a white man’s
vessel; and mothers come alongside ships anchored in the roadstead and
fasten their boy’s navel-string to the vessel’s chain-plates. This
will make sure of a voyage for the child when it has grown up. This,
of course, must be a modern development, but it has all the strength
of an ancient custom.”​[674] In Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands,
the {p185} navel-string is placed in a shell and then disposed of in
such a way as shall best adapt the child for the career which the
parents have chosen for him. Thus if they wish to make him a good
climber, they will hang the navel-string on a tree.​[675] In the
Gilbert Islands the navel-string is wrapt by the child’s father or
adoptive father in a pandanus leaf, and then worn by him as a bracelet
for several months. After that he keeps it most carefully in the hut,
generally hanging under the ridge-beam. The islanders believe that
if the navel-string is thus preserved, the child will become a great
warrior if it is a boy, or will make a good match if it is a girl. But
should the bracelet be lost before the child is grown up, they expect
that the boy will prove a coward in war, and that the girl will make
an unfortunate marriage. Hence the most anxious search is made for the
missing talisman, and if it is not to be found, weeks will pass before
the relations resign themselves to its loss. When the boy has grown to
be a youth and has distinguished himself for the first time in war, the
bracelet containing the navel-string is taken by the villagers, on a
day fixed for the purpose, far out to sea; the adoptive father of the
lad throws the bracelet overboard, and all the canoes begin to catch as
many fish as they can. The first fish caught, whether large or small,
is carefully preserved apart from the rest. Meantime the old women at
home have been busy preparing a copious banquet for the fishermen. When
the little fleet comes to shore, the old woman who helped at the lad’s
birth goes to meet it; the first fish caught is handed to her, and she
carries it to the hut. The fish is laid on a new mat, the youth and his
mother take their places beside it, and they and it are covered up with
another mat. Then the old woman goes round the mat, striking the ground
with a short club and murmuring a prayer to the lad’s god to help him
henceforth in war, that he may be brave and invulnerable, and that he
may turn out a skilful fisherman. The navel-string of a girl, as soon
as she is grown up, is thrown into the sea with similar ceremonies; and
the ceremony on land is the same except that the old woman’s prayer
is {p186} naturally different; she asks the girl’s god to grant that
she may have a happy marriage and many children. After the mat has
been removed, the fish is cooked and eaten by the two; if it is too
large to be eaten by them alone, the remainder is consumed by friends
and relations. These ceremonies are only observed for the children of
wealthy parents, who can defray the cost. In the case of a child of
poorer parents the bracelet containing the navel-string simply hangs up
till it disappears in one way or another.​[676]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string and afterbirth in the
Moluccas.]

Among the Galelareese, to the west of New Guinea, the mother sometimes
keeps the navel-string till the child is old enough to begin to play.
Then she gives it as a plaything to the little one, who may take it
away; otherwise the child would be idiotic. But others plant the
navel-string with a banana-bush or a coco-nut.​[677] The Kei islanders,
to the south-west of New Guinea, regard the navel-string as the brother
or sister of the child, according as the infant is a boy or a girl.
They put it in a pot with ashes, and set it in the branches of a tree,
that it may keep a watchful eye on the fortunes of its comrade.​[678]
In the Babar Archipelago, between New Guinea and Celebes, the placenta
is mixed with ashes and put in a small basket, which seven women,
each of them armed with a sword, hang up on a tree of a particular
kind (_Citrus hystrix_). The women carry swords for the purpose of
frightening the evil spirits; otherwise these mischievous beings might
get hold of the placenta and make the child sick. The navel-string is
kept in a little box in the house.​[679] In the Tenimber and Timorlaut
islands the placenta is buried in a basket under a sago or coco-nut
palm, which then becomes the property of the child. But sometimes it is
hidden in the forest, or deposited in a hole under the house with an
offering of betel.​[680] In the {p187} Watubela islands the placenta
is buried under a coco-nut, _mangga_, or great fig-tree along with
the shell of the coco-nut, of which the pulp had been used to smear
the newborn child.​[681] In many of the islands between New Guinea
and Celebes the placenta is put in the branches of a tree, often in
the top of one of the highest trees in the neighbourhood. Sometimes
the navel-string is deposited along with the placenta in the tree,
but often it is kept to be used as medicine or an amulet by the
child.​[682] Thus in Ceram the child sometimes wears the navel-string
round its neck as a charm to avert sickness;​[683] and in the islands
of Leti, Moa, and Lakor he carries it as an amulet in war or on a
far journey.​[684] We cannot doubt that the intention of putting the
placenta in the top of a tall tree is to keep it, and with it the
child, out of harm’s way. In the islands of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and
Noessa Laut, to the east of Amboyna, the midwife buries the afterbirth
and strews flowers over it. Moreover, resin or a lamp is kept burning
for seven or three nights over the buried afterbirth, in order that
no harm may come to the child. Some people, however, in these islands
solemnly cast the afterbirth into the sea. Being placed in a pot and
closely covered up with a piece of white cotton, it is taken out to
sea in a boat. A hole is knocked in the pot to allow it to sink in the
water. The midwife, who is charged with the duty of heaving the pot
and its contents overboard, must look straight ahead; if she were to
glance to the right or left the child whose afterbirth is in the pot
would squint. And the man who rows or steers the boat must make her
keep a straight course, otherwise the child would grow up a gad-about.
Before the pot is flung into the sea, the midwife disengages the piece
of white cotton in which it is wrapt, and this cloth she takes straight
back to the house and covers the baby with it. In these islands it is
thought that a child born with a caul will enjoy in later years the
gift of second sight—that is, that he will be able to see things which
are hidden from common eyes, such as devils and evil spirits. But if
his parents desire to prevent {p188} him from exercising this uncanny
power, they can do so. In that case the midwife must dry the caul in
the sun, steep it in water, and then wash the child with the water
thrice; further, when the child is a little older, she must grind the
caul to powder, and give the child the powder to eat with its pap. Some
people keep the caul; and if the child falls ill, it is given water
to drink in which the caul has been steeped.​[685] Similarly in the
Luang-Sermata islands a child born with a caul is counted lucky, and
can perceive and recognise the spirits of his ancestors.​[686] A caul,
it may be said, is merely the fœtal membrane which usually forms part
of the afterbirth; occasionally a child is born with it wrapt like a
hood round its head.

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of the placenta in Celebes.]

In Parigi, a kingdom on the coast of Central Celebes, the placenta
is laid in a cooking-pot, and one of the mother’s female relations
carries the pot wrapt in white cotton and hidden under a petticoat
(_sarong_) to a spot beneath the house or elsewhere, and there she
buries it. A coco-nut is planted near the place. Going and coming the
woman is led by another, and must keep her eyes fast shut, for if
she looked right or left the child would squint, “because she is at
this time closely united with a part of the child, to wit its older
brother, in other words the placenta.” On her return to the house she
lies down on her sleeping-mat, still with closed eyes, and draws a
petticoat over her head, and another woman sprinkles her with water.
After that she may get up and open her eyes. The sprinkling with
water is intended to sever her sympathetic connexion with the child
and so prevent her from exercising any influence on it.​[687] Among
the Tolalaki of Central Celebes turmeric and other spices are put on
the placenta, {p189} which is then enclosed in two coco-nut shells
that fit one on the other. These are wrapt in bark-cloth and kept in
the house. If the child falls ill, the coco-nut shells are opened and
the placenta examined. Should there be worms in it, they are removed
and fresh spices added. When the child has grown big and strong, the
placenta is thrown away.​[688] Among the Toboongkoo of Central Celebes
the afterbirth is placed in a rice-pot with various plants, which are
intended to preserve it from decay as long as possible; it is then
carefully tied up in bark-cloth. A man and a woman of the family carry
the placenta away; in doing so they go out and in the house four times,
and each time they enter they kiss the child, but they take care not to
look to the right or the left, for otherwise the child would squint.
Some bury the placenta, others hang it on a tree. If the child is
unwell, they dig up the placenta or take it down from the tree, and
lay bananas, rice of four sorts, and a lighted taper beside it. Having
done so, they hang it up on a tree if it was previously buried; but
they bury it if it was formerly hung up.​[689] The Tomori of Central
Celebes wash the afterbirth, put it in a rice-pot, and bury it under
the house. Great care is taken that no water or spittle falls on the
place. For a few days the afterbirth is sometimes fed with rice and
eggs, which are laid on the spot where it is buried. Afterwards the
people cease to trouble themselves about it.​[690] In southern Celebes
they call the navel-string and afterbirth the two brothers or sisters
of the child. When the infant happens to be a prince or princess, the
navel-string and afterbirth are placed with salt and tamarind in a new
rice-pot, which is then enveloped in a fine robe and tightly corded up
to prevent the evil spirits from making off with the pair of brothers
or sisters. For the same reason a light is kept burning all night, and
twice a day rice is rubbed on the edge of the pot, for the purpose,
as the people say, of giving the child’s little brothers or sisters
something to eat. After a while this feeding, as it is called, takes
place at {p190} rarer intervals, and when the mother has been again
brought to bed it is discontinued altogether. On the ninth day after
the birth a number of coco-nuts are planted, with much ceremony, in
a square enclosure, and the water which was used in cleansing the
afterbirth and navel-string is poured upon them. These coco-nuts are
called the contemporaries of the child and grow up with him. When the
planting is done, the rice-pot with the navel-string and afterbirth is
carried back and set beside the bed of the young prince or princess,
and when his royal highness is carried out to take the air the rice-pot
with his two “brothers” goes out with him, swathed in a robe of state
and screened from the sun by an umbrella. If the prince or princess
should die, the afterbirth and navel-string are buried. Among common
people in South Celebes these parts of the infant are generally buried
immediately after the birth, or they are sunk in the deep sea, or hung
in a rice-pot on a tree.​[691]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of the placenta and navel-string in Timor,
Savou, and Rotti]

In the island of Timor the placenta is called the child’s companion
and treated accordingly. The midwife puts it in an earthen pot and
covers it with ashes from the hearth. After standing thus three days
it is taken away and buried by a person who must observe silence in
discharging this duty.​[692] In Savou, a small island to the south-west
of Timor, the afterbirth is filled with native herbs, and having been
deposited in a new pot, which has never before been used, is buried
under the house to keep off evil spirits. Or it is put in a new basket
and hung in a high toddy palm to fertilise it, or thrown into the sea
to secure a good catch of fish. The person who thus disposes of the
afterbirth may not look to the right or the left; he must be joyous
and, if possible, go singing on his way. If it is to be hung on a tree,
he must climb nimbly up, in order that the child may always be lucky.
These islanders ascribe a similar fertilising virtue to a caul. It is
dried and carefully kept in a box. When rice-stalks turn black and the
ears refuse to set, a man will take the box containing the caul and run
several {p191} times round the rice-field, in order that the wind may
waft the genial influence of the caul over the rice.​[693] In Rotti,
an island to the south of Timor, the navel-string is put in a small
satchel made of leaves, and if the father of the child is not himself
going on a voyage, he entrusts the bag to one of his seafaring friends
and charges him to throw it away in the open sea with the express wish
that, when the child grows up and has to sail to other islands, he
may escape the perils of the deep. But the business of girls in these
islands does not lie in the great waters, and hence their navel-strings
receive a different treatment. It is their task to go afishing daily,
when the tide is out, on the coral reefs which ring the islands. So
when the mother is herself again, she repairs with the little satchel
to the reef where she is wont to fish. Acting the part of a priestess
she there eats one or two small bagfuls of boiled rice on the spot
where she intends to deposit the dried navel-string of her baby
daughter, taking care to leave a few grains of rice in the bags. Then
she ties the precious satchel and the nearly empty rice-bags to a stick
and fastens it among the stones of the reef, generally on its outer
edge, within sight and sound of the breaking waves. In doing so she
utters a wish that this ceremony may guard her daughter from the perils
and dangers that beset her on the reef—for example, that no crocodile
may issue from the lagoon and eat her up, and that the sharp corals and
broken shells may not wound her feet.​[694]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of the placenta in Flores, Bali, and Java.]

In the island of Flores the placenta is put in an earthen pot, along
with some rice and betel, and buried by the father in the neighbourhood
of the house, or else preserved in one of the highest trees.​[695] The
natives of Bali, an island to the east of Java, believe firmly that
the afterbirth is the child’s brother or sister, and they bury it in
the courtyard in the half of a coco-nut from which the kernel has not
been {p192} removed. For forty days afterwards a light is burned, and
food, water, and betel deposited on the spot,​[696] doubtless in order
to feed the baby’s little brother or sister, and to guard him or her
from evil spirits. In Java the afterbirth is also called the brother
or sister of the infant; it is wrapt in white cotton, put in a new pot
or a coco-nut shell, and buried by the father beside the door, outside
the house if the child is a boy, but inside the house if the child is
a girl. Every evening until the child’s navel has healed a lamp is
lit over the spot where the afterbirth is buried. If the afterbirth
hangs in a rice-pot in the house, as the practice is with some people,
the lamp burns under the place where the rice-pot is suspended. The
purpose of the light is to ward off demons, to whose machinations the
child and its supposed brother or sister are at this season especially
exposed.​[697] If the child is a boy, a piece of paper inscribed with
the alphabet is deposited in the pot with his placenta, in order that
he may be smart at his learning; if the child is a girl, a needle and
thread are deposited in the pot, that she may be a good sempstress,
and water with flowers in it is poured on the spot where the placenta
is buried, in order that the child may always be healthy; for many
Javanese think that if the placenta is not properly honoured, the child
will never be well.​[698] Sometimes, however, women in the interior
of Java allow the placenta, surrounded with fruits and flowers and
illuminated by little lamps, to float down the river in the dusk of the
evening as an offering to the crocodiles, or rather to the ancestors
whose souls are believed to lodge in these animals.​[699]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Sumatra.]

In Mandeling, a district on the west coast of Sumatra, the afterbirth
is washed and buried under the house or put in an earthenware pot,
which is carefully shut up and thrown {p193} into the river. This is
done to avert the supposed unfavourable influence of the afterbirth
on the child, whose hands or feet, for example, might be chilled by
it. When the navel-string drops off, it is preserved to be used as
a medicine when its former owner is ill.​[700] In Mandeling, too,
the midwife prefers to cut the navel-string with a piece of a flute
on which she has first blown, for then the child will be sure to
have a fine voice.​[701] Among the Minangkabau people of Sumatra the
placenta is put in a new earthenware pot, which is then carefully
closed with a banana leaf to prevent the ants and other insects from
coming at it; for if they did, the child would be sickly and given
to squalling.​[702] In Central Sumatra the placenta is wrapt in
white cotton, deposited in a basket or a calabash, and buried in the
courtyard before the house or under a rice-barn. The hole is dug by a
kinsman or kinswoman according as the baby is a boy or a girl. Over the
hole is placed a stone from the hearth, and beside it a wooden spoon is
stuck in the ground. Both stone and spoon are sprinkled with the juice
of a citron. During the ceremony _koemajen_ is burned and a shot fired.
For three evenings afterwards candles are lighted at the spot,​[703]
doubtless to keep off demons. Among the Battas of Sumatra, as among so
many other peoples of the Indian Archipelago, the placenta passes for
the child’s younger brother or sister, the sex being determined by the
sex of the child, and it is buried under the house. According to the
Battas it is bound up with the child’s welfare, and seems, in fact, to
be the seat of the transferable soul, of whose wanderings outside of
the body we shall hear something later on.​[704] The Karo Battas even
affirm {p194} that of a man’s two souls it is the true soul that lives
with the placenta under the house; that is the soul, they say, which
begets children.​[705]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Borneo,
India, and Assam.

Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in the Patani States,
China, and Japan.]

In Pasir, a district of eastern Borneo, the afterbirth is carefully
treated and kept in an earthen pot or basket in the house until the
remains of the navel-string have fallen off. All the time it is in
the house candles are burned and a little food is placed beside the
pot. When the navel-string has fallen off, it is placed with the
placenta in the pot, and the two are buried in the ground near the
house. The reason why the people take this care of the afterbirth is
that they believe it able to cause the child all kinds of sickness and
mishaps.​[706] The Malas, a low Telugu caste of Southern India, bury
the placenta in a pot with leaves in some convenient place, generally
in the back yard, lest dogs or other animals should carry it off;
for if that were to happen they fancy that the child would be of a
wandering disposition.​[707] The Khasis of Assam keep the placenta in
a pot in the house until the child has been formally named. When that
ceremony is over, the father waves the pot containing the placenta
thrice over the child’s head, and then hangs it to a tree outside
of the village.​[708] In some Malayo-Siamese families of the Patani
States it is customary to bury the afterbirth under a banana-tree, the
condition of which is thenceforth regarded as ominous of the child’s
fate for good or ill.​[709] A Chinese medical work prescribes that
“the placenta should be stored away in a felicitous spot under the
salutary influences of the sky or the moon, deep in the ground, and
with earth piled up over it carefully, in order that the child may be
ensured a long life. If it is devoured by a swine or dog, the child
loses its intellect; if insects or ants eat it, the child becomes
scrofulous; if crows or magpies swallow it, {p195} the child will have
an abrupt or violent death; if it is cast into the fire, the child
incurs running sores.”​[710] The Japanese preserve the navel-string
most carefully and bury it with the dead in the grave.​[711]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Africa,
especially among the Baganda.]

Among the Gallas of East Africa the navel-string is carefully kept,
sewn up in leather, and serves as an amulet for female camels, which
then become the child’s property, together with all the young they give
birth to.​[712] The Baganda believe that every person is born with a
double, and this double they identify with the afterbirth, which they
regard as a second child. Further, they think that the afterbirth has a
ghost, and that the ghost is in that portion of the navel-string which
remains attached to the child after birth. This ghost must be preserved
if the child is to be healthy. Hence when the navel-string drops off,
it is rubbed with butter, swathed in bark-cloth, and kept through life
under the name of “the twin” (_mulongo_). The afterbirth is wrapt up
in plantain leaves and buried by the child’s mother at the root of a
plantain tree, where it is protected against wild beasts. If the child
be a boy, the tree chosen is of the kind whose fruit is made into beer;
if the child be a girl, the tree is of the kind whose fruit is eaten.
The plantain tree at whose root the afterbirth is buried becomes sacred
until the fruit has ripened and been used. Only the father’s mother may
come near it and dig about it; all other people are kept from it by
a rope of plantain fibre which is tied from tree to tree in a circle
round about the sacred plantain. All the child’s secretions are thrown
by the mother at the root of the tree; when the fruit is ripe, the
father’s mother cuts it and makes it into beer or cooks it, according
to the sex of the child, and the relatives of the father’s clan then
come and partake of the sacred feast. After the meal the father must
go in to his own wife, for should he neglect to do so, and should some
other member of the clan have sexual relations with his wife first, the
child’s spirit would leave it and go into the other woman. Further,
{p196} the navel-string plays a part at the ceremony of naming a
child, the object of which among the Baganda is to determine whether
the child is legitimate or not. For this purpose the navel-string (the
so-called “twin”) is dropped into a bowl containing a mixture of beer,
milk, and water; if it floats, the child is legitimate and the clan
accepts it as a member; if it sinks, the child is disowned by the clan
and the mother is punished for adultery. Afterwards the navel-string
or “twin” (_mulongo_) is either kept by the clan or buried along with
the afterbirth at the root of the plantain tree. Such are the customs
observed with regard to the afterbirth and navel-string of Baganda
commoners. The king’s navel-string or “twin,” wrapt in bark-cloths and
decorated with beads, is treated like a person and confided to the care
of the Kimbugwe, the second officer of the country, who has a special
house built for it within his enclosure. Every month, when the new moon
first appears in the sky, the Kimbugwe carries the bundle containing
the “twin” in procession, with fife and drums playing, to the king,
while the royal drum is beating in the royal enclosure. The king
examines it and hands it back to him. After that, the minister returns
the precious bundle to its own house in his enclosure and places it
in the doorway, where it remains all night. Next morning it is taken
from its wrappings, smeared with butter, and again set in the doorway
until the evening, when it is swathed once more in its bark-cloths and
restored to its proper resting-place. After the king’s death his “twin”
is deposited, along with his jawbone, in the huge hut which forms his
temple. The spirit of the dead king is supposed to dwell in these two
relics; they are placed on the daïs when he wishes to hold his court
and when he is oracularly consulted on special occasions.​[713]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string and afterbirth in America.]

The Incas of Peru preserved the navel-string with the greatest care,
and gave it to the child to suck whenever it fell ill.​[714] In ancient
Mexico they used to give a boy’s {p197} navel-string to soldiers, to
be buried by them on a field of battle, in order that the boy might
thus acquire a passion for war. But the navel-string of a girl was
buried beside the domestic hearth, because this was believed to inspire
her with a love of home and a taste for cooking and baking.​[715]
Algonquin women hung the navel-string round the child’s neck; if he
lost it, they thought the child would be stupid and spiritless.​[716]
Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia the navel-string was
sewed up by the mother in a piece of buckskin embroidered with hair,
quills, or beads. It was then tied to the broad buckskin band which
extended round the head of the cradle on the outside. Many thongs hung
from it, each carrying fawn’s hoofs and beads that jingled when the
cradle was moved. If the navel-string were lost, they looked on it as a
calamity, for they believed that in after years the child would become
foolish or would be lost in the chase or on a journey.​[717] Among the
Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia the afterbirth of girls is buried
at high-water mark, in the belief that this will render them expert
at digging for clam. The afterbirth of boys is sometimes exposed at
places where ravens will eat it, because the boys will thus acquire
the raven’s prophetic vision. The same Indians are persuaded that the
navel-string may be the means of imparting a variety of accomplishments
to its original owner. Thus, if it is fastened to a dancing mask,
which is then worn by a skilful dancer, the child will dance well.
If it is attached to a knife, which is thereafter used by a cunning
carver, the child will carve well. Again, if the parents wish their
son to sing beautifully, they tie his navel-string to the baton of a
singing-master. Then the boy calls on the singing-master every morning
while the artist is eating his breakfast. The votary of the Muses
thereupon takes his baton and moves it twice down the right side and
twice down the left side of the boy’s body, after which he gives the
lad some of his food to eat. That {p198} is an infallible way of making
the boy a beautiful singer.​[718] Among the Cherokees the navel-string
of an infant girl is buried under the corn mortar, in order that the
girl may grow up to be a good baker; but the navel-string of a boy is
hung up on a tree in the woods, in order that he may be a hunter. Among
the Kiowas the navel-string of a girl is sewn up in a small beaded
pouch and worn by her at her belt as she grows to womanhood. If the
girl’s mother ever sells the belt and pouch, she is careful to extract
the navel-string from the pouch before the bargain is struck. Should
the child die, the pouch containing her navel-string would be fastened
to a stick and set up over her grave.​[719]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string and afterbirth in Europe.

Child’s guardian spirit associated with the chorion.]

Even in Europe many people still believe that a person’s destiny is
more or less bound up with that of his navel-string or afterbirth. Thus
in Rhenish Bavaria the navel-string is kept for a while wrapt up in
a piece of old linen, and then cut or pricked to pieces according as
the child is a boy or a girl, in order that he or she may grow up to
be a skilful workman or a good sempstress.​[720] In Berlin the midwife
commonly delivers the dried navel-string to the father with a strict
injunction to preserve it carefully, for so long as it is kept the
child will live and thrive and be free from sickness.​[721] In Beauce
and Perche the people are careful to throw the navel-string neither
into water nor into fire, believing that if that were done the child
would be drowned or burned.​[722] Among the Ruthenians of Bukowina
and Galicia, the owner of a cow sometimes endeavours to increase its
milk by throwing its afterbirth into a spring, “in order that, just as
the water flows from the spring, so milk may flow in abundance from
the udders of the cow.”​[723] Some German peasants think that the
afterbirth of a cow must be hung up in an apple-tree, otherwise the cow
would not have {p199} a calf next year.​[724] Similarly at Cleveland in
Yorkshire, when a mare foals, it is the custom to hang up the placenta
in a tree, particularly in a thorn-tree, in order to secure luck with
the foal. “Should the birth take place in the fields, this suspension
is most carefully attended to, while as for the requirements of such
events at the homestead, in not a few instances there is a certain tree
not far from the farm-buildings still specially marked out for the
reception of these peculiar pendants. In one instance lately, I heard
of a larch tree so devoted, but admittedly in default of the thorn; the
old thorn-tree long employed for the purpose having died out.”​[725]
Again, in Europe children born with a caul are considered lucky;​[726]
in Holland, as in the East Indies, they can see ghosts.​[727] The
Icelanders also hold that a child born with a caul will afterwards
possess the gift of second sight, that he will never be harmed by
sorcery, and will be victorious in every contest he undertakes,
provided he has the caul dried and carries it with him.​[728] This
latter belief explains why both in ancient and modern times advocates
have bought cauls with the hope of winning their cases by means of
them.​[729] Probably they thought that the spirit in the caul would
prove an invincible ally to the person who had purchased its services.
In like manner the aborigines of Central Australia believe that their
sacred sticks or stones (_churinga_) are intimately associated with the
spirits of the dead men to whom they belonged, and that in a fight a
man who carries one of these sticks or stones will certainly vanquish
an adversary who has no such talisman.​[730] Further, it is an ancient
belief in Iceland that the child’s guardian spirit or a part of its
soul has its seat in the chorion or foetal membrane, which usually
forms part of the afterbirth, but is known as the caul when the child
{p200} happens to be born with it. Hence the chorion was itself known
as the _fylgia_ or guardian spirit. It might not be thrown away under
the open sky, lest demons should get hold of it and work the child harm
thereby, or lest wild beasts should eat it up. It might not be burned,
for if it were burned the child would have no _fylgia_, which would
be as bad as to have no shadow. Formerly it was customary to bury the
chorion under the threshold, where the mother stepped over it daily
when she rose from bed. If the chorion was thus treated, the man had
in after life a guardian spirit in the shape of a bear, an eagle, a
wolf, an ox, or a boar. The guardian spirits of cunning men and wizards
had the shape of a fox, while those of beautiful women appeared as
swans. In all these forms the guardian spirits formerly announced their
coming and presented themselves to the persons to whom they belonged;
but nowadays both the belief and the custom have changed in many
respects.​[731]

[Sidenote: Afterbirth or navel-string a seat of the external soul.]

Thus in many parts of the world the navel-string, or more commonly
the afterbirth, is regarded as a living being, the brother or sister
of the infant, or as the material object in which the guardian spirit
of the child or part of its soul resides. This latter belief we have
found among the aborigines of Queensland, the Battas of Sumatra, and
the Norsemen of Iceland. In accordance with such beliefs it has been
customary to preserve these parts of the body, at least for a time,
with the utmost care, lest the character, the fate, or even the life
of the person to whom they belong should be endangered by their injury
or loss. Further, the sympathetic connexion supposed to exist between
a person and his afterbirth or navel-string comes out very clearly in
the widespread custom of treating the afterbirth or navel-string in
ways which are supposed to influence for life the character and career
of the person, making him, if it is a man, a swift runner, a nimble
climber, a strong swimmer, a skilful hunter, or a brave soldier, and
making her, if it is a woman, an expert fisher, a cunning sempstress,
a good cook or baker, and so forth. Thus the beliefs and usages {p201}
concerned with the afterbirth or placenta, and to a less extent with
the navel-string, present a remarkable parallel to the widespread
doctrine of the transferable or external soul and the customs founded
on it. Hence it is hardly rash to conjecture that the resemblance is
no mere chance coincidence, but that in the afterbirth or placenta we
have a physical basis (not necessarily the only one) for the theory and
practice of the external soul. The consideration of that subject is
reserved for a later part of this work.​[732]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic exemplified in the sympathetic connexion
supposed to exist between a wound and the weapon which inflicted it.

Bacon on the custom of anointing the weapon in order to heal the wound.

East Anglian practice of anointing the weapon instead of the wound.]

A curious application of the doctrine of contagious magic is the
relation commonly believed to exist between a wounded man and the agent
of the wound, so that whatever is subsequently done by or to the agent
must correspondingly affect the patient either for good or evil. Thus
Pliny tells us that if you have wounded a man and are sorry for it, you
have only to spit on the hand that gave the wound, and the pain of the
sufferer will be instantly alleviated.​[733] In Melanesia, if a man’s
friends get possession of the arrow which wounded him, they keep it
in a damp place or in cool leaves, for then the inflammation will be
trifling and will soon subside. Meantime the enemy who shot the arrow
is hard at work to aggravate the wound by all the means in his power.
For this purpose he and his friends drink hot and burning juices and
chew irritating leaves, for this will clearly inflame and irritate the
wound. Further, they keep the bow near the fire to make the wound which
it has inflicted hot; and for the same reason they put the arrow-head,
if it has been recovered, into the fire. Moreover, they are careful
to keep the bow-string taut and to twang it occasionally, for this
will cause the wounded man to suffer from tension of the nerves and
spasms of tetanus.​[734] Similarly when a Kwakiutl Indian of British
Columbia had bitten a piece out of an enemy’s arm, he used to drink
hot water afterwards for the purpose of thereby inflaming the wound
in his foe’s {p202} body.​[735] Among the Lkuñgen Indians of the same
region it is a rule that an arrow, or any other weapon that has wounded
a man, must be hidden by his friends, who have to be careful not to
bring it near the fire till the wound is healed. If a knife or an arrow
which is still covered with a man’s blood were thrown into the fire,
the wounded man would suffer very much.​[736] In the Yerkla-mining
tribe of south-eastern Australia it is thought that if any one but
the medicine-man touches the flint knife with which a boy has been
subincised, the boy will thereby be made very ill. So seriously is
this belief held that if the lad chanced thereafter to fall sick and
die, the man who had touched the knife would be killed.​[737] “It is
constantly received and avouched,” says Bacon, “that the anointing of
the weapon that maketh the wound will heal the wound itself. In this
experiment, upon the relation of men of credit (though myself, as
yet, am not fully inclined to believe it), you shall note the points
following: first, the ointment wherewith this is done is made of divers
ingredients, whereof the strangest and hardest to come by are the moss
upon the skull of a dead man unburied, and the fats of a boar and a
bear killed in the act of generation.” The precious ointment compounded
out of these and other ingredients was applied, as the philosopher
explains, not to the wound but to the weapon, and that even though the
injured man was at a great distance and knew nothing about it. The
experiment, he tells us, had been tried of wiping the ointment off the
weapon without the knowledge of the person hurt, with the result that
he was presently in a great rage of pain until the weapon was anointed
again. Moreover, “it is affirmed that if you cannot get the weapon, yet
if you put an instrument of iron or wood resembling the weapon into
the wound, whereby it bleedeth, the anointing of that instrument will
serve and work the effect.”​[738] Remedies of the {p203} sort which
Bacon deemed worthy of his attention are still in vogue in the eastern
counties of England. Thus in Suffolk if a man cuts himself with a
bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the weapon bright,
and oils it to prevent the wound from festering. If he runs a thorn or,
as he calls it, a bush into his hand, he oils or greases the extracted
thorn. A man came to a doctor with an inflamed hand, having run a
thorn into it while he was hedging. On being told that the hand was
festering, he remarked, “That didn’t ought to, for I greased the bush
well arter I pulled it out.” If a horse wounds its foot by treading on
a nail, a Suffolk groom will invariably preserve the nail, clean it,
and grease it every day, to prevent the foot from festering. Arguing
in the same way, a Suffolk woman, whose sister had burnt her face with
a flat-iron, observed that “the face would never heal till the iron
had been put out of the way; and even if it did heal, it would be sure
to break out again every time the iron was heated.”​[739] At Norwich
in June 1902 a woman named Matilda Henry accidentally ran a nail into
her foot. Without examining the wound, or even removing her stocking,
she caused her daughter to grease the nail, saying that if this were
done no harm would come of the hurt. A few days afterwards she died of
lockjaw.​[740] Similarly Cambridgeshire labourers think that if a horse
has run a nail into its foot, it is necessary to grease the nail with
lard or oil and put it away in some safe place, or the horse will not
recover. A few years ago a veterinary surgeon was sent for to attend a
horse which had ripped its side open on the hinge of a farm gatepost.
On arriving at the farm he found that nothing had been done to the
wounded horse, but that a man was busy trying to pry the hinge out of
the gatepost in order that it might be greased and put away, which, in
the opinion of the Cambridge wiseacres, would conduce to the recovery
of the {p204} animal.​[741] Similarly Essex rustics opine that, if a
man has been stabbed with a knife, it is essential to his recovery
that the knife should be greased and laid across the bed on which the
sufferer is lying.​[742] So in Bavaria you are directed to anoint a
linen rag with grease and tie it on the edge of the axe that cut you,
taking care to keep the sharp edge upwards. As the grease on the axe
dries, your wound heals.​[743] Similarly in the Harz mountains they say
that if you cut yourself, you ought to smear the knife or the scissors
with fat and put the instrument away in a dry place in the name of
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. As the knife dries,
the wound heals.​[744] Other people, however, in Germany say that you
should stick the knife in some damp place in the ground, and that your
hurt will heal as the knife rusts.​[745] Others again, in Bavaria,
recommend you to smear the axe or whatever it is with blood and put it
under the eaves.​[746]

[Sidenote: Further extensions of this case of contagious magic.]

The train of reasoning which thus commends itself to English and
German rustics, in common with the savages of Melanesia and America,
is carried a step further by the aborigines of Central Australia, who
conceive that under certain circumstances the near relations of a
wounded man must grease themselves, restrict their diet, and regulate
their behaviour in other ways in order to ensure his recovery. Thus
when a lad has been circumcised and the wound is not yet healed, his
mother may not eat opossum, or a certain kind of lizard, or carpet
snake, or any kind of fat, for otherwise she would retard the healing
of the boy’s wound. Every day she greases her digging-sticks and never
lets them out of her sight; at night she sleeps with them close to her
head. No one is allowed to touch them. Every day also she rubs her body
all over with grease, as in some way this is believed to help her son’s
recovery.​[747] Another {p205} refinement of the same principle is due
to the ingenuity of the German peasant. It is said that when one of
his pigs or sheep breaks its leg, a farmer of Rhenish Bavaria or Hesse
will bind up the leg of a chair with bandages and splints in due form.
For some days thereafter no one may sit on that chair, move it, or
knock up against it; for to do so would pain the injured pig or sheep
and hinder the cure.​[748] In this last case it is clear that we have
passed wholly out of the region of contagious magic and into the region
of homoeopathic or imitative magic; the chair-leg, which is treated
instead of the beast’s leg, in no sense belongs to the animal, and the
application of bandages to it is a mere simulation of the treatment
which a more rational surgery would bestow on the real patient.

[Sidenote: Sympathetic connexion between a wounded person and his spilt
blood.

A sympathetic connexion is supposed to exist between a person and his
clothes, so that any injury done to the clothes is felt by the man.

Contagious magic of clothes.

Prussian custom of beating the garments which a thief has dropped.]

The sympathetic connexion supposed to exist between a man and the
weapon which has wounded him is probably founded on the notion that the
blood on the weapon continues to feel with the blood in his body. For
a like reason the Papuans of Tumleo, an island off German New Guinea,
are careful to throw into the sea the bloody bandages with which their
wounds have been dressed, for they fear that if these rags fell into
the hands of an enemy he might injure them magically thereby. Once
when a man with a wound in his mouth, which bled constantly, came to
the missionaries to be treated, his faithful wife took great pains to
collect all the blood and cast it into the sea.​[749] Strained and
unnatural as this idea may seem to us, it is perhaps less so than the
belief that magic sympathy is maintained between a person and his
clothes, so that whatever is done to the clothes will be felt by the
man himself, even though he may be far away at the time. That is why
these same Papuans of Tumleo search most anxiously for the smallest
scrap which they may have lost of their scanty garments,​[750] and
why other Papuans, travelling through the thick forest, will stop and
carefully scrape from a bough any clot of red pomade which {p206} may
have adhered to it from their greasy heads.​[751] In the Wotjobaluk
tribe of Victoria a wizard would sometimes get hold of a man’s opossum
rug and tie it up with some small spindle-shaped pieces of casuarina
wood, on which he had made certain marks, such as likenesses of his
victim and of a poisonous snake. This bundle he would then roast slowly
in the fire, and as he did so the man who had owned the opossum rug
would fall sick. Should the patient suspect what was happening, he
would send to the wizard and beg him to let him have the rug back.
If the wizard consented, “he would give the thing back, telling the
sick man’s friends to put it in water, so as to wash the fire out.” In
such cases, we are told, the sick man would feel cooled and would most
likely recover.​[752] In Tanna, one of the New Hebrides, a man who had
a grudge at another and desired his death would try to get possession
of a cloth which had touched the sweat of his enemy’s body. If he
succeeded, he rubbed the cloth carefully over with the leaves and twigs
of a certain tree, rolled and bound cloth, twigs, and leaves into a
long sausage-shaped bundle, and burned it slowly in the fire. As the
bundle was consumed, the victim fell ill, and when it was reduced to
ashes, he died.​[753] In this last form of enchantment, however, the
magical sympathy may be supposed to exist not so much between the man
and the cloth as between the man and the sweat which issued from his
body. But in other cases of the same sort it seems that the garment
by itself is enough to give the sorcerer a hold upon his victim. The
witch in Theocritus, while she melted an image or lump of wax in order
that her faithless lover might melt with love of her, did not forget to
throw into the fire a shred of his cloak which he had dropped in her
house.​[754] In Prussia they say that if you cannot catch a thief, the
next best thing you can do is to get hold of a garment which he may
have shed in his flight; for it {p207} you beat it soundly, the thief
will fall sick. This belief is firmly rooted in the popular mind. Some
seventy or eighty years ago, in the neighbourhood of Berend, a man was
detected trying to steal honey, and fled, leaving his coat behind him.
When he heard that the enraged owner of the honey was mauling his lost
coat, he was so alarmed that he took to his bed and died.​[755] But in
Germany it is not every stick that is good enough to beat an absent man
with. It should be a hazel rod cut before sunrise on Good Friday. Some
say it should be a one-year-old hazel-sapling, and that you should cut
it with three strokes, looking to the east, in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Others think the best time for cutting the
rod is at the new moon on a Tuesday morning before sunrise. Once you
have got this valuable instrument, you have only to spread a garment on
a mole-hill or on the threshold, and to lay on with hearty goodwill,
mentioning the name of the person whom you desire to injure. Though he
may be miles off, he will feel every whack as if it descended on his
body.​[756]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic may be wrought on a man through the
impressions left by his body in sand or earth, particularly through his
footprints.

Contagious magic of footprints.]

Again, magic may be wrought on a man sympathetically, not only through
his clothes and severed parts of himself, but also through the
impressions left by his body in sand or earth. In particular, it is a
world-wide superstition that by injuring footprints you injure the feet
that made them. Thus the natives of south-eastern Australia think that
they can lame a man by placing sharp pieces of quartz, glass, bone,
or charcoal in his footprints. Rheumatic pains are often attributed
by them to this cause. Seeing a Tatungolung man very lame, Mr. Howitt
asked him what was the matter. He said, “Some fellow has put _bottle_
in my foot.” He was suffering from rheumatism, but believed that an
enemy had found his foot-track and had buried in it a piece of broken
bottle, the magical influence of which {p208} had entered his foot.
On another occasion Mr. Howitt’s party was followed by a number of
strange natives who looked with great interest at the footprints of the
horses and camels. A black fellow with Mr. Howitt was much alarmed, and
declared that the strangers were putting poison in his footsteps.​[757]
The Wyingurri, a tribe on the border of western Australia, have a
magical instrument made of resin and rats’ teeth which they call a
sun, because it is supposed to contain the solar heat. By placing it
on a man’s tracks they think they can throw him into a violent fever,
which will soon burn him up.​[758] In the Unmatjera tribe of Central
Australia, when a boy has been circumcised he must hide in the bush,
and if he should see a woman’s tracks he must be very careful to jump
over them. For if his foot were to touch them, the spirit of the louse
which lives in the woman’s hair would go to him, and his head would be
full of lice.​[759] In New Britain it is thought that you can cause the
sickness or death of a man by pricking his footprints with the sting
of a sting-ray.​[760] The Maoris imagine that they can work grievous
harm to an enemy by taking up earth from his footprints, depositing
it in a sacred place, and performing a ceremony over it.​[761] In
Savage Island a common form of witchcraft was to take up the soil on
which an enemy had set his foot, and to carry it to a sacred place,
where it was solemnly cursed, in order that the man might be afflicted
with lameness.​[762] The Galelareese think that if anybody sticks
something sharp into your footprints while you are walking, you will
be wounded in your feet.​[763] In Japan, if a house has been robbed by
night {p209} and the burglar’s footprints are visible in the morning,
the householder will burn mugwort on them, hoping thereby to hurt the
robber’s feet so that he cannot run far, and the police may easily
overtake him.​[764] Among the Karens of Burma some people are said to
keep poison fangs for the purpose of killing their enemies. These they
thrust into the footprints of the person whom they wish to destroy,
and soon he finds himself with a sore foot, as if a dog had bitten
it. The sore rapidly grows worse till death follows.​[765] Peasants
of northern India commonly attribute all sorts of pains and sores to
the machinations of a witch or sorcerer who has meddled with their
footprints.​[766] For example, with the Chero, a Dravidian race of
labourers in the hill country of Mirzapur, a favourite mode of harming
an enemy is to measure his footprints in the dust with a straw and
then mutter a spell over them; that brings on wounds and sores in his
feet.​[767] Such magical operations have been familiar to the Hindoos
from of old. In the _Kausika Sutra_, a book of sorcery, it is directed
that, while your foe is walking southward, you should make cuts in his
footprint with the leaf of a certain tree or with the blade of an axe
(it is not quite clear which is to be used); then you must tie dust
from the footprint in the leaf of a certain tree (_Butea frondosa_)
and throw it into a frying-pan; if it crackles in the pan, your enemy
is undone.​[768] Another old Hindoo charm was to obtain earth from
the footprint of a beleaguered king and scatter it in the wind.​[769]
The Herero of South Africa take earth from the footprints of a lion
and throw it on the track of an enemy, with the wish, “May the lion
kill you.”​[770] The Ovambo of the same region believe that they can
be bewitched by an enemy through the dust or sand {p210} of their
footprints. Hence a man who has special reason to dread the spite of a
foe will carefully efface his footprints with a branch as fast as he
makes them.​[771] The Ewe-speaking people of West Africa fancy they can
drive an enemy mad by throwing a magic powder on his footprints.​[772]
Among the Shuswap and Carrier Indians of North-west America shamans
used to bewitch a man by taking earth from the spot on which he had
stood and placing it in their medicine-bags; then their victim fell
sick or died.​[773] In North Africa the magic of the footprints is
sometimes used for more amiable purposes. A woman who wishes to attach
her husband or lover to herself will take earth from the print of his
right foot, tie it up with some of his hairs in a packet, and wear the
packet next her skin.​[774]

[Sidenote: Contagious magic of footprints in Europe.]

Similar practices prevail in various parts of Europe. Thus in
Mecklenburg it is thought that if you drive a nail into a man’s
footprint he will fall lame; sometimes it is required that the nail
should be taken from a coffin.​[775] A like mode of injuring an enemy
is resorted to in some parts of France.​[776] It is said that there
was an old woman who used to frequent Stow in Suffolk, and she was a
witch. If, while she walked, any one went after her and stuck a nail
or a knife into her footprint in the dust, the dame could not stir a
step till it was withdrawn.​[777] More commonly, it would seem, in
Germany earth from the footprint is tied up in a cloth and hung in the
chimney smoke; as it dries up, so the man withers away or his foot
shrivels up.​[778] The same practice and the same belief are said to
be common in Matogrosso, a province of Brazil.​[779] A Bohemian {p211}
variation of the charm is to put the earth from the footprint in a
pot with nails, needles, broken glass, and so forth, then set the pot
on the fire and let it boil till it bursts. After that the man whose
footprint has been boiled will have a lame leg for the rest of his
life.​[780] Among the Lithuanians the proceeding is somewhat different.
They dig up the earth from the person’s footprint and bury it, with
various incantations, in a graveyard. That causes the person to sicken
and die.​[781] A similar practice is reported from Mecklenburg.​[782]
The Esthonians of the island of Oesel measure the footprint with a
stick and bury the stick, thereby undermining the health of the man
or woman whose foot made the mark.​[783] Among the South Slavs a
girl will dig up the earth from the footprints of the man she loves
and put it in a flower-pot. Then she plants in the pot a marigold, a
flower that is thought to be fadeless. And as its golden blossom grows
and blooms and never fades, so shall her sweetheart’s love grow and
bloom, and never, never fade.​[784] Thus the love-spell acts on the
man through the earth he trod on. An old Danish mode of concluding
a treaty was based on the same idea of the sympathetic connexion
between a man and his footprints: the covenanting parties sprinkled
each other’s footprints with their own blood, thus giving a pledge of
fidelity.​[785] In ancient Greece superstitions of the same sort seem
to have been current, for it was thought that if a horse stepped on the
track of a wolf he was seized with numbness;​[786] and a maxim ascribed
to Pythagoras forbade people to pierce a man’s footprints with a nail
or a knife.​[787]

[Sidenote: The contagious magic of footprints is used by hunters for
the purpose of running down the game.]

The same superstition is turned to account by hunters in many parts
of the world for the purpose of running down the game. Thus a German
huntsman will stick a nail taken from a coffin into the fresh spoor
of the quarry, {p212} believing that this will hinder the animal from
escaping.​[788] The aborigines of Victoria put hot embers in the tracks
of the animals they were pursuing.​[789] Hottentot hunters throw into
the air a handful of sand taken from the footprints of the game,
believing that this will bring the animal down.​[790] Thompson Indians
used to lay charms on the tracks of wounded deer; after that they
deemed it superfluous to pursue the animal any further that day, for
being thus charmed it could not travel far and would soon die.​[791]
Similarly, Ojebway Indians placed “medicine” on the track of the first
deer or bear they met with, supposing that this would soon bring the
animal into sight, even if it were two or three days’ journey off; for
this charm had power to compress a journey of several days into a few
hours.​[792] Ewe hunters of West Africa stab the footprints of game
with a sharp-pointed stick in order to maim the quarry and allow them
to come up with it.​[793] If Esthonian peasants find a wolf’s dung on
a beast’s tracks, they burn it and scatter the ashes to the wind. This
gives the wolf a pain in his stomach and makes him lose his way.​[794]
The Aino think that hares bewitch people. Hence if one of them sees the
track of a hare in the snow near his hut, he should carefully scoop it
up with a water-ladle and then turn it upside down, saying as he does
so that he buries the soul of the hare under the snow, and expressing
a wish that the animal may sicken and die.​[795] In order to recover
strayed cattle, the Zulus take the animals’ dung and earth from their
footprints and place both in the chief’s vessel, round which a magic
circle is drawn. Then the chief says: “I have now conquered them. Those
cattle are now here; I am now sitting upon them. I do not know in what
way they will escape.”​[796] {p213}

[Sidenote: Contagious magic wrought through the impressions of other
parts of the body.

Contagious magic of imprints.]

But though the footprint is the most obvious it is not the only
impression made by the body through which magic may be wrought on a
man. The aborigines of south-eastern Australia believe that a man may
be injured by burying sharp fragments of quartz, glass, and so forth in
the mark made by his reclining body; the magical virtue of these sharp
things enters his body and causes those acute pains which the ignorant
European puts down to rheumatism.​[797] Sometimes they beat the place
where the man sat with a pointed stick of the he-oak (_Casuarina
leptoclada_), chanting an appropriate song at the same time; the stick
will enter his person and kill him, provided the place operated on is
still warm with the heat of his body.​[798] At Delena, in British New
Guinea, a man will sometimes revenge himself on a girl who has rejected
his love by thrusting the spine of a sting-ray into the spot where she
has been sitting; afterwards he puts it in the sun for a day or two and
finally heats it over a fire. In a couple of days the girl dies.​[799]
The natives of Tumleo, an island off German New Guinea, efface the
marks they have left on the ground where they sat, lest magic should
be wrought on them thereby.​[800] Before they leave a camping-place
some of the natives of German New Guinea are careful to stab the ground
thoroughly with spears, in order to prevent a sorcerer from making any
use of a drop of sweat or any other personal remains which they may
chance to leave behind.​[801] We can now understand why it was a maxim
with the Pythagoreans that in rising from bed you should smooth away
the impression left by your body on the bed-clothes.​[802] The rule was
simply an old precaution against magic, forming part of a whole code
of superstitious maxims which {p214} antiquity fathered on Pythagoras,
though doubtless they were familiar to the barbarous forefathers of the
Greeks long before the time of that philosopher.​[803] To ensure the
good behaviour of an ally with whom they have just had a conference,
the Basutos will cut and preserve the grass on which the ally sat
during the interview.​[804] Probably they regard the grass as a hostage
for the observance of the treaty, since through it they could punish
the man who sat on the grass if he should break faith. Moors who write
on the sand are superstitiously careful to obliterate all the marks
they made, never leaving a stroke or a dot in the sand when they have
done writing.​[805] Another of the so-called maxims of Pythagoras bade
people in lifting a pot always to smooth away the imprint it left on
the ashes.​[806] So in Cambodia they say that when you lift a pot from
the fire you should not set it down on the ashes; but that, if you must
do so, you should be careful, in lifting the pot from the ashes, to
efface the impression it has made. Otherwise they think that want will
knock at your door.​[807] But this seems to be an afterthought, devised
to explain a rule of which the original meaning was forgotten. The old
notion probably was that a magician could sympathetically injure any
person who ate out of a pot by means of the impression which the pot
had left on the ashes; or, to be more explicit, contagious magic was
supposed to work through the impression of the pot to the pot itself,
through the pot to the meat contained in it, and finally through the
meat to the eater.


§4. _The Magician’s Progress_

[Sidenote: Public and private magic. The public magician who practises
his art for the good of the whole community, enjoys great influence and
may rise to be a chief or king.]

We have now concluded our examination of the general principles of
sympathetic magic. The examples by which I have illustrated them have
been drawn for the most part from what may be called private magic,
that is from magical {p215} rites and incantations practised for the
benefit or the injury of individuals. But in savage society there is
commonly to be found in addition what we may call public magic, that
is, sorcery practised for the benefit of the whole community. Wherever
ceremonies of this sort are observed for the common good, it is obvious
that the magician ceases to be merely a private practitioner and
becomes to some extent a public functionary. The development of such
a class of functionaries is of great importance for the political as
well as the religious evolution of society. For when the welfare of
the tribe is supposed to depend on the performance of these magical
rites, the magician rises into a position of much influence and repute,
and may readily acquire the rank and authority of a chief or king. The
profession accordingly draws into its ranks some of the ablest and most
ambitious men of the tribe, because it holds out to them a prospect
of honour, wealth, and power such as hardly any other career could
offer. The acuter minds perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker
brother and to play on his superstition for their own advantage. Not
that the sorcerer is always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely
convinced that he really possesses those wonderful powers which the
credulity of his fellows ascribes to him. But the more sagacious he
is, the more likely he is to see through the fallacies which impose on
duller wits. Thus the ablest members of the profession must tend to
be more or less conscious deceivers; and it is just these men who in
virtue of their superior ability will generally come to the top and win
for themselves positions of the highest dignity and the most commanding
authority. The pitfalls which beset the path of the professional
sorcerer are many, and as a rule only the man of coolest head and
sharpest wit will be able to steer his way through them safely. For
it must always be remembered that every single profession and claim
put forward by the magician as such is false; not one of them can be
maintained without deception, conscious or unconscious. Accordingly
the sorcerer who sincerely believes in his own extravagant pretensions
is in far greater peril and is much more likely to be cut short in his
career than the deliberate impostor. The honest wizard always expects
that his charms and {p216} incantations will produce their supposed
effect; and when they fail, not only really, as they always do, but
conspicuously and disastrously, as they often do, he is taken aback: he
is not, like his knavish colleague, ready with a plausible excuse to
account for the failure, and before he can find one he may be knocked
on the head by his disappointed and angry employers.

[Sidenote: Tendency of supreme power to fall into the hands of the
ablest and most unscrupulous men.]

The general result is that at this stage of social evolution the
supreme power tends to fall into the hands of men of the keenest
intelligence and the most unscrupulous character. If we could balance
the harm they do by their knavery against the benefits they confer by
their superior sagacity, it might well be found that the good greatly
outweighed the evil. For more mischief has probably been wrought in the
world by honest fools in high places than by intelligent rascals. Once
your shrewd rogue has attained the height of his ambition, and has no
longer any selfish end to further, he may, and often does, turn his
talents, his experience, his resources, to the service of the public.
Many men who have been least scrupulous in the acquisition of power
have been most beneficent in the use of it, whether the power they
aimed at and won was that of wealth, political authority, or what not.
In the field of politics the wily intriguer, the ruthless victor, may
end by being a wise and magnanimous ruler, blessed in his lifetime,
lamented at his death, admired and applauded by posterity. Such men,
to take two of the most conspicuous instances, were Julius Caesar and
Augustus. But once a fool always a fool, and the greater the power in
his hands the more disastrous is likely to be the use he makes of it.
The heaviest calamity in English history, the breach with America,
might never have occurred if George the Third had not been an honest
dullard.

[Sidenote: The elevation of magicians to power tends to substitute a
monarchy for that primitive democracy, or rather oligarchy of old men
which is characteristic of savage society; and the rise of monarchy
seems to be an essential condition of the emergence of mankind from
savagery.]

Thus, so far as the public profession of magic affected the
constitution of savage society, it tended to place the control of
affairs in the hands of the ablest man: it shifted the balance of power
from the many to the one: it substituted a monarchy for a democracy, or
rather for an oligarchy of old men; for in general the savage community
is ruled, not by the whole body of adult males, but by a council of
{p217} elders. The change, by whatever causes produced, and whatever
the character of the early rulers, was on the whole very beneficial.
For the rise of monarchy appears to be an essential condition of the
emergence of mankind from savagery. No human being is so hidebound by
custom and tradition as your democratic savage; in no state of society
consequently is progress so slow and difficult. The old notion that the
savage is the freest of mankind is the reverse of the truth. He is a
slave, not indeed to a visible master, but to the past, to the spirits
of his dead forefathers, who haunt his steps from birth to death, and
rule him with a rod of iron. What they did is the pattern of right, the
unwritten law to which he yields a blind unquestioning obedience. The
least possible scope is thus afforded to superior talent to change old
customs for the better. The ablest man is dragged down by the weakest
and dullest, who necessarily sets the standard, since he cannot rise,
while the other can fall. The surface of such a society presents a
uniform dead level, so far as it is humanly possible to reduce the
natural inequalities, the immeasurable real differences of inborn
capacity and temper, to a false superficial appearance of equality.
From this low and stagnant condition of affairs, which demagogues and
dreamers in later times have lauded as the ideal state, the Golden
Age, of humanity, everything that helps to raise society by opening a
career to talent and proportioning the degrees of authority to men’s
natural abilities, deserves to be welcomed by all who have the real
good of their fellows at heart. Once these elevating influences have
begun to operate—and they cannot be for ever suppressed—the progress
of civilisation becomes comparatively rapid. The rise of one man to
supreme power enables him to carry through changes in a single lifetime
which previously many generations might not have sufficed to effect;
and if, as will often happen, he is a man of intellect and energy
above the common, he will readily avail himself of the opportunity.
Even the whims and caprices of a tyrant may be of service in breaking
the chain of custom which lies so heavy on the savage. And as soon as
the tribe ceases to be swayed by the timid and divided counsels of the
elders, and yields to the direction of a single strong and resolute
mind, it {p218} becomes formidable to its neighbours and enters on a
career of aggrandisement, which at an early stage of history is often
highly favourable to social, industrial, and intellectual progress. For
extending its sway, partly by force of arms, partly by the voluntary
submission of weaker tribes, the community soon acquires wealth and
slaves, both of which, by relieving some classes from the perpetual
struggle for a bare subsistence, afford them an opportunity of devoting
themselves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which is the
noblest and most powerful instrument to ameliorate the lot of man.

[Sidenote: Intellectual progress dependent on economic progress, which
is often furthered by conquest and empire.]

Intellectual progress, which reveals itself in the growth of art and
science and the spread of more liberal views, cannot be dissociated
from industrial or economic progress, and that in its turn receives
an immense impulse from conquest and empire. It is no mere accident
that the most vehement outbursts of activity of the human mind have
followed close on the heels of victory, and that the great conquering
races of the world have commonly done most to advance and spread
civilisation, thus healing in peace the wounds they inflicted in war.
The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs are our witnesses in
the past: we may yet live to see a similar outburst in Japan. Nor, to
remount the stream of history to its sources, is it an accident that
all the first great strides towards civilisation have been made under
despotic and theocratic governments, like those of Egypt, Babylon,
and Peru, where the supreme ruler claimed and received the servile
allegiance of his subjects in the double character of a king and a god.
It is hardly too much to say that at this early epoch despotism is the
best friend of humanity and, paradoxical as it may sound, of liberty.
For after all there is more liberty in the best sense—liberty to think
our own thoughts and to fashion our own destinies—under the most
absolute despotism, the most grinding tyranny, than under the apparent
freedom of savage life, where the individual’s lot is cast from the
cradle to the grave in the iron mould of hereditary custom.

[Sidenote: Benefits rendered to civilisation by magic.]

So far, therefore, as the public profession of magic has been one of
the roads by which the ablest men have passed to supreme power, it has
contributed to emancipate mankind {p219} from the thraldom of tradition
and to elevate them into a larger, freer life, with a broader outlook
on the world. This is no small service rendered to humanity. And when
we remember further that in another direction magic has paved the way
for science, we are forced to admit that if the black art has done much
evil, it has also been the source of much good; that if it is the child
of error, it has yet been the mother of freedom and truth.

{p220}




CHAPTER IV

MAGIC AND RELIGION


[Sidenote: Magic like science postulates the order and uniformity of
nature; hence the attraction both of magic and of science, which open
up a boundless vista to those who can penetrate to the secret springs
of nature.]

The examples collected in the last chapter may suffice to illustrate
the general principles of sympathetic magic in its two branches,
to which we have given the names of Homoeopathic and Contagious
respectively. In some cases of magic which have come before us we have
seen that the operation of spirits is assumed, and that an attempt
is made to win their favour by prayer and sacrifice. But these cases
are on the whole exceptional; they exhibit magic tinged and alloyed
with religion.​[808] Wherever sympathetic magic occurs in its pure
unadulterated form, it assumes that in nature one event follows another
necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual or
personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception is identical with that
of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith, implicit but
real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature. The magician does
not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects,
that the performance of the proper ceremony, accompanied by the
appropriate spell, will inevitably be attended by the desired results,
unless, indeed, his incantations should chance to be thwarted and
foiled by the more potent charms of another sorcerer. He supplicates
no higher power: he sues the favour of no fickle and wayward {p221}
being: he abases himself before no awful deity. Yet his power, great
as he believes it to be, is by no means arbitrary and unlimited. He
can wield it only so long as he strictly conforms to the rules of his
art, or to what may be called the laws of nature as conceived by him.
To neglect these rules, to break these laws in the smallest particular
is to incur failure, and may even expose the unskilful practitioner
himself to the utmost peril. If he claims a sovereignty over nature,
it is a constitutional sovereignty rigorously limited in its scope and
exercised in exact conformity with ancient usage. Thus the analogy
between the magical and the scientific conceptions of the world is
close. In both of them the succession of events is perfectly regular
and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which
can be foreseen and calculated precisely; the elements of caprice, of
chance, and of accident are banished from the course of nature. Both
of them open up a seemingly boundless vista of possibilities to him
who knows the causes of things and can touch the secret springs that
set in motion the vast and intricate mechanism of the world. Hence
the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on
the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to
the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore
seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by
their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of
an exceeding high mountain and shew him, beyond the dark clouds and
rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it
may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of
dreams.

[Sidenote: The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption
of the uniformity of nature, but in its misapprehension of the
particular laws which govern the sequence of natural events.]

The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption of a
sequence of events determined by law, but in its total misconception
of the nature of the particular laws which govern that sequence. If
we analyse the various cases of sympathetic magic which have been
passed in review in the preceding pages, and which may be taken as
fair samples of the bulk, we shall find, as I have already indicated,
that they are all mistaken applications of one or other of two great
fundamental laws of thought, namely, the association of ideas by
similarity and the {p222} association of ideas by contiguity in space
or time. A mistaken association of similar ideas produces homoeopathic
or imitative magic: a mistaken association of contiguous ideas produces
contagious magic. The principles of association are excellent in
themselves, and indeed absolutely essential to the working of the human
mind. Legitimately applied they yield science; illegitimately applied
they yield magic, the bastard sister of science. It is therefore a
truism, almost a tautology, to say that all magic is necessarily false
and barren; for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would
no longer be magic but science. From the earliest times man has been
engaged in a search for general rules whereby to turn the order of
natural phenomena to his own advantage, and in the long search he has
scraped together a great hoard of such maxims, some of them golden and
some of them mere dross. The true or golden rules constitute the body
of applied science which we call the arts; the false are magic.

[Sidenote: Relation of magic to religion.

Religion defined: it is a propitiation or conciliation of superhuman
powers which are believed to control nature and man. Thus religion
comprises two elements, a theoretical and a practical, or faith and
works, and it does not exist without both. But religious practice need
not consist in ritual; it may consist in ethical conduct, if that is
believed to be well-pleasing to the deity.]

If magic is thus next of kin to science, we have still to enquire how
it stands related to religion. But the view we take of that relation
will necessarily be coloured by the idea which we have formed of
the nature of religion itself; hence a writer may reasonably be
expected to define his conception of religion before he proceeds to
investigate its relation to magic. There is probably no subject in the
world about which opinions differ so much as the nature of religion,
and to frame a definition of it which would satisfy every one must
obviously be impossible. All that a writer can do is, first, to say
clearly what he means by religion, and afterwards to employ the word
consistently in that sense throughout his work. By religion, then, I
understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man
which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of
human life.​[809] Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a
theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers higher than
man and an attempt to propitiate or please them. Of the two, belief
clearly comes first, since we must believe in the existence of a divine
being before we can attempt to please {p223} him. But unless the belief
leads to a corresponding practice, it is not a religion but merely a
theology; in the language of St. James, “faith, if it hath not works,
is dead, being alone.”​[810] In other words, no man is religious who
does not govern his conduct in some measure by the fear or love of
God.​[811] On the other hand, mere practice, divested of all religious
belief, is also not religion. Two men may behave in exactly the same
way, and yet one of them may be religious and the other not. If the
one acts from the love or fear of God, he is religious; if the other
acts from the love or fear of man, he is moral or immoral according
as his behaviour comports or conflicts with the general good. Hence
belief and practice or, in theological language, faith and works are
equally essential to religion, which cannot exist without both of them.
But it is not necessary that religious practice should always take
the form of a ritual; that is, it need not consist in the offering of
sacrifice, the recitation of prayers, and other outward ceremonies.
Its aim is to please the deity, and if the deity is one who delights
in charity and mercy and purity more than in oblations of blood, the
chanting of hymns, and the fumes of incense, his worshippers will best
please him, not by prostrating themselves before him, by intoning his
praises, and by filling his temples with costly gifts, but by being
pure and merciful and charitable towards men, for in so doing they
will imitate, so far as human infirmity allows, the perfections of the
divine nature. It was this ethical side of religion which the Hebrew
prophets, inspired with a noble ideal of God’s goodness and holiness,
were never weary of inculcating. Thus Micah says:​[812] “He hath shewed
thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” And
at a later time much of the force by which {p224} Christianity conquered
the world was drawn from the same high conception of God’s moral nature
and the duty laid on men of conforming themselves to it. “Pure religion
and undefiled,” says St. James, “before God and the Father is this,
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world.”​[813]

[Sidenote: By assuming the order of nature to be elastic or variable
religion is opposed in principle alike to magic and to science, both of
which assume the order of nature to be rigid and invariable.

Claim of Egyptian and Indian magicians to control the gods.]

But if religion involves, first, a belief in superhuman beings who
rule the world, and, second, an attempt to win their favour, it
clearly assumes that the course of nature is to some extent elastic
or variable, and that we can persuade or induce the mighty beings who
control it to deflect, for our benefit, the current of events from the
channel in which they would otherwise flow. Now this implied elasticity
or variability of nature is directly opposed to the principles of
magic as well as of science, both of which assume that the processes
of nature are rigid and invariable in their operation, and that they
can as little be turned from their course by persuasion and entreaty
as by threats and intimidation. The distinction between the two
conflicting views of the universe turns on their answer to the crucial
question, Are the forces which govern the world conscious and personal,
or unconscious and impersonal? Religion, as a conciliation of the
superhuman powers, assumes the former member of the alternative. For
all conciliation implies that the being conciliated is a conscious or
personal agent, that his conduct is in some measure uncertain, and
that he can be prevailed upon to vary it in the desired direction by
a judicious appeal to his interests, his appetites, or his emotions.
Conciliation is never employed towards things which are regarded as
inanimate, nor towards persons whose behaviour in the particular
circumstances is known to be determined with absolute certainty. Thus
in so far as religion assumes the world to be directed by conscious
agents who may be turned from their purpose by persuasion, it stands
in fundamental antagonism to magic as well as to science, both of
which take for granted that the course of nature is determined, not
by the passions or caprice of personal beings, but by the operation
of immutable laws acting mechanically.​[814] In {p225} magic, indeed,
the assumption is only implicit, but in science it is explicit. It is
true that magic often deals with spirits, which are personal agents of
the kind assumed by religion; but whenever it does so in its proper
form, it treats them exactly in the same fashion as it treats inanimate
agents, that is, it constrains or coerces instead of conciliating
or propitiating them as religion would do. Thus it assumes that all
personal beings, whether human or divine, are in the last resort
subject to those impersonal forces which control all things, but which
nevertheless can be turned to account by any one who knows how to
manipulate them by the appropriate ceremonies and spells. In ancient
Egypt, for example, the magicians claimed the power of compelling even
the highest gods to do their bidding, and actually threatened them
with destruction in case of disobedience.​[815] Sometimes, without
going quite so far as that, the wizard declared that he would scatter
the bones of Osiris or reveal his sacred legend, if the god proved
contumacious.​[816] Similarly in India at the present day the great
Hindoo trinity itself of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva is subject to the
sorcerers, who, by means of their spells, exercise such an ascendency
over the mightiest deities, that these are bound submissively to
execute on earth below, or in heaven above, whatever commands their
masters the magicians may please to issue.​[817] There is a saying
everywhere current in {p226} India: “The whole universe is subject to
the gods; the gods are subject to the spells (_mantras_); the spells to
the Brahmans; therefore the Brahmans are our gods.”​[818]

[Sidenote: Hostility of religion to magic in history.]

This radical conflict of principle between magic and religion
sufficiently explains the relentless hostility with which in history
the priest has often pursued the magician. The haughty self-sufficiency
of the magician, his arrogant demeanour towards the higher powers,
and his unabashed claim to exercise a sway like theirs could not but
revolt the priest, to whom, with his awful sense of the divine majesty,
and his humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and such a
demeanour must have appeared an impious and blasphemous usurpation of
prerogatives that belong to God alone. And sometimes, we may suspect,
lower motives concurred to whet the edge of the priest’s hostility. He
professed to be the proper medium, the true intercessor between God
and man, and no doubt his interests as well as his feelings were often
injured by a rival practitioner, who preached a surer and smoother road
to fortune than the rugged and slippery path of divine favour.

[Sidenote: This hostility comparatively late: at an earlier time magic
co-operated, and was partly confused, with religion.

Confusion of magic and religion in Melanesia.]

Yet this antagonism, familiar as it is to us, seems to have made its
appearance comparatively late in the history of religion. At an earlier
stage​[819] the functions of priest and sorcerer were often combined
or, to speak perhaps more correctly, were not yet differentiated from
each other. To serve his purpose man wooed the good-will of gods or
spirits by prayer and sacrifice, while at the same time he had recourse
to ceremonies and forms of words which he hoped would of themselves
bring about the desired result without the help of god or devil. In
short, he performed religious and magical rites simultaneously; he
uttered prayers and incantations almost in the same breath, knowing
or {p227} recking little of the theoretical inconsistency of his
behaviour, so long as by hook or crook he contrived to get what he
wanted. Instances of this fusion or confusion of magic with religion
have already met us in the practices of Melanesians and of other
peoples.​[820] So far as the Melanesians are concerned, the general
confusion cannot be better described than in the words of Dr. R. H.
Codrington:—“That invisible power which is believed by the natives to
cause all such effects as transcend their conception of the regular
course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether in the
spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, being
imparted by them to their names and to various things that belong to
them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is that
generally known as _mana_. Without some understanding of this it is
impossible to understand the religious beliefs and practices of the
Melanesians; and this again is the active force in all they do and
believe to be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men
are able to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain or
sunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to know what
is far off in time and space, to bring good luck and prosperity, or to
blast and curse.” “By whatever name it is called, it is the belief in
this supernatural power, and in the efficacy of the various means by
which spirits and ghosts can be induced to exercise it for the benefit
of men, that is the foundation of the rites and practices which can be
called religious; and it is from the same belief that everything which
may be called Magic and Witchcraft draws its origin. Wizards, doctors,
weather-mongers, prophets, diviners, dreamers, all alike, everywhere
in the islands, work by this power. There are many of these who may be
said to exercise their art as a profession; they get their property
and influence in this way. Every considerable village or settlement is
sure to have some one who can control the weather and the waves, some
one who knows how to treat sickness, some one who can work mischief
with various charms. There may be one whose skill extends to all these
branches; but generally one man knows how to do one thing and one
another. This various knowledge is handed down from father {p228} to
son, from uncle to sister’s son, in the same way as is the knowledge
of the rites and methods of sacrifice and prayer; and very often the
same man who knows the sacrifice knows also the making of the weather,
and of charms for many purposes besides. But as there is no order of
priests, there is also no order of magicians or medicine-men. Almost
every man of consideration knows how to approach some ghost or spirit,
and has some secret of occult practices.”​[821]

[Sidenote: Confusion of magic and religion in ancient India.]

The same confusion of magic and religion has survived among peoples
that have risen to higher levels of culture. It was rife in ancient
India and ancient Egypt; it is by no means extinct among European
peasantry at the present day. With regard to ancient India we are told
by an eminent Sanscrit scholar that “the sacrificial ritual at the
earliest period of which we have detailed information is pervaded with
practices that breathe the spirit of the most primitive magic.”​[822]
Again, the same writer observes that “the ritual of the very sacrifices
for which the metrical prayers were composed is described in the other
Vedic texts as saturated from beginning to end with magical practices
which were to be carried out by the sacrificial priests.” In particular
he tells us that the rites celebrated on special occasions, such as
marriage, initiation, and the anointment of a king, “are complete
models of magic of every kind, and in every case the forms of magic
employed bear the stamp of the highest antiquity.”​[823] Speaking
of the sacrifices prescribed in the _Brâhmaṇas_, Professor Sylvain
Lévi says: “The sacrifice has thus all the characteristics of a
magical operation, independent of the divinities, effective by its own
energy, and capable of producing evil as well as good. It is hardly
distinguished from magic strictly so called, except by being regular
and obligatory; it can easily be adapted {p229} to different objects,
but it exists of necessity, independently of circumstances. That is
the sole fairly clear line of distinction which can be drawn between
the two domains; in point of fact they are so intimately interfused
with each other that the same class of works treats of both matters.
The _Sâmavidhâna Brâhmaṇa_ is a real handbook of incantations and
sorcery; the _Adbhuta Brâhmaṇa_, which forms a section of the _Ṣaḍviṃça
Brâhmaṇa_, has the same character.”​[824] Similarly Professor M.
Bloomfield writes: “Even witchcraft is part of the religion; it has
penetrated and has become intimately blended with the holiest Vedic
rites; the broad current of popular religion and superstition has
infiltrated itself through numberless channels into the higher religion
that is presented by the Brahman priests, and it may be presumed that
the priests were neither able to cleanse their own religious beliefs
from the mass of folk-belief with which it was surrounded, nor is it
at all likely that they found it in their interest to do so.”​[825]
Again, in the introduction to his translation of the _Kausika Sūtra_,
Dr. W. Caland observes: “He who has been wont to regard the ancient
Hindoos as a highly civilised people, famed for their philosophical
systems, their dramatic poetry, their epic lays, will be surprised when
he makes the acquaintance of their magical ritual, and will perceive
that hitherto he has known the old Hindoo people from one side only. He
will find that he here stumbles on the lowest strata of Vedic culture,
and will be astonished at the agreement between the magic ritual of
the old Vedas and the shamanism of the so-called savage. If we drop
the peculiar Hindoo expressions and technical terms, and imagine a
shaman instead of a Brahman, we could almost fancy that we have before
us a magical book belonging to one of the tribes of North American
red-skins.”​[826] Some good authorities hold that the very name of
Brahman is derived from _brahman_, “a magical spell”; so that, if they
are right, the Brahman would seem to have been a magician before he was
a priest.​[827] {p230}

[Sidenote: Confusion of magic and religion in ancient Egypt.]

Speaking of the importance of magic in the East, and especially in
Egypt, Professor Maspero remarks that “we ought not to attach to the
word magic the degrading idea which it almost inevitably calls up
in the mind of a modern. Ancient magic was the very foundation of
religion. The faithful who desired to obtain some favour from a god had
no chance of succeeding except by laying hands on the deity, and this
arrest could only be effected by means of a certain number of rites,
sacrifices, prayers, and chants, which the god himself had revealed,
and which obliged him to do what was demanded of him.”​[828] According
to another distinguished Egyptologist “the belief that there are words
and actions by which man can influence all the powers of nature and all
living things, from animals up to gods, was inextricably interwoven
with everything the Egyptians did and everything they left undone.
Above all, the whole system of burial and of the worship of the dead
is completely dominated by it. The wooden puppets which relieved the
dead man from toil, the figures of the maid-servants who baked bread
for him, the sacrificial formulas by the recitation of which food was
procured for him, what are these and all the similar practices but
magic? And as men cannot help themselves without magic, so neither can
the gods; the gods also wear amulets to protect themselves, and use
magic spells to constrain each other.”​[829] “The whole doctrine of
magic,” says Professor Wiedemann, “formed in the valley of the Nile,
not a part of superstition, but an essential constituent of religious
faith, which to a {p231} great extent rested directly on magic, and
always remained most closely bound up with it.”​[830] But though we can
perceive the union of discrepant elements in the faith and practice
of the ancient Egyptians, it would be rash to assume that the people
themselves did so. “Egyptian religion,” says the same scholar, “was
not one and homogeneous; it was compounded of the most heterogeneous
elements, which seemed to the Egyptian to be all equally justified.
He did not care whether a doctrine or a myth belonged to what, in
modern scholastic phraseology, we should call faith or superstition;
it was indifferent to him whether we should rank it as religion or
magic, as worship or sorcery. All such classifications were foreign
to the Egyptian. To him no one doctrine seemed more or less justified
than another. Nay, he went so far as to allow the most flagrant
contradictions to stand peaceably side by side.”​[831]

[Sidenote: Confusion of magic and religion in modern Europe.

Mass of the Holy Spirit.

Mass of Saint Sécaire.]

Among the ignorant classes of modern Europe the same confusion of
ideas, the same mixture of religion and magic, crops up in various
forms. Thus we are told that in France “the majority of the peasants
still believe that the priest possesses a secret and irresistible
power over the elements. By reciting certain prayers which he alone
knows and has the right to utter, yet for the utterance of which he
must afterwards demand absolution, he can, on an occasion of pressing
danger, arrest or reverse for a moment the action of the eternal laws
of the physical world. The winds, the storms, the hail, and the rain
are at his command and obey his will. The fire also is subject to him,
and the flames of a conflagration are extinguished at his word.”​[832]
For example, French peasants used to be, perhaps are still, persuaded
that the priests could celebrate, with certain special rites, a “Mass
of the Holy Spirit,” of which the efficacy was so miraculous that
it never met with any opposition from the divine will; {p232} God
was forced to grant whatever was asked of Him in this form, however
rash and importunate might be the petition. No idea of impiety or
irreverence attached to the rite in the minds of those who, in some of
the great extremities of life, sought by this singular means to take
the kingdom of heaven by storm. The secular priests generally refused
to say the “Mass of the Holy Spirit”; but the monks, especially the
Capuchin friars, had the reputation of yielding with less scruple to
the entreaties of the anxious and distressed.​[833] In the constraint
thus supposed by Catholic peasantry to be laid by the priest upon the
deity we seem to have an exact counterpart of the power which, as we
saw, the ancient Egyptians ascribed to their magicians.​[834] Again, to
take another example, in many villages of Provence the priest is still
reputed to possess the faculty of averting storms. It is not every
priest who enjoys this reputation; and in some villages, when a change
of pastors takes place, the parishioners are eager to learn whether
the new incumbent has the power (_pouder_), as they call it. At the
first sign of a heavy storm they put him to the proof by inviting him
to exorcise the threatening clouds; and if the result answers to their
hopes, the new shepherd is assured of the sympathy and respect of his
flock. In some parishes, where the reputation of the curate in this
respect stood higher than that of his rector, the relations between
the two have been so strained in consequence that the bishop has had
to translate the rector to another benefice.​[835] Again, Gascon
peasants believe that to revenge themselves on their enemies bad men
will sometimes induce a priest to say a mass called the Mass of Saint
Sécaire. Very few priests know this mass, and three-fourths of those
who do know it would not say it for love or money. None but wicked
priests dare to perform the gruesome ceremony, and you may be quite
sure that they will have a very heavy account to render for it at the
last day. No curate or bishop, not even the archbishop of {p233} Auch,
can pardon them; that right belongs to the pope of Rome alone. The Mass
of Saint Sécaire may be said only in a ruined or deserted church, where
owls mope and hoot, where bats flit in the gloaming, where gypsies
lodge of nights, and where toads squat under the desecrated altar.
Thither the bad priest comes by night with his light o’ love, and at
the first stroke of eleven he begins to mumble the mass backwards,
and ends just as the clocks are knelling the midnight hour. His leman
acts as clerk. The host he blesses is black and has three points; he
consecrates no wine, but instead he drinks the water of a well into
which the body of an unbaptized infant has been flung. He makes the
sign of the cross, but it is on the ground and with his left foot.
And many other things he does which no good Christian could look upon
without being struck blind and deaf and dumb for the rest of his life.
But the man for whom the mass is said withers away little by little,
and nobody can say what is the matter with him; even the doctors can
make nothing of it. They do not know that he is slowly dying of the
Mass of Saint Sécaire.​[836]

[Sidenote: The early confusion of magic with religion was probably
preceded by a still earlier phase of thought, when magic existed
without religion.]

Yet though magic is thus found to fuse and amalgamate with religion
in many ages and in many lands, there are some grounds for thinking
that this fusion is not primitive, and that there was a time when
man trusted to magic alone for the satisfaction of such wants as
transcended his immediate animal cravings. In the first place a
consideration of the fundamental notions of magic and religion may
incline us to surmise that magic is older than religion in the history
of humanity. We have seen that on the one hand magic is nothing but
a mistaken application of the very simplest and most elementary
processes of the mind, namely the association of ideas by virtue of
resemblance or contiguity; and that on the other hand religion assumes
the operation of conscious or personal agents, superior to man, behind
the visible screen of nature. Obviously the conception of personal
agents is more complex than a simple recognition of the similarity
or contiguity of ideas; and a theory which assumes that the course
of nature is determined by conscious {p234} agents is more abstruse
and recondite, and requires for its apprehension a far higher degree
of intelligence and reflection, than the view that things succeed
each other simply by reason of their contiguity or resemblance. The
very beasts associate the ideas of things that are like each other
or that have been found together in their experience; and they could
hardly survive for a day if they ceased to do so. But who attributes
to the animals a belief that the phenomena of nature are worked by a
multitude of invisible animals or by one enormous and prodigiously
strong animal behind the scenes? It is probably no injustice to the
brutes to assume that the honour of devising a theory of this latter
sort must be reserved for human reason. Thus, if magic be deduced
immediately from elementary processes of reasoning, and be, in fact, an
error into which the mind falls almost spontaneously, while religion
rests on conceptions which the merely animal intelligence can hardly be
supposed to have yet attained to, it becomes probable that magic arose
before religion in the evolution of our race, and that man essayed to
bend nature to his wishes by the sheer force of spells and enchantments
before he strove to coax and mollify a coy, capricious, or irascible
deity by the soft insinuation of prayer and sacrifice.

[Sidenote: Among the Australian aborigines magic is universal, but
religion almost unknown.]

The conclusion which we have thus reached deductively from a
consideration of the fundamental ideas of religion and magic is
confirmed inductively by the observation that among the aborigines
of Australia, the rudest savages as to whom we possess accurate
information, magic is universally practised, whereas religion in the
sense of a propitiation or conciliation of the higher powers seems
to be nearly unknown. Roughly speaking, all men in Australia are
magicians, but not one is a priest; everybody fancies he can influence
his fellows or the course of nature by sympathetic magic, but nobody
dreams of propitiating gods by prayer and sacrifice.​[837]

[Sidenote: Magic is probably older than religion, and faith in it is
still universal among the ignorant and superstitious.]

But if in the most backward state of human society now known to us
we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously
absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of
the world have also at some period of their history passed through a
similar {p235} intellectual phase, that they attempted to force the
great powers of nature to do their pleasure before they thought of
courting their favour by offerings and prayer—in short that, just as
on the material side of human culture there has everywhere been an
Age of Stone, so on the intellectual side there has everywhere been
an Age of Magic?​[838] There are reasons for answering this question
in the affirmative. When we survey the existing races of mankind
from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, or from Scotland to Singapore,
we observe that they are distinguished one from the other by a great
variety of religions, and that these distinctions are not, so to speak,
merely coterminous with the broad distinctions of race, but descend
into the minuter subdivisions of states and commonwealths, nay, that
they honeycomb the town, the village, and even the family, so that
the surface of society all over the world is cracked and seamed,
sapped and mined with rents and fissures and yawning crevasses opened
up by the disintegrating influence of religious dissension. Yet when
we have penetrated through these differences, which affect mainly
the intelligent and thoughtful part of the community, we shall find
underlying them all a solid stratum of intellectual agreement among the
dull, the weak, the ignorant, and the superstitious, who constitute,
unfortunately, the vast majority of mankind. One of the great
achievements of the nineteenth century was to run shafts down into this
low mental stratum in many parts of the world, and thus to discover its
substantial identity everywhere. It is beneath our feet—and not very
far beneath them—here in Europe at the present day, and it crops up
on the surface in the heart of the Australian wilderness and wherever
the advent of a higher civilisation has not crushed it under ground.
This universal faith, this truly Catholic creed, is a belief in the
{p236} efficacy of magic. While religious systems differ not only
in different countries, but in the same country in different ages,
the system of sympathetic magic remains everywhere and at all times
substantially alike in its principles and practice. Among the ignorant
and superstitious classes of modern Europe it is very much what it was
thousands of years ago in Egypt and India, and what it now is among the
lowest savages surviving in the remotest corners of the world. If the
test of truth lay in a show of hands or a counting of heads, the system
of magic might appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church,
to the proud motto, “_Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_,” as
the sure and certain credential of its own infallibility.

[Sidenote: Latent superstition a danger to civilisation.]

It is not our business here to consider what bearing the permanent
existence of such a solid layer of savagery beneath the surface of
society, and unaffected by the superficial changes of religion and
culture, has upon the future of humanity. The dispassionate observer,
whose studies have led him to plumb its depths, can hardly regard
it otherwise than as a standing menace to civilisation.​[839] We
seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the
subterranean forces slumbering below. From time to time a hollow
murmur underground or a sudden spirt of flame into the air tells of
what is going on beneath our feet. Now and then the polite world is
startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which tells how in Scotland an
image has been found stuck full of pins for the purpose of killing
an obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has been slowly roasted
to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has been murdered and
chopped up in Russia to make those candles of human tallow by whose
light thieves hope to pursue their midnight trade unseen.​[840] But
whether the influences that make for further progress, or those that
threaten to undo what has already been accomplished, will {p237}
ultimately prevail; whether the impulsive energy of the minority or
the dead weight of the majority of mankind will prove the stronger
force to carry us up to higher heights or to sink us into lower depths,
are questions rather for the sage, the moralist, and the statesman,
whose eagle vision scans the future, than for the humble student of
the present and the past. Here we are only concerned to ask how far
the uniformity, the universality, and the permanence of a belief in
magic, compared with the endless variety and the shifting character of
religious creeds, raises a presumption that the former represents a
ruder and earlier phase of the human mind, through which all the races
of mankind have passed or are passing on their way to religion and
science.

[Sidenote: The change from magic to religion may have been brought
about by the discovery of the inefficacy of magic.]

If an Age of Religion has thus everywhere, as I venture to surmise,
been preceded by an Age of Magic, it is natural that we should enquire
what causes have led mankind, or rather a portion of them, to abandon
magic as a principle of faith and practice and to betake themselves
to religion instead. When we reflect upon the multitude, the variety
and the complexity of the facts to be explained, and the scantiness of
our information regarding them, we shall be ready to acknowledge that
a full and satisfactory solution of so profound a problem is hardly
to be hoped for, and that the most we can do in the present state of
our knowledge is to hazard a more or less plausible conjecture. With
all due diffidence, then, I would suggest that a tardy recognition
of the inherent falsehood and barrenness of magic set the more
thoughtful part of mankind to cast about for a truer theory of nature
and a more fruitful method of turning her resources to account. The
shrewder intelligences must in time have come to perceive that magical
ceremonies and incantations did not really effect the results which
they were designed to produce, and which the majority of their simpler
fellows still believed that they did actually produce. This great
discovery of the inefficacy of magic must have wrought a radical though
probably slow revolution in the minds of those who had the sagacity to
make it. The discovery amounted to this, that men for the first time
recognised their inability to manipulate at pleasure certain natural
forces which hitherto they had believed to be completely within {p238}
their control. It was a confession of human ignorance and weakness.
Man saw that he had taken for causes what were no causes, and that
all his efforts to work by means of these imaginary causes had been
vain. His painful toil had been wasted, his curious ingenuity had been
squandered to no purpose. He had been pulling at strings to which
nothing was attached; he had been marching, as he thought, straight
to the goal, while in reality he had only been treading in a narrow
circle. Not that the effects which he had striven so hard to produce
did not continue to manifest themselves. They were still produced, but
not by him. The rain still fell on the thirsty ground: the sun still
pursued his daily, and the moon her nightly journey across the sky:
the silent procession of the seasons still moved in light and shadow,
in cloud and sunshine across the earth: men were still born to labour
and sorrow, and still, after a brief sojourn here, were gathered to
their fathers in the long home hereafter. All things indeed went on as
before, yet all seemed different to him from whose eyes the old scales
had fallen. For he could no longer cherish the pleasing illusion that
it was he who guided the earth and the heaven in their courses, and
that they would cease to perform their great revolutions were he to
take his feeble hand from the wheel. In the death of his enemies and
his friends he no longer saw a proof of the resistless potency of his
own or of hostile enchantments; he now knew that friends and foes alike
had succumbed to a force stronger than any that he could wield, and in
obedience to a destiny which he was powerless to control.

[Sidenote: Recognising their own inability to control nature, men came
to think that it was controlled by supernatural beings.]

Thus cut adrift from his ancient moorings and left to toss on a
troubled sea of doubt and uncertainty, his old happy confidence in
himself and his powers rudely shaken, our primitive philosopher must
have been sadly perplexed and agitated till he came to rest, as in a
quiet haven after a tempestuous voyage, in a new system of faith and
practice, which seemed to offer a solution of his harassing doubts and
a substitute, however precarious, for that sovereignty over nature
which he had reluctantly abdicated. If the great world went on its way
without the help of him or his fellows, it must surely be because there
were other beings, like {p239} himself, but far stronger, who, unseen
themselves, directed its course and brought about all the varied series
of events which he had hitherto believed to be dependent on his own
magic. It was they, as he now believed, and not he himself, who made
the stormy wind to blow, the lightning to flash, and the thunder to
roll; who had laid the foundations of the solid earth and set bounds to
the restless sea that it might not pass; who caused all the glorious
lights of heaven to shine; who gave the fowls of the air their meat
and the wild beasts of the desert their prey; who bade the fruitful
land to bring forth in abundance, the high hills to be clothed with
forests, the bubbling springs to rise under the rocks in the valleys,
and green pastures to grow by still waters; who breathed into man’s
nostrils and made him live, or turned him to destruction by famine and
pestilence and war. To these mighty beings, whose handiwork he traced
in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of nature, man now addressed
himself, humbly confessing his dependence on their invisible power, and
beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him with all good things,
to defend him from the perils and dangers by which our mortal life
is compassed about on every hand, and finally to bring his immortal
spirit, freed from the burden of the body, to some happier world,
beyond the reach of pain and sorrow, where he might rest with them and
with the spirits of good men in joy and felicity for ever.

[Sidenote: The change from magic to religion must have been gradual.]

In this, or some such way as this, the deeper minds may be conceived
to have made the great transition from magic to religion. But even in
them the change can hardly ever have been sudden; probably it proceeded
very slowly, and required long ages for its more or less perfect
accomplishment. For the recognition of man’s powerlessness to influence
the course of nature on a grand scale must have been gradual; he cannot
have been shorn of the whole of his fancied dominion at a blow. Step
by step he must have been driven back from his proud position; foot by
foot he must have yielded, with a sigh, the ground which he had once
viewed as his own. Now it would be the wind, now the rain, now the
sunshine, now the thunder, that he confessed himself unable to wield at
will; and as province after province of {p240} nature thus fell from
his grasp, till what had once seemed a kingdom threatened to shrink
into a prison, man must have been more and more profoundly impressed
with a sense of his own helplessness and the might of the invisible
beings by whom he believed himself to be surrounded. Thus religion,
beginning as a slight and partial acknowledgment of powers superior to
man, tends with the growth of knowledge to deepen into a confession
of man’s entire and absolute dependence on the divine; his old free
bearing is exchanged for an attitude of lowliest prostration before the
mysterious powers of the unseen, and his highest virtue is to submit
his will to theirs: _In la sua volontade è nostra pace_. But this
deepening sense of religion, this more perfect submission to the divine
will in all things, affects only those higher intelligences who have
breadth of view enough to comprehend the vastness of the universe and
the littleness of man. Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their
narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great
and important but themselves. Such minds hardly rise into religion
at all. They are, indeed, drilled by their betters into an outward
conformity with its precepts and a verbal profession of its tenets; but
at heart they cling to their old magical superstitions, which may be
discountenanced and forbidden, but cannot be eradicated by religion,
so long as they have their roots deep down in the mental framework and
constitution of the great majority of mankind.

[Sidenote: The belief that the gods are magicians may mark the
transition from magic to religion.]

A vestige of the transition from magic to religion may perhaps be
discerned in the belief, shared by many peoples, that the gods
themselves are adepts in magic, guarding their persons by talismans
and working their will by spells and incantations. Thus the Egyptian
gods, we are told, could as little dispense with the help of magic as
could men; like men they wore amulets to protect themselves, and used
spells to overcome each other. Above all the rest Isis was skilled in
sorcery and famous for her incantations.​[841] In Babylonia the great
god Ea was reputed to be the inventor of magic, and his son Marduk,
the chief deity of Babylon, inherited the art from his father. Marduk
is described as “the master of exorcism, the magician of the gods.”
{p241} Another text declares that “the incantation is the incantation
of Marduk, the exorcist is the image of Marduk.”​[842] In the legend of
the creation it is related that when Marduk was preparing to fight the
monster Tiamat he gave a proof of his magical powers to the assembled
gods by causing a garment to disappear and reappear again at the word
of his mouth. And the other Babylonian deities had in like manner
recourse to magic, especially to magical words or spells. “The word
is above all the instrument of the gods; it seems to suit the high
conception of their power better than mere muscular effort; the hymns
celebrate the irresistible might of their word; it is by their word
that they compel both animate and inanimate beings to answer their
purposes; in short, they employ almost exclusively the oral rites of
magic.” And like men they made use of amulets and talismans.​[843] In
the Vedic religion the gods are often represented as attaining their
ends by magical means; in particular the god Bṛhaspati, “the creator
of all prayers,” is regarded as “the heavenly embodiment of the
priesthood, in so far as the priesthood is invested with the power, and
charged with the task, of influencing the course of things by prayers
and spells”; in short, he is “the possessor of the magical power of
the holy word.”​[844] So too in Norse mythology Odin is said to have
owed his supremacy and his dominion over nature to his knowledge of
the runes or magical names of all things in earth and heaven. This
mystical lore he acquired as follows. The runic names of all things
were scratched on the things themselves, then scraped off and mixed in
a magical potion, which was compounded of honey and the blood of the
slain Kvasir, the wisest of beings. A draught of this wonderful mead
imparted to Odin not only the wisdom of Kvasir, but also a knowledge of
all things, since he had swallowed their runic or mystical names along
with the blood of the sage.​[845] {p242} Hence by the utterance of his
spells he could heal sickness, deaden the swords of his enemies, loose
himself from bonds, stop the flight of an arrow in mid-air, stay the
raging of the flames, still the winds and lull the sea; and by graving
and painting certain runes he could make the corpse of a hanged man
come down from the gallows-tree and talk with him.​[846] It is easy
to conceive how this ascription of magical powers to the gods may
have originated. When a savage sorcerer fails to effect his purpose,
he generally explains his want of success by saying that he has been
foiled by the spells of some more potent magician. Now if it began to
be perceived that certain natural effects, such as the making of rain
or wind or sunshine, were beyond the power of any human magician to
accomplish, the first thought would naturally be that they were wrought
by the more powerful magic of some great invisible beings, and these
superhuman magicians might readily develop into gods of the type of
Odin, Isis, and Marduk. In short, many gods may at first have been
merely deified sorcerers.

[Sidenote: The fallacy of magic is not easy to detect, because nature
herself generally produces, sooner or later, the effects which the
magician fancies he produces by his art.]

The reader may well be tempted to ask. How was it that intelligent men
did not sooner detect the fallacy of magic? How could they continue to
cherish expectations that were invariably doomed to disappointment?
With what heart persist in playing venerable antics that led to
nothing, and mumbling solemn balderdash that remained without effect?
Why cling to beliefs which were so flatly contradicted by experience?
How dare to repeat experiments that had failed so often? The answer
seems to be that the fallacy was far from easy to detect, the failure
by no means obvious, since in many, perhaps in most cases, the desired
event did actually follow, at a longer or shorter interval, the
performance of the rite which was designed to bring it about; and
a mind of more than common acuteness was needed to perceive that,
even in these cases, the rite was not necessarily the cause of the
event. A ceremony intended to make the wind blow or the rain fall,
or to work the death of an enemy, will always be followed, sooner or
later, by the occurrence it is meant to bring to pass; and primitive
man may be excused for regarding the occurrence as a direct result
of the ceremony, and {p243} the best possible proof of its efficacy.
Similarly, rites observed in the morning to help the sun to rise,
and in spring to wake the dreaming earth from her winter sleep, will
invariably appear to be crowned with success, at least within the
temperate zones; for in these regions the sun lights his golden lamp
in the east every morning, and year by year the vernal earth decks
herself afresh with a rich mantle of green. Hence the practical savage,
with his conservative instincts, might well turn a deaf ear to the
subtleties of the theoretical doubter, the philosophic radical, who
presumed to hint that sunrise and spring might not, after all, be
direct consequences of the punctual performance of certain daily or
yearly ceremonies, and that the sun might perhaps continue to rise and
trees to blossom though the ceremonies were occasionally intermitted,
or even discontinued altogether. These sceptical doubts would naturally
be repelled by the other with scorn and indignation as airy reveries
subversive of the faith and manifestly contradicted by experience. “Can
anything be plainer,” he might say, “than that I light my twopenny
candle on earth and that the sun then kindles his great fire in heaven?
I should be glad to know whether, when I have put on my green robe in
spring, the trees do not afterwards do the same? These are facts patent
to everybody, and on them I take my stand. I am a plain practical man,
not one of your theorists and splitters of hairs and choppers of logic.
Theories and speculation and all that may be very well in their way,
and I have not the least objection to your indulging in them, provided,
of course, you do not put them in practice. But give me leave to stick
to facts; then I know where I am.” The fallacy of this reasoning is
obvious to us, because it happens to deal with facts about which we
have long made up our minds. But let an argument of precisely the same
calibre be applied to matters which are still under debate, and it may
be questioned whether a British audience would not applaud it as sound,
and esteem the speaker who used it a safe man—not brilliant or showy,
perhaps, but thoroughly sensible and hard-headed. If such reasonings
could pass muster among ourselves, need we wonder that they long
escaped detection by the savage?

{p244}




CHAPTER V

THE MAGICAL CONTROL OF THE WEATHER


§ 1. _The Public Magician_

The patient reader may remember that we were led to plunge into the
labyrinth of magic, in which we have wandered for so many pages, by a
consideration of two different types of man-god. This is the clue which
has guided our devious steps through the maze, and brought us out at
last on higher ground, whence, resting a little by the way, we can look
back over the path we have already traversed and forward to the longer
and steeper road we have still to climb.

[Sidenote: Two types of man-god, the religious and the magical.]

As a result of the foregoing discussion, the two types of human gods
may conveniently be distinguished as the religious and the magical
man-god respectively. In the former, a being of an order different
from and superior to man is supposed to become incarnate, for a longer
or a shorter time, in a human body, manifesting his superhuman power
and knowledge by miracles wrought and prophecies uttered through the
medium of the fleshly tabernacle in which he has deigned to take up his
abode. This may also appropriately be called the inspired or incarnate
type of man-god. In it the human body is merely a frail earthly vessel
filled with a divine and immortal spirit. On the other hand, a man-god
of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an unusually
high degree powers which most of his fellows arrogate to themselves on
a smaller scale; for in rude society there is hardly a person who does
not dabble in magic. Thus, whereas a man-god of the former or inspired
type derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his
heavenly radiance behind a dull mask of earthly mould, a {p245} man-god
of the latter type draws his extraordinary power from a certain
physical sympathy with nature. He is not merely the receptacle of a
divine spirit. His whole being, body and soul, is so delicately attuned
to the harmony of the world that a touch of his hand or a turn of his
head may send a thrill vibrating through the universal framework of
things; and conversely his divine organism is acutely sensitive to such
slight changes of environment as would leave ordinary mortals wholly
unaffected. But the line between these two types of man-god, however
sharply we may draw it in theory, is seldom to be traced with precision
in practice, and in what follows I shall not insist on it.

[Sidenote: Public and private magic: the public magician often a king.]

We have seen that in practice the magic art may be employed for the
benefit either of individuals or of the whole community, and that
according as it is directed to one or other of these two objects it
may be called private or public magic.​[847] Further, I pointed out
that the public magician occupies a position of great influence, from
which, if he is a prudent and able man, he may advance step by step
to the rank of a chief or king. Thus an examination of public magic
conduces to an understanding of the early kingship, since in savage and
barbarous society many chiefs and kings appear to owe their authority
in great measure to their reputation as magicians.

[Sidenote: The rise of a class of public or professional magicians is a
great step in social and intellectual progress.]

Among the objects of public utility which magic may be employed to
secure, the most essential is an adequate supply of food. The examples
cited in preceding pages prove that the purveyors of food—the hunter,
the fisher, the farmer—all resort to magical practices in the pursuit
of their various callings; but they do so as private individuals
for the benefit of themselves and their families, rather than as
public functionaries acting in the interest of the whole people. It
is otherwise when the rites are performed, not by the hunters, the
fishers, the farmers themselves, but by professional magicians on their
behalf. In primitive society, where uniformity of occupation is the
rule, and the distribution of the community into various classes of
workers has hardly begun, every man is more or less his own magician;
he practises charms and {p246} incantations for his own good and the
injury of his enemies. But a great step in advance has been taken
when a special class of magicians has been instituted; when, in other
words, a number of men have been set apart for the express purpose of
benefiting the whole community by their skill, whether that skill be
directed to the healing of diseases, the forecasting of the future,
the regulation of the weather, or any other object of general utility.
The impotence of the means adopted by most of these practitioners to
accomplish their ends ought not to blind us to the immense importance
of the institution itself. Here is a body of men relieved, at least
in the higher stages of savagery, from the need of earning their
livelihood by hard manual toil, and allowed, nay, expected and
encouraged, to prosecute researches into the secret ways of nature.
It was at once their duty and their interest to know more than their
fellows, to acquaint themselves with everything that could aid man in
his arduous struggle with nature, everything that could mitigate his
sufferings and prolong his life. The properties of drugs and minerals,
the causes of rain and drought, of thunder and lightning, the changes
of the seasons, the phases of the moon, the daily and yearly journeys
of the sun, the motions of the stars, the mystery of life, and the
mystery of death, all these things must have excited the wonder of
these early philosophers, and stimulated them to find solutions of
problems that were doubtless often thrust on their attention in the
most practical form by the importunate demands of their clients, who
expected them not merely to understand but to regulate the great
processes of nature for the good of man. That their first shots fell
very far wide of the mark could hardly be helped. The slow, the
never-ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and
testing hypotheses, accepting those which at the time seem to fit
the facts and rejecting the others. The views of natural causation
embraced by the savage magician no doubt appear to us manifestly false
and absurd; yet in their day they were legitimate hypotheses, though
they have not stood the test of experience. Ridicule and blame are
the just meed, not of those who devised these crude theories, but of
those who obstinately adhered to them after better had been propounded.
{p247} Certainly no men ever had stronger incentives in the pursuit
of truth than these savage sorcerers. To maintain at least a show of
knowledge was absolutely necessary; a single mistake detected might
cost them their life. This no doubt led them to practise imposture
for the purpose of concealing their ignorance; but it also supplied
them with the most powerful motive for substituting a real for a sham
knowledge, since, if you would appear to know anything, by far the
best way is actually to know it. Thus, however justly we may reject
the extravagant pretensions of magicians and condemn the deceptions
which they have practised on mankind, the original institution of this
class of men has, take it all in all, been productive of incalculable
good to humanity. They were the direct predecessors, not merely of our
physicians and surgeons, but of our investigators and discoverers in
every branch of natural science. They began the work which has since
been carried to such glorious and beneficent issues by their successors
in after ages; and if the beginning was poor and feeble, this is to
be imputed to the inevitable difficulties which beset the path of
knowledge rather than to the natural incapacity or wilful fraud of the
men themselves.


§ 2. _The Magical Control of Rain_

[Sidenote: One of the chief tasks which the public magician has to
perform is to control the weather, and especially to ensure an adequate
supply of rain. The method adopted by the rain-maker is commonly
based on homoeopathic or imitative magic: he seeks to produce rain by
imitating it.]

Of the things which the public magician sets himself to do for the
good of the tribe, one of the chief is to control the weather and
especially to ensure an adequate fall of rain. Water is the first
essential of life, and in most countries the supply of it depends upon
showers. Without rain vegetation withers, animals and men languish and
die. Hence in savage communities the rain-maker is a very important
personage; and often a special class of magicians exists for the
purpose of regulating the heavenly water-supply. The methods by which
they attempt to discharge the duties of their office are commonly,
though not always, based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative
magic. If they wish to make rain they simulate it by sprinkling water
or mimicking clouds: if their object is to stop rain and cause drought,
they avoid water and resort to warmth and fire for the sake of drying
up the too abundant moisture. Such attempts are by no means confined,
as the cultivated reader might {p248} imagine, to the naked inhabitants
of those sultry lands like Central Australia and some parts of Eastern
and Southern Africa, where often for months together the pitiless sun
beats down out of a blue and cloudless sky on the parched and gaping
earth. They are, or used to be, common enough among outwardly civilised
folk in the moister climate of Europe. I will now illustrate them by
instances drawn from the practice both of public and private magic.

[Sidenote: Examples of making rain by homoeopathic or imitative magic.

Use of human hair in rain-charms among the Australian aborigines.]

Thus, for example, in a village near Dorpat, in Russia, when rain was
much wanted, three men used to climb up the fir-trees of an old sacred
grove. One of them drummed with a hammer on a kettle or small cask to
imitate thunder; the second knocked two fire-brands together and made
the sparks fly, to imitate lightning; and the third, who was called
“the rain-maker,” had a bunch of twigs with which he sprinkled water
from a vessel on all sides.​[848] To put an end to drought and bring
down rain, women and girls of the village of Ploska are wont to go
naked by night to the boundaries of the village and there pour water on
the ground.​[849] In Halmahera, or Gilolo, a large island to the west
of New Guinea, a wizard makes rain by dipping a branch of a particular
kind of tree in water and then scattering the moisture from the
dripping bough over the ground.​[850] In Ceram it is enough to dedicate
the bark of a certain tree to the spirits, and lay it in water.​[851]
A Javanese mode of making rain is to imitate the pattering sound of
rain-drops by brushing a coco-nut leaf over the sheath of a betel-nut
in a mortar.​[852] In New Britain the rain-maker wraps some leaves of
a red and green striped creeper {p249} in a banana-leaf, moistens the
bundle with water, and buries it in the ground; then he imitates with
his mouth the plashing of rain.​[853] Amongst the Omaha Indians of
North America, when the corn is withering for want of rain, the members
of the sacred Buffalo Society fill a large vessel with water and dance
four times round it. One of them drinks some of the water and spirts it
into the air, making a fine spray in imitation of a mist or drizzling
rain. Then he upsets the vessel, spilling the water on the ground;
whereupon the dancers fall down and drink up the water, getting mud all
over their faces. Lastly, they squirt the water into the air, making
a fine mist. This saves the corn.​[854] In spring-time the Natchez of
North America used to club together to purchase favourable weather for
their crops from the wizards. If rain was needed, the wizards fasted
and danced with pipes full of water in their mouths. The pipes were
perforated like the nozzle of a watering-can, and through the holes
the rain-maker blew the water towards that part of the sky where the
clouds hung heaviest. But if fine weather was wanted, he mounted the
roof of his hut, and with extended arms, blowing with all his might,
he beckoned to the clouds to pass by.​[855] In time of drought the
Tarahumares Indians of Mexico will sometimes throw water towards the
sky in order that God may replenish his supply. And in the month of
May they always burn the grass, so that the whole country is then
wrapt in smoke and travelling becomes very difficult. They think that
this is necessary to produce rain, clouds of smoke being, in their
opinion, equivalent to rain-clouds.​[856] Among the Swazies and Hlubies
of South-Eastern Africa the rain-doctor draws water from a river with
various mystic ceremonies, and carries it into a cultivated field.
Here he throws it in jets from his vessel high into the air, and the
falling spray is believed to draw down the clouds and to make rain by
sympathy.​[857] To squirt water {p250} from the mouth is a West African
mode of making rain,​[858] and it is practised also by the Wajaggas
of Kilimanjaro.​[859] Among the Wahuma, on the Albert Nyanza Lake,
the rain-maker pours water into a vessel in which he has first placed
a dark stone as large as the hand. Pounded plants and the blood of a
black goat are added to the water, and with a bunch of magic herbs the
sorcerer sprinkles the mixture towards the sky.​[860] In this charm
special efficacy is no doubt attributed to the dark stone and the black
goat, their colour being chosen from its resemblance to that of the
rain-clouds, as we shall see presently. When the rains do not come in
due season the people of Central Angoniland repair to what is called
the rain-temple. Here they clear away the grass, and the leader pours
beer into a pot which is buried in the ground, while he says, “Master
_Chauta_, you have hardened your heart towards us, what would you have
us do? We must perish indeed. Give your children the rains, there is
the beer we have given you.” Then they all partake of the beer that
is left over, even the children being made to sip it. Next they take
branches of trees and dance and sing for rain. When they return to the
village they find a vessel of water set at the doorway by an old woman;
so they dip their branches in it and wave them aloft, so as to scatter
the drops. After that the rain is sure to come driving up in heavy
clouds.​[861] In these practices we see a combination of religion with
magic; for while the scattering of the water-drops by means of branches
is a purely magical ceremony, the prayer for rain and the offering of
beer are purely religious rites. At Takitount in Algeria, when the
drought is severe, the people prepare a sacrificial banquet (_zerda_),
in the course of which they dance, and filling their mouths with water
spirt it into the air crying, “The rain and abundance!” Elsewhere in
the course of these banquets it is customary for the same purpose
to sprinkle water on children. At Tlemcen in time of drought water
is thrown from terraces and windows on {p251} small girls, who pass
singing.​[862] During the summer months frequent droughts occur among
the Japanese alps. To procure rain a party of hunters armed with guns
climb to the top of Mount Jonendake, one of the most imposing peaks in
the range. By kindling a bonfire, discharging their guns, and rolling
great masses of rocks down the cliffs, they represent the wished-for
storm; and rain is supposed always to follow within a few days.​[863]
To make rain a party of Ainos will scatter water by means of sieves,
while others will take a porringer, fit it up with sails and oars as
if it were a boat, and then push or draw it about the village and
gardens.​[864] In Laos the festival of the New Year takes place about
the middle of April and lasts three days. The people assemble in the
pagodas, which are decorated with flowers and illuminated. The Buddhist
monks perform the ceremonies, and when they come to the prayers for the
fertility of the earth the worshippers pour water into little holes in
the floor of the pagoda as a symbol of the rain which they hope Buddha
will send down on the rice-fields in due time.​[865] In the Mara tribe
of Northern Australia the rain-maker goes to a pool and sings over it
his magic song. Then he takes some of the water in his hands, drinks
it, and spits it out in various directions. After that he throws water
all over himself, scatters it about, and returns quietly to the camp.
Rain is supposed to follow.​[866] In the Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria
the rain-maker dipped a bunch of his own hair in water, sucked out the
water and squirted it westward, or he twirled {p252} the ball round
his head, making a spray like rain.​[867] Other Australian tribes
employ human hair as a rain-charm in other ways. In Western Australia
the natives pluck hair from their arm-pits and thighs and blow them
in the direction from which they wish the rain to come. But if they
wish to prevent rain, they light a piece of sandal wood, and beat the
ground with the burning brand.​[868] When the rivers were low and water
scarce in Victoria, the wizard used to place human hair in the stream,
accompanying the act with chants and gesticulation. But if he wished to
make rain, he dropped some human hair in the fire. Hair was never burnt
at other times for fear of causing a great fall of rain.​[869] The Arab
historian Makrizi describes a method of stopping rain which is said to
have been resorted to by a tribe of nomads called Alqamar in Hadramaut.
They cut a branch from a certain tree in the desert, set it on fire,
and then sprinkled the burning brand with water. After that the
vehemence of the rain abated,​[870] just as the water vanished when it
fell on the glowing brand. Some of the Eastern Angamis of Manipur are
said to perform a somewhat similar ceremony for the opposite purpose,
in order, namely, to produce rain. The head of the village puts a
burning brand on the grave of a man who has died of burns, and quenches
the brand with water, while he prays that rain may fall.​[871] Here
the putting out the fire with water, which is an imitation of rain, is
reinforced by the influence of the dead man, who, having been burnt to
death, will naturally be anxious for the descent of rain to cool his
scorched body and assuage his pangs.

[Sidenote: Use of fire to stop rain.

Various ways of making and stopping rain.]

Other people besides the Arabs have used fire as a means of stopping
rain. Thus the Sulka of New Britain heat stones red hot in the fire and
then put them out in the {p253} rain, or they throw hot ashes in the
air. They think that the rain will soon cease to fall, for it does not
like to be burned by the hot stones or ashes.​[872] The Telugus send
a little girl out naked into the rain with a burning piece of wood in
her hand, which she has to shew to the rain. That is supposed to stop
the downpour.​[873] At Port Stevens in New South Wales the medicine-men
used to drive away rain by throwing fire-sticks into the air, while at
the same time they puffed and shouted.​[874] Any man of the Anula tribe
in Northern Australia can stop rain by simply warming a green stick in
the fire, and then striking it against the wind.​[875] When a Thompson
Indian of British Columbia wished to put an end to a spell of heavy
rain, he held a stick in the fire, then described a circle with it,
beginning at the east and following the sun’s course till it reached
the east again, towards which quarter he held the stick and addressed
the rain as follows: “Now then, you must stop raining; the people are
miserable. Ye mountains, become clear.” The ceremony was repeated for
all the other quarters of the sky.​[876] To bring on rain the Ainos of
Japan wash their tobacco-boxes and pipes in a stream,​[877] and the
Toradjas of Central Celebes dip rice-spoons in water.​[878] On the
contrary, during heavy rain the Indians of Guiana are careful not to
wash the inside of their pots, lest by so doing they should cause the
rain to fall still more heavily.​[879] In Bilaspore it is believed that
the grain-dealer, who has stored large quantities of grain and wishes
to sell it dear, resorts to nefarious means of preventing the rain
from falling, lest the abundance of rice which would follow a copious
rainfall should cheapen his wares. To do this he collects rain-drops
from the eaves of his house in an earthen vessel and buries the vessel
under the grinding-mill. {p254} After that you shall hear thunder
rumbling in the distance like the humming sound of the mill at work,
but no rain will fall, for the wicked dealer has shut it up and it
cannot get out.​[880]

[Sidenote: Rain-making in Queensland.]

In the torrid climate of Queensland the ceremonies necessary for
wringing showers from the cloudless heaven are naturally somewhat
elaborate. A prominent part in them is played by a “rain-stick.” This
is a thin piece of wood about twenty inches long, to which three
“rain-stones” and hair cut from the beard have been fastened. The
“rain-stones” are pieces of white quartz-crystal. Three or four such
sticks may be used in the ceremony. About noon the men who are to take
part in it repair to a lonely pool, into which one of them dives and
fixes a hollow log vertically in the mud. Then they all go into the
water, and, forming a rough circle round the man in the middle, who
holds the rain-stick aloft, they begin stamping with their feet as well
as they can, and splashing the water with their hands from all sides
on the rain-stick. The stamping, which is accompanied by singing, is
sometimes a matter of difficulty, since the water may be four feet deep
or more. When the singing is over, the man in the middle dives out of
sight and attaches the rain-stick to the hollow log under water. Then
coming to the surface, he quickly climbs on to the bank and spits out
on dry land the water which he imbibed in diving. Should more than one
of these rain-sticks have been prepared, the ceremony is repeated with
each in turn. While the men are returning to camp they scratch the tops
of their heads and the inside of their shins from time to time with
twigs; if they were to scratch themselves with their fingers alone,
they believe that the whole effect of the ceremony would be spoiled. On
reaching the camp they paint their faces, arms, and chests with broad
bands of gypsum. During the rest of the day the process of scratching,
accompanied by the song, is repeated at intervals, and thus the
performance comes to a close. No woman may set eyes on the rain-stick
or witness the ceremony of its submergence; but the wife of the chief
rain-maker is privileged to take part in the {p255} subsequent rite of
scratching herself with a twig. When the rain does come, the rain-stick
is taken out of the water: it has done its work.​[881] At Roxburgh, in
Queensland, the ceremony is somewhat different. A white quartz-crystal
which is to serve as the rain-stone is obtained in the mountains
and crushed to powder. Next a tree is chosen of which the stem runs
up straight for a long way without any branches. Against its trunk
saplings from fifteen to twenty feet long are then propped in a circle,
so as to form a sort of shed like a bell-tent, and in front of the shed
an artificial pond is made in the ground. The men, who have collected
within the shed, now come forth and, dancing and singing round the
pond, mimic the cries and antics of various aquatic birds and animals,
such as ducks and frogs. Meanwhile the women are stationed some twenty
yards or so away. When the men have done pretending to be ducks, frogs,
and so forth, they march round the women in single file, throwing the
pulverised quartz-crystals over them. On their side the women hold up
wooden troughs, shields, pieces of bark, and so on over their heads,
making believe that they are sheltering themselves from a heavy shower
of rain.​[882] Both these ceremonies are cases of mimetic magic; the
splashing of the water over the rain-stick is as clearly an imitation
of a shower as the throwing of the powdered quartz-crystal over the
women.

[Sidenote: Rain-making among the Dieri of Central Australia.

Use of foreskins in rain-making.

Use of human blood in rain-making ceremonies.

Sanguinary conflicts as means of making rain.]

The Dieri of Central Australia enact a somewhat similar pantomime for
the same purpose. In a dry season their lot is a hard one. No fresh
herbs or roots are to be had, and as the parched earth yields no
grass, the emus, reptiles, and other creatures which generally furnish
the natives with food grow so lean and wizened as to be hardly worth
eating. At such a time of severe drought the Dieri, loudly lamenting
the impoverished state of the country and their own half-starved
condition, call upon the spirits of their remote predecessors, whom
they call Mura-muras, to grant them power to make a heavy rainfall. For
they believe that the clouds are bodies in which rain is generated by
their own ceremonies or those {p256} of neighbouring tribes, through
the influence of the Mura-muras. The way in which they set about
drawing rain from the clouds is this. A hole is dug about twelve feet
long and eight or ten broad, and over this hole a conical hut of logs
and branches is made. Two wizards, supposed to have received a special
inspiration from the Mura-muras, are bled by an old and influential
man with a sharp flint; and the blood, drawn from their arms below the
elbow, is made to flow on the other men of the tribe, who sit huddled
together in the hut. At the same time the two bleeding men throw
handfuls of down about, some of which adheres to the blood-stained
bodies of their comrades, while the rest floats in the air. The blood
is thought to represent the rain, and the down the clouds. During the
ceremony two large stones are placed in the middle of the hut; they
stand for gathering clouds and presage rain. Then the wizards who were
bled carry away the two stones for about ten or fifteen miles, and
place them as high as they can in the tallest tree. Meanwhile the other
men gather gypsum, pound it fine, and throw it into a water-hole. This
the Mura-muras see, and at once they cause clouds to appear in the
sky. Lastly, the men, young and old, surround the hut, and, stooping
down, butt at it with their heads, like so many rams. Thus they force
their way through it and reappear on the other side, repeating the
process till the hut is wrecked. In doing this they are forbidden to
use their hands or arms; but when the heavy logs alone remain, they are
allowed to pull them out with their hands. “The piercing of the hut
with their heads symbolises the piercing of the clouds; the fall of the
hut, the fall of the rain.”​[883] Obviously, too, the act of placing
high up in trees the two stones, which stand for clouds, is a way of
making the real clouds to mount up in the sky. The Dieri also imagine
that the foreskins taken from lads at circumcision have a great power
of producing rain. Hence the Great Council of the tribe always keeps
a small stock of {p257} foreskins ready for use. They are carefully
concealed, being wrapt up in feathers with the fat of the wild dog and
of the carpet snake. A woman may not see such a parcel opened on any
account. When the ceremony is over, the foreskin is buried, its virtue
being exhausted. After the rains have fallen, some of the tribe always
undergo a surgical operation, which consists in cutting the skin of
their chest and arms with a sharp flint. The wound is then tapped with
a flat stick to increase the flow of blood, and red ochre is rubbed
into it. Raised scars are thus produced. The reason alleged by the
natives for this practice is that they are pleased with the rain, and
that there is a connexion between the rain and the scars. Apparently
the operation is not very painful, for the patient laughs and jokes
while it is going on. Indeed, little children have been seen to crowd
round the operator and patiently take their turn; then after being
operated on, they ran away, expanding their little chests and singing
for the rain to beat upon them. However, they were not so well pleased
next day, when they felt their wounds stiff and sore.​[884] The tribes
of the Karamundi nation, on the River Darling, universally believe that
rain can be produced as follows. A vein in the arm of one of the men is
opened, and the blood allowed to flow into a piece of hollow bark till
it forms a little pool. Powdered gypsum and hair from the man’s beard
are then added to the blood, and the whole is stirred into a thick
paste. Afterwards the mixture is placed between two pieces of bark
and put under water in a river or lagoon, pointed stakes being driven
into the ground to keep it down. When it has all dissolved away, the
natives think that a great cloud will come bringing rain. From the time
the ceremony is performed until rain falls, the men must abstain from
intercourse with their wives, or the charm would be spoiled.​[885] In
this custom the bloody paste seems to be an imitation of a rain-cloud.
In Java, when rain is wanted, two men will sometimes thrash each
other with supple rods {p258} till the blood flows down their backs;
the streaming blood represents the rain, and no doubt is supposed to
make it fall on the ground.​[886] The people of Egghiou, a district
of Abyssinia, used to engage in sanguinary conflicts with each other,
village against village, for a week together every January for the
purpose of procuring rain. A few years ago the emperor Menelik forbade
the custom. However, the following year the rain was deficient, and the
popular outcry so great that the emperor yielded to it, and allowed the
murderous fights to be resumed, but for two days a year only.​[887]
The writer who mentions the custom regards the blood shed on these
occasions as a propitiatory sacrifice offered to spirits who control
the showers; but perhaps, as in the Australian and Javanese ceremonies,
it is an imitation of rain. The prophets of Baal, who sought to procure
rain by cutting themselves with knives till the blood gushed out,​[888]
may have acted on the same principle.

[Sidenote: Rain-making among the Kaitish.]

The Kaitish tribe of Central Australia believe that the rainbow is the
son of the rain, and with filial regard is always anxious to prevent
his father from falling down. Hence if it appears in the sky at a
time when rain is wanted, they “sing” or enchant it in order to send
it away. When the head man of the rain totem in this tribe desires to
make rain he goes to the sacred storehouse of his local group. There he
paints the holy stones with red ochre and sings over them, and as he
sings he pours water from a vessel on them and on himself. Moreover,
he paints three rainbows in red ochre, one on the ground, one on his
own body, and one on a shield, which he also decorates with zigzag
lines of white clay to represent lightning. This shield may only be
seen by men of the {p259} same exogamous half of the tribe as himself;
if men of the other half of the tribe were to see it, the charm would
be spoilt. Hence after bringing the shield away from the sacred place,
he hides it in his own camp until the rain has fallen, after which he
destroys the rainbow drawings. The intention seems to be to keep the
rainbow in custody, and prevent it from appearing in the sky until the
clouds have burst and moistened the thirsty ground. To ensure that
event the rain-maker, on his return from the sacred storehouse, keeps
a vessel of water by his side in camp, and from time to time scatters
white down about, which is thought to hasten the rain. Meantime the men
who accompanied him to the holy place go away and camp by themselves,
for neither they nor he may have any intercourse with the women. The
leader may not even speak to his wife, who absents herself from the
camp at the time of his return to it. When later on she comes back, he
imitates the call of the plover, a bird whose cry is always associated
with the rainy season in these parts. Early next morning he returns to
the sacred storehouse and covers the stones with bushes. After another
night passed in silence, he and the other men and women go out in
separate directions to search for food. When they meet on their return
to camp, they all mimic the cry of the plover. Then the leader’s mouth
is touched with some of the food that has been brought in, and thus the
ban of silence is removed. If rain follows, they attribute it to the
magical virtue of the ceremony; if it does not, they fall back on their
standing excuse, that some one else has kept off the rain by stronger
magic.​[889]

[Sidenote: Rain-making among the Arunta.]

Among the Arunta tribe of Central Australia a celebrated rain-maker
resides at the present day in what is called by the natives the Rain
Country (_Kartwia quatcha_), a district about fifty miles to the
east of Alice Springs. He is the head of a group of people who have
water for their totem, and when he is about to engage in a ceremony
for the making of rain he summons other men of the water totem
from neighbouring groups to come and help him. {p260} When all are
assembled, they march into camp, painted with red and yellow ochre
and pipeclay, and wearing bunches of eagle-hawk feathers on the crown
and sides of the head. At a signal from the rain-maker they all sit
down in a line and, folding their arms across their breasts, chant
certain words for a time. Then at another signal from the master of
the ceremonies they jump up and march in single file to a spot some
miles off, where they camp for the night. At break of day they scatter
in all directions to look for game, which is then cooked and eaten;
but on no account may any water be drunk, or the ceremony would fail.
When they have eaten, they adorn themselves again in a different style,
broad bands of white bird’s down being glued by means of human blood
to their stomach, legs, arms, and forehead. Meanwhile a special hut
of boughs has been made by some older men not far from the main camp.
Its floor is strewn with a thick layer of gum leaves to make it soft,
for a good deal of time has to be spent lying down here. Close to
the entrance of the hut a shallow trench, some thirty yards long, is
excavated in the ground. At sunset the performers, arrayed in all the
finery of white down, march to the hut. On reaching it the young men
go in first and lie face downwards at the inner end, where they have
to stay till the ceremony is over; none of them is allowed to quit
it on any pretext. Meanwhile, outside the hut the older men are busy
decorating the rain-maker. Hair girdles, covered with white down, are
placed all over his head, while his cheeks and forehead are painted
with pipeclay; and two broad bands of white down pass across the face,
one over the eyebrows and the other over the nose. The front of his
body is adorned with a broad band of pipeclay fringed with white down,
and rings of white down encircle his arms. Thus decorated, with patches
of bird’s down adhering by means of human blood to his hair and the
whole of his body, the disguised man is said to present a spectacle
which, once seen, can never be forgotten. He now takes up a position
close to the opening of the hut. Then the old men sing a song, and
when it is finished, the rain-maker comes out of the hut and stalks
slowly twice up and down the shallow trench, quivering his body and
legs in a {p261} most extraordinary way, every nerve and fibre seeming
to tremble. While he is thus engaged the young men, who had been lying
flat on their faces, get up and join the old men in chanting a song
with which the movements of the rain-maker seem to accord. But as soon
as he re-enters the hut, the young men at once prostrate themselves
again; for they must always be lying down when he is in the hut. The
performance is repeated at intervals during the night, and the singing
goes on with little intermission until, just when the day is breaking,
the rain-maker executes a final quiver, which lasts longer than any of
the others, and seems to exhaust his remaining strength completely.
Then he declares the ceremony to be over, and at once the young men
jump to their feet and rush out of the hut, screaming in imitation of
the spur-winged plover. The cry is heard by the men and women who have
been left at the main camp, and they take it up with weird effect.​[890]

[Sidenote: Rain-making by imitation of clouds and storm.]

Although we cannot, perhaps, divine the meaning of all the details of
this curious ceremony, the analogy of the Queensland and the Dieri
ceremonies, described above, suggests that we have here a rude attempt
to represent the gathering of rain-clouds and the other accompaniments
of a rising storm. The hut of branches, like the structure of logs
among the Dieri, and perhaps the conical shed in Queensland, may
possibly stand for the vault of heaven, from which the rain-clouds,
represented by the chief actor in his quaint costume of white down,
come forth to move in ever-shifting shapes across the sky, just as
he struts quivering up and down the trench. The other performers,
also adorned with bird’s down, who burst from the tent with the cries
of plovers, probably imitate birds that are supposed to harbinger
or accompany rain.​[891] This interpretation is confirmed by other
ceremonies in which the performers definitely assimilate {p262}
themselves to the celestial or atmospheric phenomena which they seek
to produce. Thus in Mabuiag, a small island in Torres Straits, when a
wizard desired to make rain, he took some bush or plant and painted
himself black and white, “All along same as clouds, black behind, white
he go first.” He further put on a large woman’s petticoat to signify
raining clouds. On the other hand, when he wished to stop the rain,
he put red paint on the crown of his head, “to represent the shining
sun,” and he inserted a small ball of red paint in another part of his
person. By and by he expelled this ball, “Like breaking a cloud so that
sun he may shine.” He then took some bushes and leaves of the pandanus,
mixed them together, and placed the compound in the sea. Afterwards
he removed them from the water, dried them, and burnt them so that
the smoke went up, thereby typifying, as Dr. Haddon was informed, the
evaporation and dispersal of the clouds.​[892] Again, it is said that
if a Malay woman puts upon her head an inverted earthenware pan, and
then, setting it upon the ground, fills it with water and washes the
cat in it till the animal is nearly drowned, heavy rain will certainly
follow. In this performance the inverted pan is intended, as Mr. Skeat
was told, to symbolise the vault of heaven.​[893]

[Sidenote: Belief that twins can control the weather.

Superstitions as to twins among the Indians of British Columbia.

Superstitions as to twins in West Africa.]

There is a widespread belief that twin children possess magical
powers over nature, especially over rain and the weather. This
curious superstition prevails among some of the Indian tribes of
British Columbia, and has led them often to impose certain singular
restrictions or taboos on the parents of twins, though the exact
meaning of these restrictions is generally obscure. Thus the Tsimshian
Indians of British Columbia believe that twins control the weather;
therefore they pray to wind and rain, “Calm down, breath of the twins.”
Further, they think that the wishes of twins are always fulfilled;
hence twins are feared, because they can harm the man they hate. They
can also call the salmon and the olachen or candle-fish, and so they
are {p263} known by a name which means “making plentiful.”​[894] In
the opinion of the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia twins are
transformed salmon; hence they may not go near water, lest they should
be changed back again into the fish. In their childhood they can summon
any wind by motions of their hands, and they can make fair or foul
weather, and also cure diseases by swinging a large wooden rattle.
Their parents must live secluded in the woods for sixteen months after
the birth, doing no work, borrowing nobody’s canoes, paddles, or
dishes, and keeping their faces painted red all the time. If the father
were to catch salmon, or the mother were to dig clams, the salmon and
the clams would disappear. Moreover the parents separate from each
other, and must pretend to be married to a log, with which they lie
down every night. They are forbidden to touch each other, and even
their own hair. A year after the birth they drive wedges into a tree
in the woods, asking it to let them work again when four more months
have passed.​[895] The Nootka Indians of British Columbia also believe
that twins are somehow related to salmon. Hence among them twins may
not catch salmon, and they may not eat or even handle the fresh fish.
They can make fair or foul weather, and can cause rain to fall by
painting their faces black and then washing them, which may represent
the rain dripping from the dark clouds.​[896] Conversely, among the
Angoni of Central Africa there is a woman who stops rain by tying a
strip of white calico round her black head,​[897] probably in imitation
of the sky clearing after a heavy storm. The parents of twins among the
Nootkas must build a small hut in the woods on the bank of a river,
far from the village, and there they must live for two years, avoiding
other people; they may not eat or even touch fresh food, particularly
salmon. {p264} Wooden images and masks of birds and fish are placed
round the hut, and others, representing fish, are set near the river
for the purpose of inviting all birds and fish to come and see the
twins, and be friendly to them. Moreover the father sings a special
song praising the salmon, and asking them to come. And the fish do
come in great numbers to see the twins. Therefore the birth of twins
is believed to prognosticate a good year for salmon.​[898] But though
a Nootka father of twins has thus to live in seclusion for two years,
abstaining from fresh meat, and attending none of the ordinary feasts,
he is, by a singular exception, invited to banquets which consist
wholly of dried provisions, and at them he is treated with great
respect and seated among the chiefs, even though he be himself a mere
commoner. The birth of twins among the Nootkas is said to be very rare,
but one occurred while Jewitt lived with the tribe. He reports that the
father always appeared very thoughtful and gloomy, and never associated
with other people. “His dress was very plain, and he wore around his
head the red fillet of bark, the symbol of mourning and devotion. It
was his daily practice to repair to the mountain, with a chief’s rattle
in his hand, to sing and pray, as Maquina informed me, for the fish to
come into their waters. When not thus employed, he kept continually at
home, except when sent for to sing and perform his ceremonies over the
sick, being considered as a sacred character, and one much in favour
with their gods.”​[899] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia
twins were called “grizzly-bear children” or “hairy feet,” because
they were thought to be under the protection of the grizzly bear, and
to be endowed by him with special powers, such as that of making fair
or foul weather. After their birth the parents moved away from other
people, and lived in a lodge made of fir-boughs and bark till the
children were about four years old. During all this time great care was
taken of the twins. They might not come into contact with other people,
and were washed with fir-twigs dipped in water. While they were being
{p265} washed, the father described circles round them with fir-boughs,
singing the song of the grizzly bear.​[900] With these American beliefs
we may compare an African one. The negroes of Porto Novo, on the Bight
of Benin, hold that twins have for their companions certain spirits or
genii like those which animate a kind of small ape, which abounds in
the forests of Guinea. When the twins grow up, they will not be allowed
to eat the flesh of apes, and meantime the mother carries offerings of
bananas and other dainties to the apes in the forest.​[901] Precisely
similar beliefs and customs as to twins prevail in the Ho tribe of
German Togoland. There the twins are called “children of apes”; neither
they nor their parents may eat the flesh of the particular species
of apes with which they are associated; and if a hunter kills one of
these animals, the parents must beat him with a stick.​[902] But to
return to America. The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, like the
Thompson Indians, associate twins with the grizzly bear, for they call
them “young grizzly bears.” According to them, twins remain throughout
life endowed with supernatural powers. In particular they can make good
or bad weather. They produce rain by spilling water from a basket in
the air; they make fine weather by shaking a small flat piece of wood
attached to a stick by a string; they raise storms by strewing down on
the ends of spruce branches.​[903]

[Sidenote: Superstitions as to twins among the Indians of Peru.]

The Indians of Peru entertained similar notions as to {p266} the special
relation in which twins stand to the rain and the weather. For they
said that one of each pair of twins was a son of the lightning; and
they called the lightning the lord and creator of rain, and prayed to
him to send showers. The parents of twins had to fast for many days
after the birth, abstaining from salt and pepper, and they might not
have intercourse with each other. In some parts of Peru this period
of fasting and abstinence lasted six months. In other parts both the
father and mother had to lie down on one side, with one leg drawn up,
and a bean placed in the hollow of the ham. In this position they had
to lie without moving for five days, till with the heat and sweat of
their bodies the beans began to sprout. Then they changed over to the
other side, and lay on it in like manner for other five days, fasting
in the way described. When the ten days were up, their relations went
out to hunt, and having killed and skinned a deer they made a robe of
its hide, under which they caused the parents of the twins to pass,
with cords about their necks which they afterwards wore for many days.
If the twins died young, their bodies, enclosed in pots, were kept in
the house as sacred things. But if they lived, and it happened that a
frost set in, the priests sent for them, together with all persons who
had hare-lips or had been born feet foremost, and rated them soundly
for being the cause of the frost, in that they had not fasted from
salt and pepper. Wherefore they were ordered to fast for ten days
in the usual manner, and to abstain from their wives, and to wash
themselves, and to acknowledge and confess their sins. After their
nominal conversion to Christianity, the Peruvian Indians retained their
belief that one of twins was always the son of the lightning, and oddly
enough they regularly gave him the name of St. James (Santiago). The
Spanish Jesuit, who reports the custom, was at a loss to account for
it. It could not, he thought, have originated in the name of Boanerges,
or “sons of thunder,” which Christ applied to the two brothers James
and John.​[904] He suggests two explanations. {p267} The Indians may
have adopted the name because they had heard a phrase used by Spanish
children when it thunders, “The horse of Santiago is running.” Or it
may have been because they saw that the Spanish infantry in battle,
before they fired their arquebuses, always cried out “Santiago!
Santiago!” For the Indians called an arquebuse _illapa_, that is,
“lightning,” and they might easily imagine that the name which they
heard shouted just before the flash and roar of the guns was that of
the Spanish god of thunder and lightning. However they came by the
name, they made such frequent and superstitious use of it that the
church forbade any Indian to bear the name of Santiago.​[905]

[Sidenote: Superstitions as to twins in Africa.]

The same power of influencing the weather is attributed to twins by the
Baronga, a tribe of Bantu negroes who inhabit the shores of Delagoa Bay
in south-eastern Africa. They bestow the name of _Tilo_—that is, the
sky—on a woman who has given birth to twins, and the infants themselves
are called the children of the sky. Now when the storms which generally
burst in the months of September and October have been looked for in
vain, when a drought with its prospect of famine is threatening, and
all nature, scorched and burnt up by a sun that has shone for six
months from a cloudless sky, is panting for the beneficent showers of
the South African spring, the women perform ceremonies to bring down
the longed-for rain on the parched earth. Stripping themselves of all
their garments, they assume in their stead girdles and head-dresses
of grass, or short petticoats made of the leaves of a particular sort
of creeper. Thus attired, uttering peculiar cries and singing ribald
songs, they go about from well to well, cleansing them of the mud
and impurities which have accumulated in them. The wells, it may be
said, are merely holes in the sand where a little turbid unwholesome
water stagnates. Further, the women must repair to the house of one
of their gossips who has given birth to twins, and must drench her
with water, which they carry in little pitchers. Having done so they
go on their way, shrieking {p268} out their loose songs and dancing
immodest dances. No man may see these leaf-clad women going their
rounds. If they meet a man, they maul him and thrust him aside. When
they have cleansed the wells, they must go and pour water on the graves
of their ancestors in the sacred grove. It often happens, too, that
at the bidding of the wizard they go and pour water on the graves of
twins. For they think that the grave of a twin ought always to be
moist, for which reason twins are regularly buried near a lake. If
all their efforts to procure rain prove abortive, they will remember
that such and such a twin was buried in a dry place on the side of
a hill. “No wonder,” says the wizard in such a case, “that the sky
is fiery. Take up his body and dig him a grave on the shore of the
lake.” His orders are at once obeyed, for this is supposed to be the
only means of bringing down the rain. The Swiss missionary who reports
this strange superstition has also suggested what appears to be its
true explanation. He points out that as the mother of twins is called
by the Baronga “the sky,” they probably think that to pour water on
her is equivalent to pouring water on the sky itself; and if water
be poured on the sky, it will of course drip through it, as through
the nozzle of a gigantic watering-pot, and fall on the earth beneath.
A slight extension of the same train of reasoning explains why the
desired result is believed to be expedited by drenching the graves of
twins, who are the Children of the Sky.​[906] Among the Zulus twins
are supposed to be able to foretell the weather, and people who want
rain will go to a twin and say, “Tell me, do you feel ill to-day?”
If he says he feels quite well, they know it will not rain.​[907]
The Wanyamwesi, a large tribe of Central Africa, to the south of the
Victoria Nyanza, also believe in the special association of twins with
water. For amongst them, when a twin is about to cross a river, stream,
or lake, he must fill his mouth full of water and spirt it out over the
surface of the river or lake, adding, “I am a twin” (_nänä mpassa_).
{p269} And he must do the same if a storm arises on a lake over which he
is sailing. Were he to omit the ceremony, some harm might befall him
or his companions. In this tribe the birth of twins is comparatively
common and is attended by a number of ceremonies. Old women march about
the village collecting gifts for the infants, while they drum with a
hoe on a piece of ox-hide and sing an obscene song in praise of the
father. Further, two little fetish huts are built for the twins before
their mother’s house, and here people sacrifice for them in season and
out of season, especially when somebody is sick or about to go on a
journey or to the wars. If one or both twins die, two aloes are planted
beside the little fetish hut.​[908] Lastly, the Hindoos of the Central
Provinces in India believe that a twin can save the crops from the
ravages of hail and heavy rain if he will only paint his right buttock
black and his left buttock some other colour, and thus adorned go and
stand in the direction of the wind.​[909]

[Sidenote: The rain-maker assimilates himself to rain.]

Many of the foregoing facts strongly support an interpretation
which Professor Oldenberg has given of the rules to be observed by
a Brahman who would learn a particular hymn of the ancient Indian
collection known as the Samaveda. The hymn, which bears the name of
the Ṣakvarī song, was believed to embody the might of Indra’s weapon,
the thunderbolt; and hence, on account of the dreadful and dangerous
potency with which it was thus charged, the bold student who essayed to
master it had to be isolated from his fellow-men, and to retire from
the village into the forest. Here for a space of time, which might
vary, according to different doctors of the law, from one to twelve
years, he had to observe certain rules of life, among which were the
following. Thrice a day he had to touch water; he must wear black
{p270} garments and eat black food; when it rained, he might not seek
the shelter of a roof, but had to sit in the rain and say, “Water is
the Ṣakvarī song”; when the lightning flashed he said, “That is like
the Ṣakvarī song”; when the thunder pealed he said, “The Great One is
making a great noise.” He might never cross a running stream without
touching water; he might never set foot on a ship unless his life were
in danger, and even then he must be sure to touch water when he went
on board; “for in water,” so ran the saying, “lies the virtue of the
Ṣakvarī song.” When at last he was allowed to learn the song itself, he
had to dip his hands in a vessel of water in which plants of all sorts
had been placed. If a man walked in the way of all these precepts, the
rain-god Parjanya, it was said, would send rain at the wish of that
man. It is clear, as Professor Oldenberg well points out, that “all
these rules are intended to bring the Brahman into union with water,
to make him, as it were, an ally of the water powers, and to guard him
against their hostility. The black garments and the black food have the
same significance; no one will doubt that they refer to the rain-clouds
when he remembers that a black victim is sacrificed to procure rain;
‘it is black, for such is the nature of rain.’ In respect of another
rain-charm it is said plainly, ‘He puts on a black garment edged with
black, for such is the nature of rain.’ We may therefore assume that
here in the circle of ideas and ordinances of the Vedic schools there
have been preserved magical practices of the most remote antiquity,
which were intended to prepare the rain-maker for his office and
dedicate him to it.”​[910]

[Sidenote: On the contrary, the maker of dry weather must himself be
dry.]

It is interesting to observe that where an opposite result is desired,
primitive logic enjoins the weather-doctor to observe precisely
opposite rules of conduct. In the tropical island of Java, where the
rich vegetation attests the abundance of the rainfall, ceremonies
for the making of rain are rare, but ceremonies for the prevention
of it are not uncommon. When a man is about to give a great feast
in the rainy season and has invited many people, he goes to a {p271}
weather-doctor and asks him to “prop up the clouds that may be
lowering.” If the doctor consents to exert his professional powers,
he begins to regulate his behaviour by certain rules as soon as his
customer has departed. He must observe a fast, and may neither drink
nor bathe; what little he eats must be eaten dry, and in no case may
he touch water. The host, on his side, and his servants, both male and
female, must neither wash clothes nor bathe so long as the feast lasts,
and they have all during its continuance to observe strict chastity.
The doctor seats himself on a new mat in his bedroom, and before a
small oil-lamp he murmurs, shortly before the feast takes place,
the following prayer or incantation: “Grandfather and Grandmother
Sroekoel” (the name seems to be taken at random; others are sometimes
used), “return to your country. Akkemat is your country. Put down your
water-cask, close it properly, that not a drop may fall out.” While
he utters this prayer the sorcerer looks upwards, burning incense the
while.​[911] So among the Toradjas of Central Celebes the rain-doctor
(_sando_), whose special business it is to drive away rain, takes
care not to touch water before, during, or after the discharge of his
professional duties. He does not bathe, he eats with unwashed hands,
he drinks nothing but palm wine, and if he has to cross a stream he is
careful not to step in the water. Having thus prepared himself for his
task he has a small hut built for himself outside of the village in
a rice-field, and in this hut he keeps up a little fire, which on no
account may be suffered to go out. In the fire he burns various kinds
of wood, which are supposed to possess the property of driving off
rain; and he puffs in the direction from which the rain threatens to
come, holding in his hand a packet of leaves and bark which derive a
similar cloud-compelling virtue, not from their chemical composition,
but from their names, which happen to signify something dry or
volatile. If clouds should appear in the sky while he is at work, he
takes lime in the hollow of his hand and blows it towards them. The
lime, being so very dry, is obviously well adapted to disperse the
damp clouds. Should rain afterwards be wanted, he {p272} has only
to pour water on his fire, and immediately the rain will descend in
sheets.​[912] So in Santa Cruz and Reef islands, when the man who has
power over rain wishes to prevent it from falling, he will abstain from
washing his face for a long time and will do no work, lest he should
sweat and his body be wet; “for they think that if his body be wet it
will rain.” On the other hand when he desires to bring on rain, he
goes into the house where the spirit or ghost of the rain is believed
to reside, and there he sprinkles water at the head of the ghost-post
(_duka_) in order that showers may fall.​[913]

[Sidenote: To make wet weather you must be wet; to make dry weather you
must be dry.]

The reader will observe how exactly the Javanese and Toradja
observances, which are intended to prevent rain, form the antithesis of
the Indian observances, which aim at producing it. The Indian sage is
commanded to touch water thrice a day regularly as well as on various
special occasions; the Javanese and Toradja wizards may not touch it
at all. The Indian lives out in the forest, and even when it rains he
may not take shelter; the Javanese and the Toradja sit in a house or a
hut. The one signifies his sympathy with water by receiving the rain on
his person and speaking of it respectfully; the others light a lamp or
a fire and do their best to drive the rain away. Yet the principle on
which all three act is the same; each of them, by a sort of childish
make-believe, identifies himself with the phenomenon which he desires
to produce. It is the old fallacy that the effect resembles its cause:
if you would make wet weather, you must be wet; if you would make dry
weather, you must be dry.

[Sidenote: Rain-making in south-eastern Europe by drenching with water
a leaf-clad girl or boy who represents vegetation.

Rain-making in Servia.

Rain-making in Roumania.

Rain-making in Bulgaria.

Rain-making in Macedonia and Dalmatia.

The King of Rain in India.]

In south-eastern Europe at the present day ceremonies are observed for
the purpose of making rain which not only rest on the same general
train of thought as the preceding, but even in their details resemble
the ceremonies practised with the same intention by the Baronga of
Delagoa Bay. Among the Greeks of Thessaly and Macedonia, when a drought
has lasted a long time, it is customary to send a {p273} procession of
children round to all the wells and springs of the neighbourhood. At
the head of the procession walks a girl adorned with flowers, whom her
companions drench with water at every halting-place, while they sing an
invocation, of which the following is part:—

    _Perperia, all fresh bedewed,_
    _Freshen all the neighbourhood;_
    _By the woods, on the highway,_
    _As thou goest, to God now pray:_
    _O my God, upon the plain,_
    _Send thou us a still, small rain;_
    _That the fields may fruitful be,_
    _And vines in blossom we may see;_
    _That the grain be full and sound,_
    _And wealthy grow the folks around._​[914]

In time of drought the Servians strip a girl to her skin and clothe her
from head to foot in grass, herbs, and flowers, even her face being
hidden behind a veil of living green. Thus disguised she is called the
Dodola, and goes through the village with a troop of girls. They stop
before every house; the Dodola keeps turning herself round and dancing,
while the other girls form a ring about her singing one of the Dodola
songs, and the housewife pours a pail of water over her. One of the
songs they sing runs thus:—

    _We go through the village;_
    _The clouds go in the sky;_
    _We go faster,_
    _Faster go the clouds;_
    _They have overtaken us,_
    _And wetted the corn and the vine._

A similar custom is observed in Greece and Roumania.​[915] In Roumania
the rain-maker is called Paparuda or Babaruda. She is a gypsy girl,
who goes naked except for a short skirt of dwarf elder (_Sambucus
ebulus_) or of corn and vines. Thus scantily attired the girls go in
procession from house to house, singing for rain, and are drenched
by {p274} the people with buckets of water. The ceremony regularly
takes place all over Roumania on the third Tuesday after Easter, but
it may be repeated at any time of drought during the summer. But the
Roumanians have another way of procuring rain. They make a clay figure
to represent Drought, cover it with a pall, and place it in an open
coffin. Girls crouch round the coffin and lament, saying, “Drought
(_Scaloi_) is dead! Lord, give us rain!” Then the coffin is carried by
children in funeral procession, with a burning wax candle before it,
while lamentations fill the air. Finally, they throw the coffin and the
candle into a stream or a well.​[916] When rain is wanted in Bulgaria
the people dress up a girl in branches of nut-trees, flowers, and the
green stuff of beans, potatoes, and onions. She carries a nosegay of
flowers in her hand, and is called Djuldjul or Peperuga. Attended by a
train of followers she goes from house to house, and is received by the
goodman with a kettleful of water, on which flowers are swimming. With
this water he drenches her, while a song is sung:—

    _The Peperuga flew;_
    _God give rain,_
    _That the corn, the millet, and the wheat may thrive._

Sometimes the girl is dressed in flax to the girdle.​[917] At Melenik,
a Greek town in Macedonia, a poor orphan boy parades the streets in
time of drought, decked with ferns and flowers, and attended by other
boys of about the same age. The women shower water and money on him
from the windows. He is called Dudulé, and as they march along the
boys sing a song, which begins: “Hail, hail, Dudulé, (bring us) both
maize and wheat.”​[918] In Dalmatia also the custom is observed.
The performer is a young unmarried man, who is dressed up, dances,
and has water poured over him. He goes by the name of Prpats, and
is attended by companions called Prporushe, who are young bachelors
like himself.​[919] In such customs the leaf-clad person appears to
{p275} personify vegetation, and the drenching of him or her with water
is certainly an imitation of rain. The words of the Servian song,
however, taken in connexion with the constant movement which the chief
actress in the performance seems expected to keep up, points to some
comparison of the girl or her companions to clouds moving through the
sky. This again reminds us of the odd quivering movement kept up by the
Australian rain-maker, who, in his disguise of white down, may perhaps
represent a cloud.​[920] At Poona in India, when rain is needed, the
boys dress up one of their number in nothing but leaves and call him
King of Rain (_Mrüj raja_). Then they go round to every house in the
village, where the householder or his wife sprinkles the Rain King with
water, and gives the party food of various kinds. When they have thus
visited all the houses, they strip the Rain King of his leafy robes and
feast upon what they have gathered.​[921]

[Sidenote: Rain-making in Armenia.

Rain-making in Palestine and Moab.]

Similar rain-charms are practised in Armenia, except that there the
representative of vegetation is an effigy or doll, not a person. The
children dress up a broomstick as a girl and carry it from house to
house. Before every house they sing a song, of which the following is
one version:—

    _Nurin, Nurin is come,_
    _The wondrous maiden is come._
    _A shirt of red stuff has she put on,_
    _With a red girdle is she girded,_
    _Bring water to pour on her head,_
    _Bring butter to smear on her hair._
    _Let the blessed rain fall,_
    _Let the fields of your fathers grow green._
    _Give our Nurin her share,_
    _And we will eat and drink and be merry._

The children are asked, “Will you have it from the door or from the
garret-window?” If they choose the door, the water is poured on Nurin
from the window; and if they choose the window, it is poured on her
from the door. At each house they receive presents of butter, eggs,
rice, and so {p276} forth. Afterwards they take Nurin to a river and
throw her into the water. Sometimes the figure has the head of a pig
or a goat, and is covered with boughs.​[922] At Egin in Armenia, when
rain is wanted, boys carry about an effigy which they call Chi-chi Mama
or “the drenched Mother,” as they interpret the phrase. As they go
about they ask, “What does Chi-chi Mother want?” The answer is, “She
wants wheat in her bins, she wants bread on her bread-hooks, and she
wants rain from God!” The people pour water on her from the roofs, and
rich people make presents to the children.​[923] At Ourfa in Armenia
the children in time of drought make a rain-bride, which they call
Chimché-gelin. They say this means in Turkish “shovel-bride.” While
they carry it about they say, “What does Chimché-gelin want? She wishes
mercy from God: she wants offerings of lambs and rams.” And the crowd
responds, “Give, my God, give rain, give a flood.” The rain-bride is
then thrown into the water.​[924] At Kerak in Palestine, whenever there
is a drought, the Greek Christians dress up a winnowing-fork in women’s
clothes. They call it “the bride of God.” The girls and women carry it
from house to house, singing doggerel songs.​[925] We are not told that
“the bride of God” is drenched with water or thrown into a stream, but
the charm would hardly be complete without this feature. Similarly,
when rain is much wanted, the Arabs of Moab attire a dummy in the robes
and ornaments of a woman and call it “the Mother of the Rain.” A woman
carries it in procession past the houses of the village or the tents of
the camp, singing:—

    _O Mother of the Rain, O Immortal, moisten our sleeping
        seeds._
    _Moisten the sleeping seeds of the sheikh, who is ever
        generous._
    _She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the storm;
        when she comes back, the crops are as high as the walls._
    _She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the winds;
        when she comes back, the plantations have attained the
        height of lances._
    _She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the
        thunders; when she comes back, the crops are as high as
        camels._

And so on.​[926] {p277}

[Sidenote: Rain-making by bathing and sprinkling of water.

Curses supposed to cause rain.]

Bathing is practised as a rain-charm in some parts of southern and
western Russia. Sometimes after service in church the priest in his
robes has been thrown down on the ground and drenched with water by
his parishioners. Sometimes it is the women who, without stripping off
their clothes, bathe in crowds on the day of St. John the Baptist,
while they dip in the water a figure made of branches, grass, and
herbs, which is supposed to represent the saint.​[927] In Kursk, a
province of southern Russia, when rain is much wanted, the women seize
a passing stranger and throw him into the river, or souse him from
head to foot.​[928] Later on we shall see that a passing stranger
is often taken for a deity or the personification of some natural
power. It is recorded in official documents that during a drought in
1790 the peasants of Scheroutz and Werboutz collected all the women
and compelled them to bathe, in order that rain might fall.​[929] An
Armenian rain-charm is to throw the wife of a priest into the water
and drench her.​[930] The Arabs of North Africa fling a holy man,
willy-nilly, into a spring as a remedy for drought.​[931] In Minahassa,
a province of North Celebes, the priest bathes as a rain-charm.​[932]
In Central Celebes when there has been no rain for a long time and the
rice-stalks begin to shrivel up, many of the villagers, especially
the young folk, go to a neighbouring brook and splash each other with
water, shouting noisily, or squirt water on one another through bamboo
tubes. Sometimes they imitate the plump of rain by smacking the surface
of the water with their hands, or by placing an inverted gourd on it
and drumming on the gourd with their fingers.​[933] The Karo-Bataks
of Sumatra have a rain-making ceremony which lasts a week. The men go
about with bamboo squirts and the women with {p278} bowls of water,
and they drench each other or throw the water into the air and cry,
“The rain has come,” when it drips down on them.​[934] In Kumaon, a
district of north-west India, when rain fails they sink a Brahman up to
his lips in a tank or pond, where he repeats the name of a god of rain
for a day or two. When this rite is duly performed, rain is sure to
fall.​[935] For the same purpose village girls in the Punjaub will pour
a solution of cow-dung in water upon an old woman who happens to pass;
or they will make her sit down under the roof-spout of a house and get
a wetting when it rains.​[936] In the Solok district of Sumatra, when
a drought has lasted a long time, a number of half-naked women take a
half-witted man to a river; and there besprinkle him with water as a
means of compelling the rain to fall.​[937] In some parts of Bengal,
when drought threatens the country, troops of children of all ages go
from house to house and roll and tumble in puddles which have been
prepared for the purpose by pouring water into the courtyards. This
is supposed to bring down rain. Again, in Dubrajpur, a village in the
Birbhum district of Bengal, when rain has been looked for in vain,
people will throw dirt or filth on the houses of their neighbours,
who abuse them for doing so. Or they drench the lame, the halt, the
blind, and other infirm persons, and are reviled for their pains by
the victims. This vituperation is believed to bring about the desired
result by drawing down showers on the parched earth.​[938] Similarly,
in the Shahpur district of the Punjaub it is said to be customary in
time of drought to spill a pot of filth on the threshold of a notorious
old shrew, in order that the fluent stream of foul language in which
she vents her feelings may accelerate the lingering rain.​[939] {p279}

[Sidenote: Beneficial effect of curses and abuse.]

In these latter customs the means adopted for bringing about the
desired result appear to be not so much imitative magic as the
beneficent effect which, curiously enough, is often attributed to
curses and maledictions.​[940] Thus in the Indian district of Behar
much virtue is ascribed to abuse, which is supposed in some cases
to bring good luck. People, for example, who accompany a marriage
procession to the bride’s house are often foully abused by the women
of the bride’s family in the belief that this contributes to the good
fortune of the newly-married pair. So in Behar on Jamadwitiya Day,
which falls on the second day of the bright period of the moon next
to that during which the Dussera festival takes place, brothers are
reviled by sisters to their heart’s content because it is thought
that this will prolong the lives of the brothers and bring them good
luck.​[941] Further, in Behar and Bengal it is deemed very unlucky to
look at the new moon of Bhadon (August); whoever does so is sure to
meet with some mishap, or to be falsely accused of something. To avert
these evils people are commonly advised to throw stones or brickbats
into their neighbours’ houses; for if they do so, and are reviled
for their pains, they will escape the threatened evils, and their
neighbours who abused them will suffer in their stead. Hence the day
of the new moon in this month is called the Day of Stones. At Benares
a regular festival is held for this purpose on the fourth day of
Bhadon, which is known as “the clod festival of the fourth.”​[942] On
the Khurda estate in Orissa gardens and fruit-trees are conspicuously
absent. The peasants explain their absence by saying that from time
immemorial they have held it lucky to be annoyed and abused by their
neighbours at a certain festival, which answers to the Nashti-Chandra
in Bengal. Hence in order to give ample ground of offence they mutilate
the fruit-trees and trample down the gardens of their neighbours, and
so court fortune by drawing down on themselves {p280} the wrath of the
injured owners.​[943] At Cranganore, in the Native State of Cochin,
there is a shrine of the goddess Bhagavati, which is much frequented
by pilgrims in the month of Minam (March-April). From all parts of
Cochin, Malabar, and Travancore crowds flock to attend the festival and
the highroads ring with their shouts of _Nada nada_, “March! march!”
They desecrate the shrine of the goddess in every conceivable way,
discharge volleys of stones and filth, and level the most opprobrious
language at the goddess herself. These proceedings are supposed to
be acceptable to her. The intention of the pilgrimage is to secure
immunity from disease during the succeeding year.​[944] In some cases a
curse may, like rags and dirt, be supposed to benefit a man by making
him appear vile and contemptible, and thus diverting from him the evil
eye and other malignant influences, which are attracted by beauty and
prosperity but repelled by their opposites. Among the Huzuls of the
Carpathians, if a herdsman or cattle-owner suspects himself of having
the evil eye, he will charge one of his household to call him a devil
or a robber every time he goes near the cattle; for he thinks that
this will undo the effect of the evil eye.​[945] Among the Chams of
Cambodia and Annam, while a corpse is being burned on the pyre, a man
who bears the title of the Master of Sorrows remains in the house of
the deceased and loads it with curses, after which he beseeches the
ghost not to come back and torment his family.​[946] These last curses
are clearly intended to make his old home unattractive to the spirit of
the dead. Esthonian fishermen believe that they never have such good
luck as when some one is angry with them and curses them. Hence before
a fisherman goes out to fish, he will play a rough practical joke on a
comrade in order to be abused and execrated by him. The more his friend
storms and curses, the better he is pleased; every curse brings at
least three {p281} fish into his net.​[947] There is a popular belief
in Berlin and the neighbourhood that if you wish a huntsman good luck
when he is going out to shoot deer he will be certain never to get a
shot at all. To avert the ill luck caused by such a wish the hunter
must throw a broomstick at the head of his well-wisher. If he is really
to have luck, you must wish that he may break his neck, or both his
neck and his legs. The wish is expressed with pregnant brevity in the
phrase, “Now then, neck and leg!”​[948] The intention of such curses
may be to put the fish or the deer off their guard; for, as we shall
see later on, animals are commonly supposed to understand human speech,
and even to overhear what is said of them many miles off. Accordingly
if they hear a fisherman or a hunter flouted and vituperated, they
will think too meanly of him to go out of his way, and so will fall
an easy prey to his net or his gun. When a Greek sower sowed cummin
he had to curse and swear, or the crop would not turn out well.​[949]
Roman writers mention a similar custom observed by the sowers of rue
and basil;​[950] and hedge doctors in ancient Greece laid it down as
a rule that in cutting black hellebore you should face eastward and
curse.​[951] Perhaps the bitter language was supposed to strengthen
the bitter taste, and hence the medicinal virtue, of these plants. At
Lindus in the island of Rhodes it was customary to sacrifice one or two
plough oxen to Hercules with curses and imprecations; indeed we are
told that the sacrifice was deemed invalid if a good word fell from
any one’s lips during the rite. The custom was explained by a legend
that Hercules had laid hands on the oxen of a ploughman and cooked and
devoured them, while their owner, unable to defend his beasts, stood
afar off and vented his anger in a torrent of abuse and execration.
Hercules received his maledictions with a roar of laughter, appointed
him his priest, and bade him always sacrifice with the very same
execrations, for he had never {p282} dined better in his life.​[952]
The legend is plainly a fiction devised to explain the ritual. We may
conjecture that the curses were intended to palliate the slaughter of a
sacred animal. The subject will be touched on in a later part of this
work. Here we must return to rain-making.

[Sidenote: Rain-making by ploughing.]

Women are sometimes supposed to be able to make rain by ploughing, or
pretending to plough. Thus the Pshaws and Chewsurs of the Caucasus
have a ceremony called “ploughing the rain,” which they observe
in time of drought. Girls yoke themselves to a plough and drag it
into a river, wading in the water up to their girdles.​[953] In the
same circumstances Armenian girls and women do the same. The oldest
woman, or the priest’s wife, wears the priest’s dress, while the
others, dressed as men, drag the plough through the water against the
stream.​[954] In the Caucasian province of Georgia, when a drought has
lasted long, marriageable girls are yoked in couples with an ox-yoke
on their shoulders, a priest holds the reins, and thus harnessed they
wade through rivers, puddles, and marshes, praying, screaming, weeping,
and laughing.​[955] In a district of Transylvania, when the ground is
parched with drought, some girls strip themselves naked, and, led by an
older woman, who is also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it across
the fields to a brook, where they set it afloat. Next they sit on the
harrow and keep a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour.
Then they leave the harrow in the water and go home.​[956] A similar
rain-charm is resorted to in some parts of India; naked women drag a
plough across a field by night, while the men keep carefully out of
the way, for their presence would break the spell.​[957] As performed
at {p283} Chunar in Bengal on the twenty-fourth of July 1891 the
ceremony was this. Between nine and ten in the evening a barber’s wife
went from door to door and invited the women to engage in ploughing.
They all assembled in a field from which men were excluded. Three
women of a husbandman’s family then stripped themselves naked; two
of them were yoked like oxen to the plough, while the third held the
handle. They next began to imitate the operation of ploughing. The one
who held the plough cried out, “O mother earth! bring parched grain,
water, and chaff. Our stomachs are breaking to pieces from hunger and
thirst.” Then the landlord and accountant approached them and laid
down some grain, water, and chaff in the field. After that the women
dressed and returned home. “By the grace of God,” adds the gentleman
who reports the ceremony, “the weather changed almost immediately, and
we had a good shower.”​[958] Sometimes as they draw the plough the
women sing a hymn to Vishnu, in which they seek to enlist his sympathy
by enumerating the ills which the people are suffering from the want
of rain. In some cases they discharge volleys of abuse at the village
officials, and even at the landlord, whom they compel to drag the
plough.​[959] These ceremonies are all the more remarkable because
in ordinary circumstances Hindoo women never engage in agricultural
operations like ploughing and harrowing. Yet in drought it seems to
be women of the highest or Brahman caste who are chosen to perform
what at other times would be regarded as a menial and degrading task.
Occasionally, when hesitation is felt at subjecting Brahman ladies to
this indignity, they are allowed to get off by merely touching the
plough early in the morning, before people are astir; the real work
is afterwards done by the ploughmen.​[960] In Manipur the prosperity
of all classes {p284} depends on the abundance and regularity of the
rainfall; hence the people have many rites and ceremonies for the
making of rain. Thus in time of drought one hundred and eight girls
milk one hundred and eight cows in the temple of Govindji, the most
popular incarnation of Krishna in the country. If this fails, the women
throw their _dhan_-pounders into the nearest pool, and at the dead
of night strip themselves naked and plough.​[961] There is a Burmese
superstition that if a harrow has a flaw in it no rain will fall till
the faulty harrow has been decked with flowers, broken, and thrown
into the river. Further, the owner should have his hair cropped, and
being adorned with flowers should dance and carry the harrow to the
water. Otherwise the country is sure to suffer from drought.​[962] The
Tarahumare Indians of Mexico dip the plough in water before they use
it, that it may draw rain.​[963]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of the dead.]

Sometimes the rain-charm operates through the dead. Thus in New
Caledonia the rain-makers blackened themselves all over, dug up a dead
body, took the bones to a cave, jointed them, and hung the skeleton
over some taro leaves. Water was poured over the skeleton to run down
on the leaves. They believed that the soul of the deceased took up the
water, converted it into rain, and showered it down again.​[964] In
some parts of New Caledonia the {p285} ceremony is somewhat different.
A great quantity of provisions is offered to the ancestors, being
laid down before their skulls in the sacred place. In front of the
skulls a number of pots full of water are set in a row, and in each
pot there is deposited a sacred stone which has more or less the shape
of a skull. The rain-maker then prays to the ancestors to send rain.
After that he climbs a tree with a branch in his hand, which he waves
about to hasten the approach of the rain-clouds.​[965] The ceremony
is a mixture of magic and religion; the prayers and offerings to the
ancestors are purely religious, while the placing of the skull-like
stones in water and the waving of the branch are magical. In Russia,
if common report may be believed, it is not long since the peasants
of any district that chanced to be afflicted with drought used to dig
up the corpse of some one who had drunk himself to death and sink it
in the nearest swamp or lake, fully persuaded that this would ensure
the fall of the needed rain. In 1868 the prospect of a bad harvest,
caused by a prolonged drought, induced the inhabitants of a village
in the Tarashchansk district to dig up the body of a Raskolnik, or
Dissenter, who had died in the preceding December. Some of the party
beat the corpse, or what was left of it, about the head, exclaiming,
“Give us rain!” while others poured water on it through a sieve.​[966]
Here the pouring of water through a sieve seems plainly an imitation
of a shower, and reminds us of the manner in which Strepsiades in
Aristophanes imagined that rain was made by Zeus.​[967] An Armenian
rain-charm is to dig up a skull and throw it into running water.​[968]
At Ourfa for this purpose they prefer the skull of a Jew, which they
cast into the Pool of Abraham.​[969] In Mysore people think that if a
leper is buried, instead of being burnt, as he ought to be, rain will
not fall. Hence they have been known to disinter buried lepers in time
of drought.​[970] In Halmahera there is a practice of {p286} throwing
stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and
avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy rain.​[971]
This may explain a rain-charm which seems to have been practised by
the Mauretanians in antiquity. A mound in the shape of a man lying on
his back was pointed out as the grave of the giant Antaeus; and if
any earth were dug up and removed from it, rain fell till the soil
was replaced.​[972] Perhaps the rain was the revenge the surly giant
took for being wakened from his long sleep. Sometimes, in order to
procure rain, the Toradjas of Central Celebes make an appeal to the
pity of the dead. Thus, in the village of Kalingooa, in Kadombookoo,
there is the grave of a famous chief, the grandfather of the present
ruler. When the land suffers from unseasonable drought, the people go
to this grave, pour water on it, and say, “O grandfather, have pity on
us; if it is your will that this year we should eat, then give rain.”
After that they hang a bamboo full of water over the grave; there is
a small hole in the lower end of the bamboo, so that the water drips
from it continually. The bamboo is always refilled with water until
rain drenches the ground.​[973] Here, as in New Caledonia, we find
religion blent with magic, for the prayer to the dead chief, which is
purely religious, is eked out with a magical imitation of rain at his
grave. We have seen that the Baronga of Delagoa Bay drench the tombs of
their ancestors, especially the tombs of twins, as a rain-charm.​[974]
In Zululand the native girls form a procession and carry large pots of
water to a certain tree which chances to be on a mission station. When
the girls were asked why they did this, they said that an old ancestor
of theirs had been buried under the tree, and as he was a great
rain-maker in his life, they always came and poured water on his grave
in time of drought, in order that he might send them rain.​[975] This
ceremony partakes of the nature of religion, since it implies an appeal
for help to a deceased ancestor. Purely religious, on the other hand,
are {p287} some means adopted by the Herero of south-western Africa to
procure rain. If a drought has lasted long, the whole tribe goes with
its cattle to the grave of some eminent man; it may be the father or
grandfather of the chief. They lay offerings of milk and flesh on the
grave and utter their plaint: “Look, O Father, upon your beloved cattle
and children; they suffer distress, they are so lean, they are dying
of hunger. Give us rain.” The ears of the spectator are deafened by
the lowing and bleating of herds and flocks, the shouts of herdsmen,
the barking of dogs, and the screams of women.​[976] Among some of
the Indian tribes in the region of the Orinoco it was customary for
the relations of a deceased person to disinter his bones a year after
burial, burn them, and scatter the ashes to the winds, because they
believed that the ashes were changed into rain, which the dead man sent
in return for his obsequies.​[977] The Chinese are convinced that when
human bodies remain unburied, the souls of their late owners feel the
discomfort of rain, just as living men would do if they were exposed
without shelter to the inclemency of the weather. These wretched souls,
therefore, do all in their power to prevent the rain from falling, and
often their efforts are only too successful. Then drought ensues, the
most dreaded of all calamities in China, because bad harvests, dearth,
and famine follow in its train. Hence it has been a common practice of
the Chinese authorities in time of drought to inter the dry bones of
the unburied dead for the purpose of putting an end to the scourge and
conjuring down the rain.​[978]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of animals.]

Animals, again, often play an important part in these weather-charms.
The Anula tribe of northern Australia associate the dollar-bird with
rain, and call it the rain-bird. A man who has the bird for his totem
can make rain at a certain pool. He catches a snake, puts it alive into
the pool, and after holding it under water for a time takes it {p288}
out, kills it, and lays it down by the side of the creek. Then he
makes an arched bundle of grass stalks in imitation of a rainbow, and
sets it up over the snake. After that all he does is to sing over the
snake and the mimic rainbow; sooner or later the rain will fall. They
explain this procedure by saying that long ago the dollar-bird had as
a mate at this spot a snake, who lived in the pool and used to make
rain by spitting up into the sky till a rainbow and clouds appeared
and rain fell.​[979] The Tjingilli of northern Australia make rain
in an odd way. One of them will catch a fat bandicoot and carry it
about, singing over it till the animal grows very thin and weak. Then
he lets it go, and rain will follow.​[980] When some of the Blackfoot
Indians were at war in summer and wished to bring on a tempest, they
would take a kit-fox skin and rub it with dirt and water, which never
failed to be followed by a storm of rain.​[981] The Thompson Indians of
British Columbia think that when the loon calls loud and often, it will
soon rain, and that to mimic the cry of the bird may bring the rain
down.​[982] The fish called the small sculpin, which abounds along the
rocky shore of Norton Sound, is called by the Esquimaux the rain-maker;
they say that if a person takes one of these fish in his hand heavy
rain will follow.​[983] If Aino fishermen desire to bring on rain and
wind, they pray to the skulls of racoons and then throw water over
each other. Should they wish the storm to increase they put on gloves
and caps of racoon-skin and dance. Then it blows great guns.​[984] In
Ma-hlaing, a district of Upper Burma, when rain is scarce, the people
pray to a certain fish called _nga-yan_ to send it. They also catch
some fish and put them in a tub, while offerings of plantains and other
food are made to the monks in the name of the fish. After that the
fish are let loose in {p289} a stream or pond, with gold-leaf stuck
on their heads. If live fish are not to be had, wooden ones are used
and answer the purpose just as well.​[985] When the Chirus of Manipur
wish to make rain they catch a crab and put it in a pot of water. Then
the headman goes to the gate of the village and keeps lifting the crab
out of the water and putting it back into it till he is tired.​[986]
An ancient Indian mode of making rain was to throw an otter into the
water.​[987] If the sky refuses rain and the cattle are perishing, an
Arab sheikh will sometimes stand in the middle of the camp and cry,
“Redeem yourselves, O people, redeem yourselves!” At these words every
family sacrifices a sheep, divides it in two, and hanging the pieces on
two poles passes between them. Children too young to walk are carried
by their mother.​[988] But this custom has rather the appearance of
a sacrifice than of a charm. In southern Celebes people try to make
rain by carrying a cat tied in a sedan chair thrice round the parched
fields, while they drench it with water from bamboo squirts. When the
cat begins to miaul, they say, “O lord, let rain fall on us.”​[989] A
common way of making rain in many parts of Java is to bathe a cat or
two cats, a male and a female; sometimes the animals are carried in
procession with music. Even in Batavia you may from time to time see
children going about with a cat for this purpose; when they have ducked
it in a pool, they let it go.​[990] {p290}

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of black animals.]

Often in order to give effect to the rain-charm the animal must be
black. Thus an ancient Indian way of bringing on rain was to set a
black horse with his face to the west and rub him with a black cloth
till he neighed.​[991] In the Beni-Chougran tribe of North Africa women
lead a black cow in procession, while other women sprinkle the whole
group with water as a means of wringing a shower from the sky.​[992]
To procure rain the Peruvian Indians used to set a black sheep in a
field, poured _chica_ over it, and gave the animal nothing to eat
until rain fell.​[993] Once when a drought lasting five months had
burnt up their pastures and withered the corn, the Caffres of Natal
had recourse to a famous witch, who promised to procure rain without
delay. A black sheep having been produced, an incision was made in
the animal near the shoulder and the gall taken out. Part of this the
witch rubbed over her own person, part she drank, part was mixed with
medicine. Some of the medicine was then rubbed on her body; the rest
of it, attached to a stick, was fixed in the fence of a calves’ pen.
The woman next harangued the clouds. When the sheep was to be cooked,
a new fire was procured by the friction of fire-sticks; in ordinary
circumstances a brand would have been taken from one of the huts.​[994]
Among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of eastern Africa, when the sorcerer
desires to make rain he takes a black sheep and a black calf in bright
sunshine, and has them placed upon the roof of the large common hut
in which the people live together. Then he slits open the stomachs of
the animals and scatters their contents in all directions. After that
he pours water and medicine into a vessel; if the charm has succeeded,
the water boils up and rain follows. On the other hand, if the sorcerer
wishes to prevent rain from falling, he withdraws into the interior of
the hut, and there heats a rock-crystal in a calabash.​[995] In order
to procure rain the Wagogo of German East Africa sacrifice black fowls,
black sheep, and black cattle at the {p291} graves of dead ancestors,
and the rain-maker wears black clothes during the rainy season.​[996]
Among the Matabele the rain-charm employed by sorcerers was made from
the blood and gall of a black ox.​[997] In a district of Sumatra, in
order to procure rain, all the women of the village, scantily clad,
go to the river, wade into it, and splash each other with the water.
A black cat is thrown into the stream and made to swim about for a
while, then allowed to escape to the bank, pursued by the splashing of
the women.​[998] The Garos of Assam offer a black goat on the top of
a very high mountain in time of drought.​[999] In all these cases the
colour of the animal is part of the charm; being black, it will darken
the sky with rain-clouds. So the Bechuanas burn the stomach of an ox
at evening, because they say, “The black smoke will gather the clouds
and cause the rain to come.”​[1000] The Timorese sacrifice a black pig
to the Earth-goddess for rain, a white or red one to the Sun-god for
sunshine.​[1001] The Angoni, a tribe of Zulu descent to the north of
the Zambesi, sacrifice a black ox for rain and a white one for fine
weather.​[1002] Among the high mountains of Japan there is a district
in which, if rain has not fallen for a long time, a party of villagers
goes in procession to the bed of a mountain torrent, headed by a
priest, who leads a black dog. At the chosen spot they tether the beast
to a stone, and make it a target for their bullets and arrows. When its
life-blood bespatters the rocks, the peasants throw down their weapons
and lift up their voices in supplication to the dragon divinity of the
{p292} stream, exhorting him to send down forthwith a shower to cleanse
the spot from its defilement. Custom has prescribed that on these
occasions the colour of the victim shall be black, as an emblem of the
wished-for rain-clouds. But if fine weather is wanted, the victim must
be white, without a spot.​[1003]

[Sidenote: Frogs and toads in relation to rain.

Frogs used in rain-charms.]

The intimate association of frogs and toads with water has earned for
these creatures a widespread reputation as custodians of rain; and
hence they often play a part in charms designed to draw needed showers
from the sky. Some of the Indians of the Orinoco held the toad to be
the god or lord of the waters, and for that reason feared to kill the
creature, even when they were ordered to do so. They have been known
to keep frogs under a pot and to beat them with rods when there was a
drought.​[1004] It is said that the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia
often make little images of frogs and other aquatic animals and place
them on the tops of the hills as a means of bringing down rain.​[1005]
In some parts of south-eastern Australia, where the rainfall is apt to
be excessive, the natives feared to injure Tidelek, the frog, or Bluk,
the bull-frog, because they were said to be full of water instead of
intestines, and great rains would follow if one of them were killed.
The frog family was often referred to as Bunjil Willung or Mr. Rain. A
tradition ran that once upon a time long ago the frog drank up all the
water in the lakes and rivers, and then sat in the dry {p293} reed beds
swollen to an enormous size, saying, “Bluk! bluk!” in a deep gurgling
voice. All the other animals wandered about gaping and gasping for a
drop of moisture, but finding none, they agreed that they must all
die of thirst unless they could contrive to make the frog laugh. So
they tried one after the other, but for a long time in vain. At last
the conger eel and his relations, hung round with lake grass and gay
sea-weed, reared themselves on their tails and pranced round the fire.
This was too much for the frog. He opened his mouth and laughed till
the water ran out and the lakes and streams were full once more.​[1006]
We have seen that some of the Queensland aborigines imitate the
movements and cries of frogs as part of a rain-charm.​[1007] The
Thompson River Indians of British Columbia and some people in Europe
think that to kill a frog brings on rain.​[1008] In order to procure
rain people of low caste in the Central Provinces of India will tie a
frog to a rod covered with green leaves and branches of the _nîm_ tree
(_Azadirachta Indica_) and carry it from door to door singing—

    _Send soon, O frog, the jewel of water!_
    _And ripen the wheat and millet in the field._​[1009]

In Kumaon, a district of north-western India, one way of bringing on
rain when it is needed is to hang a frog with its mouth up on a tall
bamboo or on a tree for a day or two. The notion is that the god of
rain, seeing the creature in trouble, will take pity on it and send the
rain.​[1010] In the district of Muzaffarpur in India the vulgar believe
that the cry of a frog is most readily heard by the God of {p294} Rain.
Hence in a year of drought the low-caste females of a village assemble
at evening and put a frog in a small earthen pot together with water
taken from five different houses. The pot with the frog is then placed
in the hollow wooden cup into which the lever used for pounding rice
falls. Being raised with the foot and then allowed to drop, the lever
crushes the frog to death; and while the creature emits his dying croak
the women sing songs in a loud voice about the dearth of water.​[1011]
The Kapus or Reddis are a large and prosperous caste of cultivators
and landowners in the Madras Presidency. When rain fails, women of the
caste will catch a frog and tie it alive to a new winnowing fan made
of bamboo. On this fan they spread a few margosa leaves and go from
door to door singing, “Lady frog must have her bath. Oh! rain-god,
give a little water for her at least.” While the Kapu women sing this
song, the woman of the house pours water over the frog and gives an
alms, convinced that by so doing she will soon bring rain down in
torrents.​[1012] Again, in order to procure rain the Malas, who are the
pariahs of the Telugu country in Southern India, tie a live frog to a
mortar and put a mud figure of Gontiyalamma over it. Then they carry
the mortar, frog, and all in procession, singing, “Mother frog, playing
in water, pour rain by pots full,” while the villagers of other castes
pour water over them.​[1013] Beliefs like these might easily develop
into a worship of frogs regarded as personifying the powers of water
and rain. In the Rig Veda there is a hymn about frogs which appears
to be substantially a rain-charm.​[1014] The Newars, the aboriginal
inhabitants of Nepaul, worship the frog as a creature associated with
the demi-god Nagas in the production and control of rain and the
water-supply, on which the welfare of the crops depends. A sacred
character is attributed to the little animal, and every care is taken
not to molest or injure it. The worship of the frog is performed on
the seventh day of the month Kartik (October), usually at a {p295} pool
which is known to be frequented by frogs, although it is not essential
to the efficacy of the rite that a frog should be actually seen at the
time. After carefully washing his face and hands, the priest takes five
brazen bowls and places in them five separate offerings, namely, rice,
flowers, milk and vermilion, ghee and incense, and water. Lighting
the pile of ghee and incense, the priest says, “Hail, Paremêsvara
Bhûmînâtha! I pray you receive these offerings and send us timely rain,
and bless our crops!”​[1015]

[Sidenote: Suggested explanation of connexion of frog with rain.]

Some of these customs and beliefs may be, at least in part, based on
the frog’s habit of storing up water in its body against seasons of
drought; when it is caught at such times, it squirts the water out in
a jet.​[1016] On seeing a frog emit a gush of water when all around
was dry and parched, savages might easily infer that the creature had
caused the drought by swallowing all the water, and that in order to
restore its moisture to the thirsty ground they had only to make the
frog disgorge its secret store of the precious liquid.

[Sidenote: Stopping rain by means of rabbits and serpents.]

Among some tribes of South Africa, when too much rain falls, the
wizard, accompanied by a large crowd, repairs to the house of a
family where there has been no death for a very long time, and there
he burns the skin of a coney. As it burns he shouts, “The rabbit is
burning,” and the cry is taken up by the whole crowd, who continue
shouting till they are exhausted.​[1017] This no doubt is supposed
to stop the rain. Equally effective is a method adopted by gypsies
in Austria. When the rain has continued to pour steadily for a long
time, to the great discomfort of these homeless vagrants, the men of
the band assemble at a river and divide themselves into two parties.
Some of them cut branches with which to make a raft, while the others
collect hazel leaves and cover the raft with them. A witch thereupon
lays a dried serpent, wrapt {p296} in white rags, on the raft, which
is then carried by several men to the river. Women are not allowed to
be present at this part of the ceremony. While the procession moves
towards the river, the witch marches behind the raft singing a song,
of which the burden is a statement that gypsies do not like water, and
have no urgent need of serpents’ milk, coupled with the expression of
a hope that the serpent may see his way to swallow the water, that he
may run to his mother and drink milk from her breasts, and that the
sun may shine out, bringing back mirth and jollity to gypsy hearts.
Transylvanian gypsies will sometimes expose the dried carcase of a
serpent to the pouring rain, “in order that the serpent may convince
himself of the inclemency of the weather, and so grant the people’s
wish.”​[1018]

[Sidenote: Doing violence to the being who controls the weather.]

This last custom is an example of an entirely different mode of
procuring rain, to which people sometimes have recourse in extreme
cases, when the drought is long and their temper short. At such times
they will drop the usual hocus-pocus of imitative magic altogether,
and being far too angry to waste their breath in prayer they seek by
threats and curses or even downright physical force to extort the
waters of heaven from the supernatural being who has, so to say, cut
them off at the main. Thus, in Muzaffarnagar, a town of the Punjaub,
when the rains are excessive, the people draw a figure of a certain
Muni or Rishi Agastya on a loin-cloth and put it out in the rain, or
they paint his figure on the outside of the house and let the rain wash
it off. This Muni or Rishi Agastya is a great personage in the native
folklore, and enjoys the reputation of being able to stop the rain. It
is supposed that he will exercise his power as soon as he is thus made
to feel in effigy the misery of wet weather.​[1019] On the other hand,
when rain is wanted at Chhatarpur, a native state in Bundelcund, they
paint two figures with their legs up and their heads down on a wall
that faces east; one of the figures represents Indra, the other Megha
Raja, the lord of rain. They think that in this uncomfortable position
these powerful beings will soon be glad to send {p297} the much-needed
showers.​[1020] In a Japanese village, when the guardian divinity had
long been deaf to the peasants’ prayers for rain, they at last threw
down his image and, with curses loud and long, hurled it head foremost
into a stinking rice-field. “There,” they said, “you may stay yourself
for a while, to see how _you_ will feel after a few days’ scorching
in this broiling sun that is burning the life from our cracking
fields.”​[1021] In the like circumstances the Feloupes of Senegambia
cast down their fetishes and drag them about the fields, cursing them
till rain falls.​[1022] In Okunomura, a Japanese village not far from
Tokio, when rain is wanted, an artificial dragon is made out of straw,
reeds, bamboos, and magnolia leaves. Preceded by a Shinto priest,
attended by men carrying paper flags, and followed by others beating a
big drum, the dragon is carried in procession from the Buddhist temple
and finally thrown into a waterfall.​[1023] When the spirits withhold
rain or sunshine, the Comanches whip a slave; if the gods prove
obstinate, the victim is almost flayed alive.​[1024]

[Sidenote: Chinese modes of compelling the gods to give rain.

Siamese modes of constraining the gods to give rain.]

The Chinese are adepts in the art of taking the kingdom of heaven by
storm. Thus, when rain is wanted they make a huge dragon of paper or
wood to represent the rain-god, and carry it about in procession;
but if no rain follows, the mock-dragon is execrated and torn to
pieces.​[1025] At other times they threaten and beat the god if he
does not give rain; sometimes they publicly depose him from the rank
of deity. On the other hand, if the wished-for rain falls, the god is
promoted to a higher rank by an imperial decree.​[1026] It is said
that in the reign of Kia-King, fifth emperor of the {p298} Manchu
dynasty, a long drought desolated several provinces of northern China.
Processions were of no avail; the rain-dragon hardened his heart and
would not let a drop fall. At last the emperor lost patience and
condemned the recalcitrant deity to perpetual exile on the banks of
the river Illi in the province of Torgot. The decree was in process
of execution; the divine criminal, with a touching resignation, was
already traversing the deserts of Tartary to work out his sentence on
the borders of Turkestan, when the judges of the High Court of Peking,
moved with compassion, flung themselves at the feet of the emperor and
implored his pardon for the poor devil. The emperor consented to revoke
his doom, and a messenger set off at full gallop to bear the tidings
to the executors of the imperial justice. The dragon was reinstated
in his office on condition of performing his duties a little better
in future.​[1027] About the year 1710 the island of Tsong-ming, which
belongs to the province of Nanking, was afflicted with a drought. The
viceroy of the province, after the usual attempts to soften the heart
of the local deity by burning incense-sticks had been made in vain,
sent word to the idol that if rain did not fall by such and such a day,
he would have him turned out of the city and his temple razed to the
ground. The threat had no effect on the obdurate divinity; the day of
grace came and went, and yet no rain fell. Then the indignant viceroy
forbade the people to make any more offerings at the shrine of this
unfeeling deity, and commanded that the temple should be shut up and
seals placed on the doors. This soon produced the desired effect. Cut
off from his base of supplies, the idol had no choice but to surrender
at discretion. Rain fell in a few days, and thus the god was restored
to the affections of the faithful.​[1028] In some parts of China the
mandarins procure rain or fine weather by shutting the southern or the
northern gates of the city. For the south wind brings drought and the
north wind brings showers. Hence by closing the southern and opening
the northern gates you clearly exclude drought and admit rain; whereas
contrariwise by shutting the northern and opening the {p299} southern
gates you bar out the clouds and the wet and let in sunshine and genial
warmth.​[1029] In April 1888 the mandarins of Canton prayed to the god
Lung-wong to stop the incessant downpour of rain; and when he turned a
deaf ear to their petitions they put him in a lock-up for five days.
This had a salutary effect. The rain ceased and the god was restored to
liberty. Some years before, in time of drought, the same deity had been
chained and exposed to the sun for days in the courtyard of his temple
in order that he might feel for himself the urgent need of rain.​[1030]
So when the Siamese need rain, they set out their idols in the blazing
sun; but if they want dry weather, they unroof the temples and let
the rain pour down on the idols. They think that the inconvenience
to which the gods are thus subjected will induce them to grant the
wishes of their worshippers.​[1031] When the rice-crop is endangered
by long drought, the governor of Battambang, a province of Siam, goes
in great state to a certain pagoda and prays to Buddha for rain. Then,
accompanied by his suite and followed by an enormous crowd, he adjourns
to a plain behind the pagoda. Here a dummy figure has been made up,
dressed in bright colours, and placed in the middle of the plain. A
wild music begins to play; maddened by the din of drums and cymbals and
crackers, and goaded on by their drivers, the elephants charge down on
the dummy and trample it to pieces. After this, Buddha will soon give
rain.​[1032]

[Sidenote: Compelling the saints to give rain in Sicily.]

The reader may smile at the meteorology of the Far East; but precisely
similar modes of procuring rain have been resorted to in Christian
Europe within our own lifetime. By the end of April 1893 there was
great distress in Sicily for lack of water. The drought had lasted six
months. Every day the sun rose and set in a sky of cloudless blue. The
gardens of the Conca d’Oro, which surround Palermo with a magnificent
belt of verdure, were {p300} withering. Food was becoming scarce. The
people were in great alarm. All the most approved methods of procuring
rain had been tried without effect. Processions had traversed the
streets and the fields. Men, women, and children, telling their beads,
had lain whole nights before the holy images. Consecrated candles had
burned day and night in the churches. Palm branches, blessed on Palm
Sunday, had been hung on the trees. At Solaparuta, in accordance with
a very old custom, the dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday
had been spread on the fields. In ordinary years these holy sweepings
preserve the crops; but that year, if you will believe me, they had no
effect whatever. At Nicosia the inhabitants, bare-headed and bare-foot,
carried the crucifixes through all the wards of the town and scourged
each other with iron whips. It was all in vain. Even the great St.
Francis of Paola himself, who annually performs the miracle of rain
and is carried every spring through the market-gardens, either could
not or would not help. Masses, vespers, concerts, illuminations,
fire-works—nothing could move him. At last the peasants began to lose
patience. Most of the saints were banished. At Palermo they dumped
St. Joseph in a garden to see the state of things for himself, and
they swore to leave him there in the sun till rain fell. Other saints
were turned, like naughty children, with their faces to the wall.
Others again, stripped of their beautiful robes, were exiled far from
their parishes, threatened, grossly insulted, ducked in horse-ponds.
At Caltanisetta the golden wings of St. Michael the Archangel were
torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of pasteboard; his
purple mantle was taken away and a clout wrapt about him instead. At
Licata the patron saint, St. Angelo, fared even worse, for he was left
without any garments at all; he was reviled, he was put in irons, he
was threatened with drowning or hanging. “Rain or the rope!” roared the
angry people at him, as they shook their fists in his face.​[1033] {p301}

[Sidenote: Disturbing the rain-god in his haunts.]

Another way of constraining the rain-god is to disturb him in his
haunts. This seems to be the reason why rain is supposed to follow
the troubling of a sacred spring. The Dards believe that if a
cow-skin or anything impure is placed in certain springs, storms will
follow.​[1034] In the mountains of Farghana there was a place where
rain began to fall as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a certain
famous well.​[1035] Again, in Tabaristan there was said to be a cave in
the mountain of Tak which had only to be defiled by filth or milk for
the rain to begin to fall, and to continue falling till the cave was
cleansed.​[1036] Gervasius mentions a spring, into which if a stone or
a stick were thrown, rain would at once issue from it and drench the
thrower.​[1037] There was a fountain in Munster such that if it were
touched or even looked at by a human being, it would at once flood the
whole province with rain.​[1038] In Normandy a wizard will sometimes
repair to a spring, sprinkle flour on it, and strike the water with a
hazel rod, while he chants his spell. A mist then rises from the spring
and condenses in the shape of heavy clouds, which discharge volleys
of hail on the orchards and corn-fields.​[1039] When rain was long of
coming in the Canary Islands, the priestesses used to beat the sea with
rods to punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness.​[1040] Among the
natural curiosities of Annam are the caves of Chua-hang {p302} or Troc.
You may sail into them in a boat underground for a distance of half a
mile, and a little way further in you come to the remains of an ancient
altar among magnificent stalactite columns. The Annamites worship
the spirit of the cave and offer sacrifices at its mouth in time of
drought. From all the villages in the neighbourhood come boats, the
boatmen singing, “Let it rain! let it rain!” in time to the measured
dip of their oars in the water. Arrived at the mouth of the cave, they
offer rice and wine to the spirit, prostrating themselves four times
before him. Then the master of the ceremonies recites a prayer, ties a
written copy of it to the neck of a dog, and flings the animal into the
stream which flows from the grotto. This is done in order to provoke
the spirit of the cave to anger by defiling his pure water; for he will
then send abundant rains to sweep far away the carcase of the dead dog
which pollutes the sacred grotto.​[1041]

[Sidenote: Putting compulsion on the rain-god.

Exciting the pity of the beings who control the rain.]

Two hundred miles to the east of the land of the Huichol Indians in
Mexico there is a sacred spring, and away to the west of their country
stretches the Pacific Ocean. To ensure the fall of rain these Indians
carry water from the spring to the sea, and an equal quantity of
sea-water from the sea to the spring. The two waters thus transferred
will, they think, feel strange in their new surroundings and will
seek to return to their old homes. Hence they will pass in the shape
of clouds across the Huichol country and meeting there will descend
as rain.​[1042] Sometimes an appeal is made to the pity of the gods.
When their corn is being burnt up by the sun, the Zulus look out for
a “heaven bird,” kill it, and throw it into a pool. Then the heaven
melts with tenderness for the death of the bird; “it wails for it by
raining, wailing a funeral wail.”​[1043] In Zululand women sometimes
bury their children up to the neck in the ground, and then retiring to
a distance keep up a dismal howl for a long time. The sky is supposed
to melt with pity at the sight. Then the women dig the children out
and feel sure {p303} that rain will soon follow. They say that they
call to “the lord above” and ask him to send rain. If it comes they
declare that “Usondo rains.”​[1044] In times of drought the Guanches of
Teneriffe led their sheep to sacred ground, and there they separated
the lambs from their dams, that their plaintive bleating might touch
the heart of the god.​[1045] In Kumaon a way of stopping rain is to
pour hot oil in the left ear of a dog. The animal howls with pain, his
howls are heard by Indra, and out of pity for the beast’s sufferings
the god stops the rain.​[1046] Sometimes the Toradjas of Central
Celebes attempt to procure rain as follows. They place the stalks of
certain plants in water, saying, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as
no rain falls I will not plant you again, but there shall you die.”
Also they string some fresh-water snails on a cord, and hang the cord
on a tree, and say to the snails, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as
no rain comes, I will not take you back to the water.” Then the snails
go and weep and the gods take pity and send rain.​[1047] However, the
foregoing ceremonies are religious rather than magical, since they
involve an appeal to the compassion of higher powers. A peculiar mode
of making rain was adopted by some of the heathen Arabs. They tied
two sorts of bushes to the tails and hind legs of their cattle, and,
setting fire to the bushes, drove the cattle to the top of a mountain,
praying for rain.​[1048] This may be, as Wellhausen suggests, an
imitation of lightning on the horizon;​[1049] but it may also be a way
of threatening the sky, as some West African rain-makers put a pot of
inflammable materials on the fire and blow up the flames, threatening
that if heaven does not soon give rain they will send up a blaze which
will set the sky on fire.​[1050] In time of drought the priests of the
Muyscas in New Granada ascended a mountain and there burned billets
{p304} of wood smeared with resin. The ashes they scattered in the air,
thinking thus to condense the clouds and bring rain.​[1051]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones.

Bezoar stones as instruments of rain.]

Stones are often supposed to possess the property of bringing on rain,
provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it, or treated in
some other appropriate manner. In a Samoan village a certain stone
was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god,
and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession
and dipped it in a stream.​[1052] Among the Ta-ta-thi tribe of New
South Wales, the rain-maker breaks off a piece of quartz-crystal and
spits it towards the sky; the rest of the crystal he wraps in emu
feathers, soaks both crystal and feathers in water, and carefully
hides them.​[1053] In the Keramin tribe of New South Wales the wizard
retires to the bed of a creek, drops water on a round flat stone, then
covers up and conceals it.​[1054] Among some tribes of north-western
Australia the rain-maker repairs to a piece of ground which is set
apart for the purpose of rain-making. There he builds a heap of
stones or sand, places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks
or dances round the pile chanting his incantations for hours, till
sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist, when his place is taken by his
assistant. Water is sprinkled on the stone and huge fires are kindled.
No layman may approach the sacred spot while the mystic ceremony is
being performed.​[1055] When the Sulka of New Britain wish to procure
rain they blacken stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set
them out, along with certain other plants and buds, in the sun. Then
a handful of twigs is dipped in water and weighted with stones, while
a spell is chanted. After that rain should follow.​[1056] In Manipur,
on a lofty hill to the east of the capital, there is a stone which
the popular imagination likens to an umbrella. {p305} When rain is
wanted, the rajah fetches water from a spring below and sprinkles it
on the stone.​[1057] At Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws
down rain whenever water is poured on it.​[1058] When the Wakondyo, a
tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the Wawamba, who
dwell at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors
of a “rain-stone.” In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba
wash the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full
of water. After that the rain cannot fail to come.​[1059] In Behar
people think to put an end to drought by keeping a holy stone named
Náráyan-chakra in a vessel of water.​[1060] The Turks of Armenia make
rain by throwing pebbles into the water. At Egin the pebbles are hung
in two bags in the Euphrates; there should be seventy thousand and one
of them.​[1061] At Myndus in Asia Minor the number of the stones used
for this purpose is seventy-seven thousand, and each of them should
be licked before it is cast into the sea.​[1062] In some parts of
Mongolia, when the people desire rain, they fasten a bezoar stone to
a willow twig, and place it in pure water, uttering incantations or
prayers at the same time.​[1063] At Yakutsk all classes used firmly to
believe they could make rain by means of one of these bezoar stones,
provided it had really been found in the stomach of an animal, and the
fiercer the beast the more powerful the charm. The rain-maker had to
dip the stone in spring water just as the sun rose, and then holding it
between the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand to present it to
the luminary, after which he made three turns contrary to the direction
of the sun. The virtue of a bezoar stone lasted only nine days.​[1064]
Conversely, when Dr. Radloff’s Mongolian guide wished to stop the rain,
he tied a rock-crystal by a short string to a stick, held the stone
over the fire, and then swung the stick {p306} about in all directions,
while he chanted an incantation.​[1065] Water is scarce with the fierce
Apaches, who roam the arid wastes of Arizona and New Mexico; for
springs are few and far between in these torrid wildernesses, where the
intense heat would be unendurable were it not for the great dryness of
the air. The stony beds of the streams are waterless in the plains; but
if you ascend for some miles the profound cañons that worm their way
into the heart of the wild and rugged mountains, you come in time to a
current trickling over the sand, and a mile or two more will bring you
to a stream of a tolerable size flowing over boulders and screened from
the fierce sun by walls of rock that tower on either hand a thousand
feet into the air, their parched sides matted with the fantastic
forms of the prickly cactus, and their summits crested far overhead
with pine woods, like a black fringe against the burning blue of the
sky. In such a land we need not wonder that the thirsty Indians seek
to procure rain by magic. They take water from a certain spring and
throw it on a particular point high up on a rock; the welcome clouds
then soon gather, and rain begins to fall.​[1066] In the district of
Varanda, in Armenia, there is a rock with a hole in it near a sacred
place. Women light candles on the rock and pour water into the hole
in order to bring on rain. And in the same district there is another
rock on which water is poured and milk boiled as an offering in time of
drought.​[1067]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones in Europe.

Dipping images of saints in water as a rain-charm.]

But customs of this sort are not confined to the wilds of Africa and
Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World. They have
been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe.
There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those “wild
woods of Broceliande,” where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin
still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade. Thither the
Breton peasants used to resort when they {p307} needed rain. They
caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab near the
spring.​[1068] On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the
Black Lake, lying “in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and dangerous
rocks.” A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake, and if any one
steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet the farthest stone,
which is called the Red Altar, “it is but a chance that you do not
get rain before night, even when it is hot weather.”​[1069] In these
cases it appears probable that, as in Samoa, the stone is regarded as
more or less divine. This appears from the custom sometimes observed
of dipping the cross in the Fountain of Barenton to procure rain,
for this is plainly a Christian substitute for the old pagan way of
throwing water on the stone.​[1070] At various places in France it is,
or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the image of a saint
in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside the old priory of
Commagny, a mile or two to the south-west of Moulins-Engilbert, there
is a spring of St. Gervais, whither the inhabitants go in procession
to obtain rain or fine weather according to the needs of the crops.
In times of great drought they throw into the basin of the fountain
an ancient stone image of the saint that stands in a sort of niche
from which the fountain flows.​[1071] At Collobrières and Carpentras,
both in Provence, a similar practice was observed with the images of
St. Pons and St. Gens respectively.​[1072] In several villages of
Navarre prayers for rain used to be offered to St. Peter, and by way
of enforcing them the villagers carried the image of the saint in
procession to the river, where they thrice invited him to reconsider
his resolution and to grant their prayers; then, if he was still
obstinate, they plunged him in the water, despite the remonstrances
of the clergy, who {p308} pleaded with as much truth as piety that a
simple caution or admonition administered to the image would produce
an equally good effect. After this the rain was sure to fall within
twenty-four hours.​[1073] Catholic countries do not enjoy a monopoly
of making rain by ducking holy images in water. In Mingrelia, when the
crops are suffering from want of rain, they take a particularly holy
image and dip it in water every day till a shower falls;​[1074] and in
the Far East the Shans drench the images of Buddha with water when the
rice is perishing of drought.​[1075] In all such cases the practice is
probably at bottom a sympathetic charm, however it may be disguised
under the appearance of a punishment or a threat.

[Sidenote: Various rain-charms by means of stones.]

The application of water to a miraculous stone is not the only way
of securing its good offices in the making of rain. In the island of
Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides, there is a stone cross opposite to
St. Mary’s church, which the natives used to call the Water-cross.
When they needed rain, they set the cross up; and when enough rain
had fallen, they laid it flat on the ground.​[1076] In Aurora, one of
the New Hebrides islands, the rain-maker puts a tuft of leaves of a
certain plant in the hollow of a stone; over it he lays some branches
of a pepper-tree pounded and crushed, and to these he adds a stone
which is believed to possess the property of drawing down showers
from the sky. All this he accompanies with incantations, and finally
covers the whole mass up. In time it ferments, and steam, charged with
magical virtue, goes up and makes clouds and rain. The wizard must
be careful, however, not to pound the pepper too hard, as otherwise
the wind might blow too strong.​[1077] Sometimes the stone derives
its magical virtue from its likeness to a real or imaginary animal.
Thus, at Kota Gadang in Sumatra, there is a stone which, with the
help of a powerful imagination, may perhaps be conceived to bear a
faint and distant resemblance to a cat. {p309} Naturally, therefore,
it possesses the property of eliciting showers from the sky, since in
Sumatra, as we have seen, a real black cat plays a part in ceremonies
for the production of rain. Hence the stone is sometimes smeared with
the blood of fowls, rubbed, and incensed, while a charm is uttered
over it.​[1078] At Eneti, in Washington State, there is an irregular
basaltic rock on which a face, said to be that of the thunder-bird,
has been hammered. The Indians of the neighbourhood long believed
that to shake the rock would cause rain by exciting the wrath of the
thunder-bird.​[1079]

[Sidenote: Rain-charms in classical antiquity.]

Like other peoples, the Greeks and Romans sought to obtain rain by
magic, when prayers and processions​[1080] had proved ineffectual. For
example, in Arcadia, when the corn and trees were parched with drought,
the priest of Zeus dipped an oak branch into a certain spring on Mount
Lycaeus. Thus troubled, the water sent up a misty cloud, from which
rain soon fell upon the land.​[1081] A similar mode of making rain is
still practised, as we have seen, in Halmahera near New Guinea.​[1082]
The people of Crannon in Thessaly had a bronze chariot which they kept
in a temple. When they desired a shower they shook the chariot and the
shower fell.​[1083] Probably the rattling of the chariot was meant to
imitate thunder; we have already seen that mock thunder and lightning
form part of a rain-charm in Russia and {p310} Japan.​[1084] The
legendary Salmoneus, King of Elis, made mock thunder by dragging bronze
kettles behind his chariot, or by driving over a bronze bridge, while
he hurled blazing torches in imitation of lightning. It was his impious
wish to mimic the thundering car of Zeus as it rolled across the vault
of heaven. Indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus, and caused
sacrifices to be offered to himself as such.​[1085] Near a temple of
Mars, outside the walls of Rome, there was kept a certain stone known
as the _lapis manalis_. In time of drought the stone was dragged into
Rome, and this was supposed to bring down rain immediately.​[1086]
There were Etruscan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of
water, it is not certain which. They were thought to bring the rain
or the water out of their bellies.​[1087] The legendary Telchines
in Rhodes are described as magicians who could change their shape
and bring clouds, rain, and snow.​[1088] The Athenians sacrificed
boiled, not roast meat to the Seasons, begging them to avert drought
and dry heat and to send due warmth and timely rain.​[1089] This is
an interesting example of the admixture of religion with sorcery,
of sacrifice with magic. The Athenians dimly conceived that in some
way the water in the pot would be transmitted through the boiled
meat to the deities, and then sent down again by them in the form of
rain.​[1090] In a similar spirit {p311} the prudent Greeks made it
a rule always to pour honey, but never wine, on the altars of the
sun-god, pointing out, with great show of reason, how expedient it was
that a god on whom so much depended should keep strictly sober.​[1091]


§3. _The Magical Control of the Sun_

[Sidenote: Making the sun to shine.

Magical control of the sun.

Attempts to help the sun at an eclipse.

Various charms to cause the sun to shine.]

The rule of total abstinence which Greek prudence and piety imposed
on the sun-god introduces us to a second class of natural phenomena
which primitive man commonly supposes to be in some degree under his
control and dependent on his exertions. As the magician thinks he can
make rain, so he fancies he can cause the sun to shine, and can hasten
or stay its going down. At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine
that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows
in the air, hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light.​[1092] The
Sencis of eastern Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun during
an eclipse, but apparently they did this not so much to relight his
lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to
be struggling.​[1093] Conversely during an eclipse of the moon some
Indian tribes of the Orinoco used to bury lighted brands in the ground;
because, said they, if the moon were to be extinguished, all fire on
earth would be extinguished {p312} with her, except such as was hidden
from her sight.​[1094] During an eclipse of the sun the Kamtchatkans
were wont to bring out fire from their huts and pray the great luminary
to shine as before.​[1095] But the prayer addressed to the sun shews
that this ceremony was religious rather than magical. Purely magical,
on the other hand, was the ceremony observed on similar occasions by
the Chilcotin Indians of north-western America. Men and women tucked
up their robes, as they do in travelling, and then leaning on staves,
as if they were heavy laden, they continued to walk in a circle till
the eclipse was over.​[1096] Apparently they thought thus to support
the failing steps of the sun as he trod his weary round in the sky.
Similarly in ancient Egypt the king, as the representative of the
sun, walked solemnly round the walls of a temple in order to ensure
that the sun should perform his daily journey round the sky without
the interruption of an eclipse or other mishap.​[1097] And after the
autumnal equinox the ancient Egyptians held a festival called “the
nativity of the sun’s walking-stick,” because, as the luminary declined
daily in the sky, and his light and heat diminished, he was supposed
to need a staff on which to lean.​[1098] In New Caledonia when a
wizard desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and corals to
the burial-ground, and fashions them into a bundle, adding two locks
of hair cut from a living child of his family, also two teeth or an
entire jawbone from the skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a
mountain whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he
deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch of
dry coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over the stone.
Next morning he returns to the spot and sets fire to the bundle at the
moment when {p313} the sun rises from the sea. As the smoke curls up,
he rubs the stone with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says:
“Sun! I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds
in the sky.” The same ceremony is repeated at sunset.​[1099] The New
Caledonians also make a drought by means of a disc-shaped stone with
a hole in it. At the moment when the sun rises, the wizard holds the
stone in his hand and passes a burning brand repeatedly into the hole,
while he says: “I kindle the sun, in order that he may eat up the
clouds and dry up our land, so that it may produce nothing.”​[1100]
When the sun rises behind clouds—a rare event in the bright sky of
southern Africa—the Sun clan of the Bechuanas say that he is grieving
their heart. All work stands still, and all the food of the previous
day is given to matrons or old women. They may eat it and may share
it with the children they are nursing, but no one else may taste it.
The people go down to the river and wash themselves all over. Each
man throws into the river a stone taken from his domestic hearth,
and replaces it with one picked up in the bed of the river. On their
return to the village the chief kindles a fire in his hut, and all his
subjects come and get a light from it. A general dance follows.​[1101]
In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on earth is
supposed to rekindle the solar fire. Such a belief comes naturally to
people who, like the Sun clan of the Bechuanas, deem themselves the
veritable kinsmen of the sun. When the sun is obscured by clouds, the
Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco hold burning sticks towards him to
encourage the luminary,​[1102] or rather perhaps to {p314} rekindle his
seemingly expiring light. The Banks Islanders make sunshine by means
of a mock sun. They take a very round stone, called a _vat loa_ or
sunstone, wind red braid about it, and stick it with owls’ feathers
to represent rays, singing the proper spell in a low voice. Then they
hang it on some high tree, such as a banyan or a casuarina, in a sacred
place. Or the stone is laid on the ground with white rods radiating
from it to imitate sunbeams.​[1103] Sometimes the mode of making
sunshine is the converse of that of making rain. Thus we have seen that
a white or red victim is sacrificed for sunshine, while a black one
is sacrificed for rain.​[1104] Some of the New Caledonians drench a
skeleton to make rain, but burn it to make sunshine.​[1105]

[Sidenote: Sun-charms among the American Indians.

Human sacrifices offered to the sun by the Mexicans.

Greek sacrifices of horses to the sun.]

When the mists lay thick on the Sierras of Peru, the Indian women
used to rattle the silver and copper ornaments which they wore on
their breasts, and they blew against the fog, hoping thus to disperse
it and make the sun shine through. Another way of producing the same
effect was to burn salt or scatter ashes in the air.​[1106] The
Guarayo Indians also threw ashes in the air for the sake of clearing
up the clouded evening sky.​[1107] In Car Nicobar, when it has rained
for several days without stopping, the natives roll long bamboos in
leaves of various kinds and set them up in the middle of the village.
They call these bamboos “rods inviting the sun to shine.”​[1108] The
offering made by the Brahman in the morning is supposed to produce
the sun, and we are told that “assuredly it would not rise, were he
not to make that offering.”​[1109] The ancient Mexicans conceived
the sun as the source of all vital force; hence they named him
Ipalnemohuani, “He by whom men live.” But if he bestowed life on the
world, he needed also to receive {p315} life from it. And as the heart
is the seat and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals
were presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him
to run his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the
sun were magical rather than religious, being designed, not so much
to please and propitiate him, as physically to renew his energies of
heat, light, and motion. The constant demand for human victims to feed
the solar fire was met by waging war every year on the neighbouring
tribes and bringing back troops of captives to be sacrificed on the
altar. Thus the ceaseless wars of the Mexicans and their cruel system
of human sacrifices, the most monstrous on record, sprang in great
measure from a mistaken theory of the solar system. No more striking
illustration could be given of the disastrous consequences that may
flow in practice from a purely speculative error.​[1110] The ancient
Greeks believed that the sun drove in a chariot across the sky; hence
the Rhodians, who worshipped the sun as their chief deity, annually
dedicated a chariot and four horses to him, and flung them into the
sea for his use. Doubtless they thought that after a year’s work his
old horses and chariot would be worn out.​[1111] From a like motive,
probably, the idolatrous kings of Judah dedicated chariots and horses
to the sun,​[1112] and the Spartans,​[1113] Persians,​[1114] and
Massagetae​[1115] sacrificed horses to him. The Spartans performed the
sacrifice on the {p316} top of Mount Taygetus, the beautiful range
behind which they saw the great luminary set every night. It was as
natural for the inhabitants of the valley of Sparta to do this as it
was for the islanders of Rhodes to throw the chariot and horses into
the sea, into which the sun seemed to them to sink at evening. For
thus, whether on the mountain or in the sea, the fresh horses stood
ready for the weary god where they would be most welcome, at the end of
his day’s journey.

[Sidenote: Staying the sun by means of a net or string.

Staying the sun by putting a stone or a clod in the fork of a tree.]

As some people think they can light up the sun or speed him on his way,
so others fancy they can retard or stop him. In a pass of the Peruvian
Andes stand two ruined towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped
into their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to
the other. The net is intended to catch the sun.​[1116] On a small hill
in Fiji grew a patch of reeds, and travellers who feared to be belated
used to tie the tops of a handful of reeds together to prevent the sun
from going down.​[1117] As to this my late friend the Rev. Lorimer
Fison wrote to me: “I have often seen the reeds tied together to keep
the sun from going down. The place is on a hill in Lakomba, one of
the eastern islands of the Fijian group. It is on the side—not on the
top—of the hill. The reeds grow on the right side of the path. I asked
an old man the meaning of the practice, and he said, ‘We used to think
the sun would see us, and know we wanted him not to go down till we got
past on our way home again.’”​[1118] But perhaps the original intention
was to entangle the sun in the reeds, just as the Peruvians try to
catch him in the net. Stories of men who have caught the sun in a
noose are widely spread.​[1119] When the sun is going southward in the
autumn, and sinking lower and lower in the Arctic sky, the Esquimaux
of Iglulik play the game of cat’s cradle in order to catch him in the
meshes of the string and so prevent his {p317} disappearance. On the
contrary, when the sun is moving northward in the spring, they play
the game of cup-and-ball to hasten his return.​[1120] Means like those
which the Esquimaux take to stop the departing sun are adopted by the
Ewe negroes of the Slave Coast to catch a runaway slave. They take
two sticks, unite them by a string, and then wind the string round
one of them, while at the same time they pronounce the name of the
fugitive. When the string is quite wound about the stick, the runaway
will be bound fast and unable to stir.​[1121] In New Guinea, when a
Motu man is hunting or travelling late in the afternoon and fears to
be overtaken by darkness, he will sometimes take a piece of twine,
loop it, and look through the loop at the sun. Then he pulls the loop
into a knot and says, “Wait until we get home, and we will give you
the fat of a pig.” After that he passes the string to the man behind
him, and then it is thrown away. In a similar case a Motumotu man of
New Guinea says, “Sun, do not be in a hurry; just wait until I get
to the end.” And the sun waits. The Motumotu do not like to eat in
the dark; so if the food is not yet ready, and the sun is sinking,
they say, “Sun, stop; my food is not ready, and I want to eat by
you.”​[1122] Here the looking at the sinking sun through a loop and
then drawing the loop into a knot appears to be a purely magical
ceremony designed to catch the sun in the mesh; but the request that
the luminary would kindly stand still till home is reached or the
dinner cooked, coupled with the offer of a slice of fat bacon as an
inducement to him to comply with the request, is thoroughly religious.
Jerome of Prague, travelling among the heathen Lithuanians early in the
fifteenth century, found a tribe who worshipped the sun and venerated
a large iron hammer. The priests told him that once the sun had been
invisible for several months, because a powerful king had shut it up
in a strong tower; but the signs of the zodiac {p318} had broken open
the tower with this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they
adored the hammer.​[1123] When an Australian blackfellow wishes to
stay the sun from going down till he gets home, he puts a sod in the
fork of a tree, exactly facing the setting sun.​[1124] For the same
purpose an Indian of Yucatan, journeying westward, places a stone in
a tree or pulls out some of his eyelashes and blows them towards the
sun.​[1125] When the Golos, a tribe of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, are on the
march, they will sometimes take a stone or a small ant-heap, about the
size of a man’s head, and place it in the fork of a tree in order to
retard the sunset.​[1126] South African natives, in travelling, will
put a stone in a fork of a tree or place some grass on the path with
a stone over it, believing that this will cause their friends to keep
the meal waiting till their arrival.​[1127] In this, as in previous
examples, the purpose apparently is to retard the sun. But why should
the act of putting a stone or a sod in a tree be supposed to effect
this? A partial explanation is suggested by another Australian custom.
In their journeys the natives are accustomed to place stones in trees
at different heights from the ground in order to indicate the height
of the sun in the sky at the moment when they passed the particular
tree. Those who follow are thus made aware of the time of day when
their friends in advance passed the spot.​[1128] Possibly the natives,
thus accustomed to mark the sun’s progress, may have slipped into the
confusion of imagining that to mark the sun’s progress was to arrest
it at the point marked. On the other hand, to make it go {p319} down
faster, the Australians throw sand into the air and blow with their
mouths towards the sun,​[1129] perhaps to waft the lingering orb
westward and bury it under the sands into which it appears to sink at
night.

[Sidenote: Accelerating the moon.]

As some people imagine they can hasten the sun, so others fancy they
can jog the tardy moon. The natives of German New Guinea reckon months
by the moon, and some of them have been known to throw stones and
spears at the moon, in order to accelerate its progress and so to
hasten the return of their friends, who were away from home for twelve
months working on a tobacco plantation.​[1130] The Malays think that a
bright glow at sunset may throw a weak person into a fever. Hence they
attempt to extinguish the glow by spitting out water and throwing ashes
at it.​[1131] The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia believe that they
can bring on cold weather by burning the wood of a tree that has been
struck by lightning. The belief may be based on the observation that
in their country cold follows a thunder-storm. Hence in spring, when
these Indians are travelling over the snow on high ground, they burn
splinters of such wood in the fire in order that the crust of the snow
may not melt.​[1132]


§ 4. _The Magical Control of the Wind_

[Sidenote: Making the wind to blow or be still.]

Once more, the savage thinks he can make the wind to blow or to be
still. When the day is hot and a Yakut has a long way to go, he takes
a stone which he has chanced to find in an animal or fish, winds a
horse-hair several times round it, and ties it to a stick. He then
waves the stick about, uttering a spell. Soon a cool breeze begins to
blow.​[1133] In order to procure a cool wind for nine days the stone
should first be dipped in the blood of a bird or beast and {p320}
then presented to the sun, while the sorcerer makes three turns
contrary to the course of the luminary.​[1134] The Wind clan of the
Omahas flap their blankets to start a breeze which will drive away
the mosquitoes.​[1135] When a Haida Indian wishes to obtain a fair
wind, he fasts, shoots a raven, singes it in the fire, and then going
to the edge of the sea sweeps it over the surface of the water four
times in the direction in which he wishes the wind to blow. He then
throws the raven behind him, but afterwards picks it up and sets it
in a sitting posture at the foot of a spruce-tree, facing towards
the required wind. Propping its beak open with a stick, he requests
a fair wind for a certain number of days; then going away he lies
covered up in his mantle till another Indian asks him for how many
days he has desired the wind, which question he answers.​[1136] When
a sorcerer in New Britain wishes to make a wind blow in a certain
direction, he throws burnt lime in the air, chanting a song all the
time. Then he waves sprigs of ginger and other plants about, throws
them up and catches them. Next he makes a small fire with these sprigs
on the spot where the lime has fallen thickest, and walks round the
fire chanting. Lastly, he takes the ashes and throws them on the
water.​[1137] If a Hottentot desires the wind to drop, he takes one
of his fattest skins and hangs it on the end of a pole, in the belief
that by blowing the skin down the wind will lose all its force and must
itself fall.​[1138] Fuegian wizards throw shells against the wind to
make it drop.​[1139] On the other hand, when a Persian peasant desires
a strong wind to winnow his corn, he rubs a kind of bastard saffron
and throws it up into the air; after that the breeze soon begins to
blow.​[1140] Some of the Indians of Canada believed that the winds
were caused by a fish like a lizard. When one of {p321} these fish
had been caught, the Indians advised the Jesuit missionaries to put
it back into the river as fast as possible in order to calm the wind,
which was contrary.​[1141] If a Cherokee wizard desires to turn aside
an approaching storm, he faces it and recites a spell with outstretched
hand. Then he gently blows towards the quarter to which he wishes it to
go, waving his hand in the same direction as if he were pushing away
the storm.​[1142] The Ottawa Indians fancied they could calm a tempest
by relating the dreams they had dreamed during their fast, or by
throwing tobacco on the troubled water.​[1143] When the Kei Islanders
wish to obtain a favourable wind for their friends at sea, they dance
in a ring, both men and women, swaying their bodies to and fro, while
the men hold handkerchiefs in their hands.​[1144] In Melanesia there
are everywhere weather-doctors who can control the powers of the
air and are willing to supply wind or calm in return for a proper
remuneration. For instance, in Santa Cruz the wizard makes wind by
waving the branch of a tree and chanting the appropriate charm.​[1145]
In another Melanesian island a missionary observed a large shell filled
with earth, in which an oblong stone, covered with red ochre, was set
up, while the whole was surrounded by a fence of sticks strengthened by
a creeper which was twined in and out the uprights. On asking a native
what these things meant, he learned that the wind was here fenced or
bound round, lest it should blow hard; the imprisoned wind would not be
able to blow again until the fence that kept it in should have rotted
away.​[1146] In South Africa, when the Caffres wish to stop a high
wind, they call in a “wind-doctor,” who takes a pot with a spout and
points the spout towards the quarter from which the wind is blowing.
He then places medicines {p322} and some of the dust blown by the wind
in the vessel, and seals up every opening of the pot with damp clay.
Thereupon the doctor declares, “The head of the wind is now in my pot,
and the wind will cease to blow.”​[1147] The natives of the island of
Bibili, off German New Guinea, are reputed to make wind by blowing with
their mouths. In stormy weather the Bogadjim people say, “The Bibili
folk are at it again, blowing away.”​[1148] Another way of making wind
which is practised in New Guinea is to strike a “wind-stone” lightly
with a stick; to strike it hard would bring on a hurricane.​[1149] So
in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water
and beating it thrice on a stone, saying:

    “_I knok this rag upone this stane_
    _To raise the wind in the divellis name,_
    _It sall not lye till I please againe._”​[1150]

[Sidenote: Raising the wind.]

At Victoria, the capital of Vancouver’s Island, there are a number of
large stones not far from what is called the Battery. Each of them
represents a certain wind. When an Indian wants any particular wind,
he goes and moves the corresponding stone a little; were he to move
it too much, the wind would blow very hard.​[1151] The natives of
Murray Island in Torres Straits used to make a great wind blow from
the south-east by pointing coco-nut leaves and other plants at two
granitic boulders on the shore. So long as the leaves remained there
the wind sat in that quarter. But, significantly enough, the ceremony
was only performed during the prevalence of the south-east monsoon.
The natives knew better than to try to raise a south-east wind while
the north-west monsoon was blowing.​[1152] On the altar of Fladda’s
chapel, in the island of Fladdahuan (one of the Hebrides), lay a round
bluish stone which was always moist. Windbound fishermen walked sunwise
round the chapel and {p323} then poured water on the stone, whereupon
a favourable breeze was sure to spring up.​[1153] In Gigha, an island
off the western coast of Argyleshire, there is a well named Tobar-rath
Bhuathaig or “The lucky well of Beathag,” which used to be famous for
its power of raising the wind. It lies at the foot of a hill facing
north-east near an isthmus called Tarbat. Six feet above where the
water gushes out there is a heap of stones which forms a cover to the
sacred spring. When a person wished for a fair wind, either to leave
the island or to bring home his absent friends, this part was opened
with great solemnity, the stones were carefully removed, and the well
cleaned with a wooden dish or a clam shell. This being done, the water
was thrown several times in the direction from which the wished-for
wind was to blow, and this action was accompanied by a certain form
of words which the person repeated every time he threw the water.
When the ceremony was over, the well was again carefully shut up to
prevent fatal consequences, it being firmly believed that, were the
place left open, a storm would arise which would overwhelm the whole
island.​[1154] The Esthonians have various odd ways of raising a wind.
They scratch their finger, or hang up a serpent, or strike an axe into
a house-beam in the direction from which they wish the wind to blow,
while at the same time they whistle. The notion is that the gentle wind
will not let an innocent being or even a beam suffer without coming and
breathing softly to assuage the pain.​[1155]

[Sidenote: Winds raised by wizards and witches.]

In Mabuiag, an island between New Guinea and Australia, there were men
whose business was to make wind for such as wanted it. When engaged in
his professional duties the wizard painted himself black behind and
red on his face and chest. The red in front typified the red cloud
of morning, the black represented the dark blue sky of night. Thus
arrayed he took some bushes, and, when the tide was low, fastened them
at the edge of the reef so that the flowing {p324} tide made them sway
backwards and forwards. But if only a gentle breeze was needed, he
fastened them nearer to the shore. To stop the wind he again painted
himself red and black, the latter in imitation of the clear blue sky,
and then removing the bushes from the reef he dried and burnt them. The
smoke as it curled up was believed to stop the wind: “Smoke he go up
and him clear up on top.”​[1156] In some islands of Torres Straits the
wizard made wind by whirling a bull-roarer;​[1157] the booming sound of
the instrument probably seemed to him like the roar or the whistling
of the wind. Amongst the Kurnai tribe of Gippsland in Victoria there
used to be a noted raiser of storms who went by the name of Bunjil
Kraura or “Great West Wind.” This wind makes the tall slender trees
of the Gippsland forests to rock and sway so that the natives could
not climb them in search of opossums. Hence the people were forced
to propitiate Bunjil Kraura by liberal offerings of weapons and rugs
whenever the tree-tops bent before a gale. Having received their
gifts, Bunjil Kraura would bind his head with swathes of stringy bark,
and lull the storm to rest with a song which consisted of the words
“Wear—string—Westwind,” repeated again and again.​[1158] Apparently the
wizard identified himself with the wind, and fancied that he could bind
it by tying string round his own head. The Kwakiutl Indians of British
Columbia, as we have seen, believe that twins can summon any wind by
merely moving their hands.​[1159] In Greenland a woman in child-bed
and for some time after delivery is supposed to possess the power
of laying a storm. She has only to go out of doors, fill her mouth
with air, and coming back into the house blow it out again.​[1160] In
antiquity there was a family at Corinth which enjoyed the reputation
of being able to still the raging wind; but we do not know in what
manner its members exercised a useful function, {p325} which probably
earned for them a more solid recompense than mere repute among the
seafaring population of the isthmus.​[1161] Even in Christian times,
under the reign of Constantine, a certain Sopater suffered death at
Constantinople on a charge of binding the winds by magic, because it
happened that the corn-ships of Egypt and Syria were detained afar off
by calms or head-winds, to the rage and disappointment of the hungry
Byzantine rabble.​[1162] An ancient charm to keep storms from damaging
the crops was to bury a toad in a new earthen vessel in the middle of
the field.​[1163] Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed
mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots; if they undid the first
knot, a moderate wind sprang up; if the second, it blew half a gale; if
the third, a hurricane.​[1164] Indeed the Esthonians, whose country is
divided from Finland only by an arm of the sea, still believe in the
magical powers of their northern neighbours. The bitter winds that blow
in spring from the north and north-east, bringing ague and rheumatic
inflammations in their train, are set down by the simple Esthonian
peasantry to the machinations of the Finnish wizards and witches. In
particular they regard with special dread three days in spring to which
they give the name of Days of the Cross; one of them falls on the Eve
of Ascension Day. The people in the neighbourhood of Fellin fear to go
out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lappland should smite them
dead. A popular Esthonian song runs:

    “_Wind of the Cross! rushing and mighty!_
      _Heavy the blow of thy wings sweeping past!_
    _Wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow,_
      _Wizards of Finland ride by on the blast._”​[1165]

It is said, too, that sailors, beating up against the wind in the
Gulf of Finland, sometimes see a strange sail heave in sight astern
and overhaul them hand over hand. On she {p326} comes with a cloud of
canvas—all her studding-sails out—right in the teeth of the wind,
forging her way through the foaming billows, dashing back the spray
in sheets from her cutwater, every sail swollen to bursting, every
rope strained to cracking. Then the sailors know that she hails from
Finland.​[1166]

[Sidenote: Enclosing the winds in knots, bags, and pots.]

The art of tying up the wind in three knots, so that the more knots are
loosed the stronger will blow the wind, has been attributed to wizards
in Lappland and to witches in Shetland, Lewis, and the Isle of Man.
Shetland seamen still buy winds in the shape of knotted handkerchiefs
or threads from old women who claim to rule the storms. There are said
to be ancient crones in Lerwick now who live by selling wind.​[1167]
In the early part of the nineteenth century Sir Walter Scott visited
one of these witches at Stromness in the Orkneys. He says: “We clomb,
by steep and dirty lanes, an eminence rising above the town, and
commanding a fine view. An old hag lives in a wretched cabin on this
height, and subsists by selling winds. Each captain of a merchantman,
between jest and earnest, gives the old woman sixpence, and she boils
her kettle to procure a favourable gale. She was a miserable figure;
upwards of ninety, she told us, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of
clay-coloured cloak, folded over her head, corresponded in colour
to her corpse-like complexion. Fine light-blue eyes, and nose and
chin that almost met, and a ghastly expression of cunning, gave her
quite the effect of Hecate.”​[1168] A Norwegian witch has boasted of
sinking a ship by opening a bag in which she had shut up a wind.​[1169]
Ulysses received the winds in a leathern bag from Aeolus, King of the
Winds.​[1170] The {p327} Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are
sent by an Oiabu sorcerer; for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens
at pleasure.​[1171] On the top of Mount Agu in Togo, a district of
German West Africa, resides a fetish called Bagba, who is supposed to
control the wind and the rain. His priest is said to keep the winds
shut up in great pots.​[1172]

[Sidenote: Frightening, driving away, and killing the spirit of the
wind.]

Often the stormy wind is regarded as an evil being who may be
intimidated, driven away, or killed. When the darkening of the sky
indicates the approach of a tornado, a South African magician will
repair to a height whither he collects as many people as can be hastily
summoned to his assistance. Directed by him, they shout and bellow in
imitation of the gust as it swirls roaring about the huts and among
the trees of the forest. Then at a signal they mimic the crash of the
thunder, after which there is a dead silence for a few seconds; then
follows a screech more piercing and prolonged than any that preceded,
dying away in a tremulous wail. The magician fills his mouth with a
foul liquid which he squirts in defiant jets against the approaching
storm as a kind of menace or challenge to the spirit of the wind; and
the shouting and wailing of his assistants are meant to frighten the
spirit away. The performance lasts until the tornado either bursts or
passes away in another direction. If it bursts, the reason is that the
magician who sent the storm was more powerful than he who endeavoured
to avert it.​[1173] When storms and bad weather have lasted long and
food is scarce with the Central Esquimaux, they endeavour to conjure
the tempest by making a long whip of seaweed, armed with which they
go down to the beach and strike out in the direction of the wind,
crying, “_Taba_ (it is enough)!”​[1174] Once when north-westerly winds
had kept the ice long on the coast and food was becoming scarce, the
Esquimaux {p328} performed a ceremony to make a calm. A fire was
kindled on the shore, and the men gathered round it and chanted. An
old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing voice invited
the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm himself. When
he was supposed to have arrived, a vessel of water, to which each man
present had contributed, was thrown on the flames by an old man, and
immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had
been. They thought that the demon would not stay where he had been so
badly treated. To complete the effect, guns were discharged in various
directions, and the captain of a European vessel was invited to fire
on the wind with cannon.​[1175] On the twenty-first of February 1883
a similar ceremony was performed by the Esquimaux of Point Barrow,
Alaska, with the intention of killing the spirit of the wind. Women
drove the demon from their houses with clubs and knives, with which
they made passes in the air; and the men, gathering round a fire, shot
him with their rifles and crushed him under a heavy stone the moment
that steam rose in a cloud from the smouldering embers, on which a tub
of water had just been thrown.​[1176]

[Sidenote: Confronting the storm with swords and drums.]

In ancient India the priest was directed to confront a storm, armed to
the teeth with a bludgeon, a sword, and a firebrand, while he chanted
a magical lay.​[1177] During a tremendous hurricane the drums of
Kadouma, near the Victoria Nyanza, were heard to beat all night. When
next morning a missionary enquired the cause, he was told that the
sound of the drums is a charm against storms.​[1178] The Sea Dyaks and
Kayans of Borneo beat gongs when a tempest is raging; but the Dyaks,
and perhaps the Kayans also, do this, not so much to frighten away the
spirit of the storm, as to apprise him of their whereabouts, lest he
should inadvertently knock their houses down. Heard at night above the
howling of the storm, the distant boom of the {p329} gongs has a weird
effect; and sometimes, before the notes can be distinguished for the
wind and rain, they strike fear into a neighbouring village; lights
are extinguished, the women are put in a place of safety, and the
men stand to their arms to resist an attack. Then with a lull in the
wind the true nature of the gong-beating is recognised, and the alarm
subsides.​[1179]

[Sidenote: Attacking the whirlwind with weapons.]

On calm summer days in the Highlands of Scotland eddies of wind
sometimes go past, whirling about dust and straws, though not another
breath of air is stirring. The Highlanders think that the fairies
are in these eddies carrying away men, women, children, or animals,
and they will fling their left shoe, or their bonnet, or a knife, or
earth from a mole-hill at the eddy to make the fairies drop their
booty.​[1180] When a gust lifts the hay in the meadow, the Breton
peasant throws a knife or a fork at it to prevent the devil from
carrying off the hay.​[1181] Similarly in the Esthonian island of
Oesel, when the reapers are busy among the corn and the wind blows
about the ears that have not yet been tied into sheaves, the reapers
slash at it with their sickles.​[1182] The custom of flinging a knife
or a hat at a whirlwind is observed alike by German, Slavonian, and
Esthonian rustics; they think that a witch or wizard is riding on the
blast, and that the knife, if it hits the witch, will be reddened by
her blood or will disappear altogether, sticking in the wound it has
inflicted.​[1183] {p330} Sometimes Esthonian peasants run shrieking
and shouting behind a whirlwind, hurling sticks and stones into the
flying dust.​[1184] The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco ascribe the
rush of a whirlwind to the passage of a spirit and they fling sticks
at it to frighten it away.​[1185] When the wind blows down their huts,
the Payaguas of South America snatch up firebrands and run against
the wind, menacing it with the blazing brands, while others beat the
air with their fists to frighten the storm.​[1186] When the Guaycurus
are threatened by a severe storm, the men go out armed, and the women
and children scream their loudest to intimidate the demon.​[1187]
During a tempest the inhabitants of a Batta village in Sumatra have
been seen to rush from their houses armed with sword and lance. The
rajah placed himself at their head, and with shouts and yells they
hewed and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed to be
specially active in the defence of her house, slashing the air right
and left with a long sabre.​[1188] In a violent thunderstorm, the peals
sounding very near, the Kayans of Borneo have been seen to draw their
swords threateningly half out of their scabbards, as if to frighten
away the demons of the storm.​[1189] In Australia the huge columns of
red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the
natives to be spirits passing along. Once {p331} an athletic young black
ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs. He
was away two or three hours, and came back very weary, saying he had
killed Koochee (the demon), but that Koochee had growled at him and
he must die.​[1190] Of the Bedouins of eastern Africa it is said that
“no whirlwind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a
dozen savages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty
column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be
riding on the blast.”​[1191]

[Sidenote: Fighting the simoom.]

In the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus, which his
modern critics have treated as a fable, is perfectly credible. He
says, without however vouching for the truth of the tale, that once in
the land of the Psylli, the modern Tripoli, the wind blowing from the
Sahara had dried up all the water-tanks. So the people took counsel
and marched in a body to make war on the south wind. But when they
entered the desert the simoom swept down on them and buried them to a
man.​[1192] The story may well have been told by one who watched them
disappearing, in battle array, with drums and cymbals beating, into the
red cloud of whirling sand.

{p332}




CHAPTER VI

MAGICIANS AS KINGS


[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians and their rise to the
position of chiefs or kings.

But magic is not the only road by which men have travelled to a throne.

Complexity of the social phenomena and the danger of simplifying them
unduly by our hypotheses.]

The foregoing evidence may satisfy us that in many lands and many
races magic has claimed to control the great forces of nature for the
good of man. If that has been so, the practitioners of the art must
necessarily be personages of importance and influence in any society
which puts faith in their extravagant pretensions, and it would be no
matter for surprise if, by virtue of the reputation which they enjoy
and of the awe which they inspire, some of them should attain to the
highest position of authority over their credulous fellows. In point of
fact magicians appear to have often developed into chiefs and kings.
Not that magic is the only or perhaps even the main road by which men
have travelled to a throne. The lust of power, the desire to domineer
over our fellows, is among the commonest and the strongest of human
passions, and no doubt men of a masterful character have sought to
satisfy it in many different ways and have attained by many different
means to the goal of their ambition. The sword, for example, in a
strong hand has unquestionably done for many what the magician’s wand
in a deft hand appears to have done for some. He who investigates the
history of institutions should constantly bear in mind the extreme
complexity of the causes which have built up the fabric of human
society, and should be on his guard against a subtle danger incidental
to all science, the tendency to simplify unduly the infinite variety of
the phenomena by fixing our attention on a few of them to the exclusion
of the rest. The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed
natural to the mind of man, since it is only {p333} by abstraction and
generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of
particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a
minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe. But if the
propensity is natural and even inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught
with peril, since it is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any
subject under investigation. To correct it partially—for to correct
it wholly would require an infinite intelligence—we must endeavour
to broaden our views by taking account of a wide range of facts and
possibilities; and when we have done so to the utmost of our power, we
must still remember that from the very nature of things our ideas fall
immeasurably short of the reality.

[Sidenote: This propensity to excessive simplification has done much to
discredit the study of primitive mythology and religion.]

In no branch of learning, perhaps, has this proneness to an attractive
but fallacious simplicity wrought more havoc than in the investigation
of the early history of mankind; in particular, the excesses to which
it has been carried have done much to discredit the study of primitive
mythology and religion. Students of these subjects have been far too
ready to pounce on any theory which adequately explains some of the
facts, and forthwith to stretch it so as to cover them all; and when
the theory, thus unduly strained, has broken, as was to be expected, in
their unskilful hands, they have pettishly thrown it aside in disgust
instead of restricting it, as they should have done from the outset,
to the particular class of facts to which it is really applicable.
So it fared in our youth with the solar myth theory, which after
being unreasonably exaggerated by its friends has long been quite as
unreasonably rejected altogether by its adversaries; and in more recent
times the theories of totemism, magic, and taboo, to take only a few
conspicuous examples, have similarly suffered from the excessive zeal
of injudicious advocates. This instability of judgment, this tendency
of anthropological opinion to swing to and fro from one extreme to
another with every breath of new discovery, is perhaps the principal
reason why the whole study is still viewed askance by men of sober and
cautious temper, who naturally look with suspicion on idols that are
set up and worshipped one day only to be knocked down and trampled
under foot the next. To these cool observers Max {p334} Müller and the
rosy Dawn in the nineteenth century stand on the same dusty shelf with
Jacob Bryant and Noah’s ark in the eighteenth, and they expect with a
sarcastic smile the time when the fashionable anthropological topics of
the present day will in their turn be consigned to the same peaceful
limbo of forgotten absurdities. It is not for the anthropologist
himself to anticipate the verdict of posterity on his labours; still it
is his humble hope that the facts which he has patiently amassed will
be found sufficiently numerous and solid to bear the weight of some at
least of the conclusions which he rests upon them, so that these can
never again be lightly tossed aside as the fantastic dreams of a mere
bookish student. At the same time, if he is wise, he will be forward to
acknowledge and proclaim that our hypotheses at best are but partial,
not universal, solutions of the manifold problems which confront us,
and that in science as in daily life it is vain to look for one key to
open all locks.

[Sidenote: The practice of magic explains the rise of kings in some
communities, but not in all.]

Therefore, to revert to our immediate subject, in putting forward
the practice of magic as an explanation of the rise of monarchy in
some communities, I am far from thinking or suggesting that it can
explain the rise of it in all, or, in other words, that kings are
universally the descendants or successors of magicians; and if any
one should hereafter, as is likely enough, either enunciate such a
theory or attribute it to me, I desire to enter my caveat against it
in advance. To enumerate and describe all the modes in which men have
pushed, or fought, or wormed their way by force or by fraud, by their
own courage and wisdom or by the cowardice and folly of others, to
supreme power, might furnish the theme of a political treatise such as
I have no pretension to write; for my present purpose it suffices if I
can trace the magician’s progress in some savage and barbarous tribes
from the rank of a sorcerer to the dignity of a king. The facts which
I am about to lay before the reader seem to exhibit various steps of
this development from simple conjuring up to conjuring compounded with
despotism.

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians among the aborigines of
Central Australia.]

Let us begin by looking at the lowest race of men as to whom we
possess comparatively full and accurate information, the aborigines of
Australia. These savages are ruled neither by chiefs nor kings. So far
as their tribes can be {p335} said to have a political constitution,
it is a democracy or rather an oligarchy of old and influential men,
who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance to the
practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly
answers to the senate of later times: if we had to coin a word for
such a government of elders we might call it a _gerontocracy_.​[1193]
The elders who in aboriginal Australia thus meet and direct the
affairs of their tribe appear to be for the most part the headmen of
their respective totem clans. Now in Central Australia, where the
desert nature of the country and the almost complete isolation from
foreign influences have retarded progress and preserved the natives on
the whole in their most primitive state, the headmen of the various
totem clans are charged with the important task of performing magical
ceremonies for the multiplication of the totems, and as the great
majority of the totems are edible animals or plants, it follows that
these men are commonly expected to provide the people with food by
means of magic. Others have to make the rain to fall or to render
other services to the community. In short, among the tribes of Central
Australia the headmen are public magicians. Further, their most
important function is to take charge of the sacred storehouse, usually
a cleft in the rocks or a hole in the ground, where are kept the holy
stones and sticks (_churinga_) with which the souls of all the people,
both living and dead, are apparently supposed to be in a manner bound
up. Thus while the headmen have certainly to perform what we should
call civil duties, such as to inflict punishment for breaches of tribal
custom, their principal functions are sacred or magical.​[1194]

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians among the aborigines of
South-Eastern Australia.]

Again, in the tribes of South-Eastern Australia the headman was often,
sometimes invariably, a magician. Thus in the southern Wiradjuri
tribe the headman was always a wizard or a medicine-man. There was
one for each local {p336} division. He called the people together
for the initiation ceremonies or to discuss matters of public
importance.​[1195] In the Yerkla-mining tribe the medicine-men are
the headmen; they are called _Mobung-bai_, from _mobung_, “magic.”
They decide disputes, arrange marriages, conduct the ceremonies of
initiation, and in certain circumstances settle the formalities to be
observed in ordeals of battle. “In fact, they wield authority in the
tribe, and give orders where others only make requests.”​[1196] Again,
in the Yuin tribe there was a headman for each local division, and in
order to be fitted for his office he had, among other qualifications,
to be a medicine-man; above all he must be able to perform magical
feats at the initiation ceremonies. The greatest headman of all was he
who on these occasions could bring up the largest number of things out
of his inside.​[1197] In fact the budding statesman and king must be
first and foremost a conjuror in the most literal sense of the word.
Some forty or fifty years ago the principal headman of the Dieri tribe
was a certain Jalina piramurana, who was known among the colonists as
the Frenchman on account of his polished manners. He was not only a
brave and skilful warrior, but also a powerful medicine-man, greatly
feared by the neighbouring tribes, who sent him presents even from a
distance of a hundred miles. He boasted of being the “tree of life,”
for he was the head of a totem consisting of a particular sort of
seed which forms at certain times the chief vegetable food of these
tribes. His people spoke of him as the plant itself (_manyura_) which
yields the edible seed.​[1198] Again, an early writer on the tribes
of South-Western Australia, near King George’s Sound, tells us that
“the individuals who possess most influence are the _mulgarradocks_,
or doctors. . . . A _mulgarradock_ is considered to possess the power
of driving away wind or rain, as well as bringing down lightning or
disease upon any object of their or others’ hatred,” and they also
attempted to heal the sick.​[1199] On the {p337} whole, then, it is
highly significant that in the most primitive society about which we
are accurately informed it is especially the magicians or medicine-men
who appear to have been in process of developing into chiefs.

[Sidenote: Social importance of magicians in New Guinea.]

When we pass from Australia to New Guinea we find that, though the
natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian
aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still essentially
democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only in embryo.
Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New Guinea no
one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong enough to
become the despot even of a single district. “The nearest approach to
this has been the very distant one of some person becoming a renowned
wizard; but that has only resulted in levying a certain amount of
blackmail.”​[1200] To the same effect a Catholic missionary observes
that in New Guinea the _nepu_ or sorcerers “are everywhere. They boast
of their misdeeds; everybody fears them, everybody accuses them, and,
after all, nothing positive is known of their secret practices. This
cursed brood is as it were the soul of the Papuan life. Nothing happens
without the sorcerer’s intervention: wars, marriages, diseases, deaths,
expeditions, fishing, hunting, always and everywhere the sorcerer.
. . . One thing is certain for them, and they do not regard it as an
article of faith, but as a fact patent and indisputable, and that is
the extraordinary power of the _nepu_; he is the master of life and
of death. Hence it is only natural that they should fear him and obey
him in everything and give him all that he asks for. The _nepu_ is not
a chief, but he domineers over the chiefs, and we may say that the
true authority, the only effective influence in New Guinea, is that
of the _nepu_. Nothing can resist him.”​[1201] We are told that in
the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of British New Guinea chiefs have not
necessarily supernatural powers, but that a sorcerer is looked upon
as a chief. Some years ago, for example, one man of the tribe was a
chief because he was supposed to rule the sea, calming it or rousing
it to fury at his pleasure. {p338} Another owed his power to his skill
in making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, and the plantations to
bear fruit.​[1202] It is believed that the chief of Mowat in British
New Guinea, can affect the growth of crops for good or ill, and coax
the turtle and dugong to come from all parts of the sea and allow
themselves to be caught.​[1203] At Bartle Bay in British New Guinea
there are magicians (_taniwaga_) who are expected to manage certain
departments of nature for the good of the community by means of charms
(_pari_) which are known only to them. One of these men, for example,
works magic for rain, another for taro, another for wallaby, and
another for fish. A magician who is believed to control an important
department of nature may be the chief of his community. Thus the
present chief of Wedau is a sorcerer who can make rain and raise or
calm the winds. He is greatly respected by all and receives many
presents.​[1204] A chief of Kolem, on Finsch Harbour, in German New
Guinea, enjoyed a great reputation as a magician; it was supposed that
he could make wind and storm, rain and sunshine, and visit his enemies
with sickness and death.​[1205]

[Sidenote: Supposed magical or supernatural powers of chiefs in
Melanesia.]

Turning now to the natives of the Melanesian islands, which stretch
in an immense quadrant of a circle round New Guinea and Australia on
the east, we are told by Dr. Codrington that among these savages “as a
matter of fact the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief
in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with
which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks’
Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended
to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined
a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to
begin.”​[1206] According to a native Melanesian account, the origin
of the power of chiefs lies entirely in the belief that they have
communication with mighty ghosts (_tindalo_), and wield that {p339}
supernatural power (_mana_) whereby they can bring the influence of
the ghosts to bear. If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because
the people universally dreaded his ghostly power, and firmly believed
that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him.
As soon as any considerable number of his people began to disbelieve
in his influence with the ghosts, his power to levy fines was
shaken.​[1207] In Malo, one of the New Hebrides, the highest nobility
consists of those persons who have sacrificed a thousand little pigs to
the souls of their ancestors. No one ever resists a man of that exalted
rank, because in him are supposed to dwell all the souls of the ancient
chiefs and all the spirits who preside over the tribe.​[1208] In the
Northern New Hebrides the son does not inherit the chieftainship,
but he inherits, if his father can manage it, what gives him the
chieftainship, namely, his father’s supernatural power, his charms,
magical songs, stones and apparatus, and his knowledge of the way to
approach spiritual beings.​[1209] A chief in the island of Paramatta
informed a European that he had the power of making rain, wind, storm,
thunder and lightning, and dry weather. He exhibited as his magical
instrument a piece of bamboo with some parti-coloured rags attached to
it. In this bamboo, he said, were kept the devils of rain and wind, and
when he commanded them to discharge their office or to lie still, they
were obliged to obey, being his subjects and prisoners. When he had
given his orders to these captive devils, the bamboo had to be fastened
to the highest point of his house.​[1210] In the Marshall Bennet
Islands to the east of New Guinea it was the duty of each chief of a
clan to charm the gardens of his clan so as to make them productive.
The charm consisted of turning up part of the soil with a long stick
and muttering an appropriate spell. Each special crop, such as yams,
bananas, {p340} sugar-cane, and coco-nuts, had its special kind of stick
and its special spell.​[1211]

[Sidenote: Magicians as chiefs in New Britain.]

With regard to government among the Melanesians of New Britain or
the Bismarck Archipelago, I may cite the evidence of an experienced
missionary, the Rev. Dr. George Brown, who settled in the islands
at a time when no other white man was living in the group, and who
resided among the savage islanders for some five or six years. He says:
“There was no government so called in New Britain except that form of
jurisdiction or power represented by the secret societies and that
exercised by chiefs, who were supposed to possess exceptional powers of
sorcery and witchcraft. These powers were very real, owing, I think,
principally to two reasons—one of which was that the men themselves
thoroughly believed that they were the possessors of the powers which
they claimed, and the other was that the people themselves believed
that the men really possessed them. There was indeed the title of
chief (_todaru_) claimed and also given to them by the people; but
this was not the result of any election or necessarily by inheritance,
it was simply that a certain man claimed to be the possessor of these
powers and succeeded in convincing the people that he really possessed
them.”​[1212] Again, Dr. Brown tells us that in New Britain “a ruling
chief was always supposed to exercise priestly functions, that is,
he professed to be in constant communication with the _tebarans_
(spirits), and through their influence he was enabled to bring rain
or sunshine, fair winds or foul ones, sickness or health, success or
disaster in war, and generally to procure any blessing or curse for
which the applicant was willing to pay a sufficient price. If his
spells did not produce the desired effect he always had a plausible
explanation ready, which was generally accepted as a sufficient excuse.
I think much of the success which these men undoubtedly had was due to
their keen observations of natural phenomena, and to the effects of
fear upon the people.”​[1213] {p341}

[Sidenote: Dr. Turner on the power of the magical disease-makers in
Tana.]

According to Dr. Turner, “The real gods at Tana may be said to be
the disease-makers. It is surprising how these men are dreaded,
and how firm the belief is that they have in their hands the power
of life and death. There are rain-makers and thunder-makers, and
fly and mosquito-makers, and a host of other ‘sacred men,’ but the
disease-makers are the most dreaded. It is believed that these men
can create disease and death by burning what is called _nahak_.
_Nahak_, means rubbish, but principally refuse of food. Everything
of the kind they bury or throw into the sea, lest the disease-makers
should get hold of it. These fellows are always about, and consider
it their special business to pick up and burn, with certain
formalities, anything in the _nahak_ line which comes in their way. If
a disease-maker sees the skin of a banana, for instance, he picks it
up, wraps it in a leaf, and wears it all day hanging round his neck.
The people stare as they see him go along, and say to each other, ‘He
has got something; he will do for somebody by-and-by at night.’ In the
evening he scrapes some bark off a tree, mixes it up with the banana
skin, rolls all up tightly in a leaf in the form of a cigar, and then
puts the one end close enough to the fire to cause it to singe, and
smoulder, and burn away very gradually. Presently he hears a shell
blowing. ‘There,’ he says to his friends, ‘there it is; that is the
man whose rubbish I am now burning, he is ill; let us stop burning,
and see what they bring in the morning.’ When a person is taken ill he
believes that it is occasioned by some one burning his rubbish. Instead
of thinking about medicine, he calls some one to blow a shell, a large
conch or other shell, which, when perforated and blown, can be heard
two or three miles off. The meaning of it is to implore the person
who is supposed to be burning the sick man’s rubbish and causing all
the pain to stop burning; and it is a promise as well that a present
will be taken in the morning. The greater the pain the more they blow
the shell, and when the pain abates they cease, supposing that the
disease-maker has been kind enough to stop burning.” Night after night
the silence is broken by the dismal too-too-tooing of these shells; and
in the morning the friends of the sufferer repair to the disease-maker
with presents of pigs, mats, hatchets, beads, {p342} whales’ teeth, or
suchh like things.​[1214] Thus these sorcerers attain to a position of
immense power and influence and acquire wealth by purely maleficent
magic; it is not by the imaginary benefits which they confer on
the community, but by the imaginary evils which they inflict on
individuals, that they climb the steps of a throne or the ladder that
leads to heaven; for according to Dr. Turner these rascals are on the
highroad to divinity. The process which they employ to accomplish their
ends is a simple application of the principles of contagious magic:
whatever has once been in contact with a person remains in sympathetic
connexion with him always, and harm done to it is therefore harm done
to him. Side by side with the evil which this superstition produces,
on the one hand by inspiring men with baseless terrors, and on the
other by leading them to neglect effectual remedies for real evils, we
must recognise the benefit which it incidentally confers on society by
causing people to clear away and destroy the refuse of their food and
other rubbish, which if suffered to accumulate about their dwellings
might, by polluting the atmosphere, prove a real, not an imaginary
source of disease. In practice, cleanliness based on motives of
superstition may be just as effective for the preservation of health
as if it were founded on the best-ascertained principles of sanitary
science.​[1215]

[Sidenote: Evolution of chiefs or kings out of magicians, especially
out of rain-makers, in Africa.

Power of magicians among the Wambugwe, Wataturu, and Wagogo of East
Africa.

Among the Masai the supreme chief is always a powerful medicine-man.]

Still rising in the scale of culture we come to Africa, where both
the chieftainship and the kingship are fully developed; and here the
evidence for the evolution of the chief out of the magician, and
especially out of the rain-maker, is comparatively plentiful. Thus
among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of East Africa, the original form
of government was a family republic, but the enormous power of the
sorcerers, transmitted by inheritance, soon raised them to the rank
of petty lords or chiefs. Of the three chiefs living in the country
in 1894 two were much dreaded as magicians, and the wealth of cattle
they possessed came to them almost wholly in the shape of presents
bestowed for their services in that capacity. Their principal art
was that of rain-making.​[1216] The chiefs of the Wataturu, another
{p343} people of East Africa, are said to be nothing but sorcerers
destitute of any direct political influence.​[1217] Again, among the
Wagogo of German East Africa the main power of the chiefs, we are
told, is derived from their art of rain-making. If a chief cannot
make rain himself, he must procure it from some one who can.​[1218]
Again, in the powerful Masai nation of the same region the medicine-men
are not uncommonly the chiefs, and the supreme chief of the race is
almost invariably a powerful medicine-man. These _Laibon_, as they are
called, are priests as well as doctors, skilled in interpreting omens
and dreams, in averting ill-luck, and in making rain.​[1219] The head
chief or medicine-man, who has been called the Masai pope,​[1220] is
expected not only to make rain, but to repel and destroy the enemies
of the Masai in war by his magic art.​[1221] The following is Captain
Merker’s account of the Masai pope: “The most prominent clan of the
whole Masai people is the _En gidon_, because to it belong not only
the family of the chief (_ol oiboni_), but also the family of the
magicians. The designation chief is, strictly speaking, not quite
correct, since the chief (_ol oiboni_) does not govern directly and
exercises no real administrative function. He rules only indirectly;
the firm belief of his subjects in his prophetic gifts and in his
supernatural power of sorcery gives him an influence on the destinies
of the people. Despotism and cruelty, such as we find among all negro
rulers, are alien to him. He is not so much a ruler as a national saint
or patriarch. The people speak of his sacred person with shy awe, and
no man dares to appear before this mighty personage without being
summoned. The aim of his policy is to unite and strengthen the Masai.
While he allows free play to the predatory instincts of the warriors
in raids on other tribes, he guards his own people from the scourge of
civil war, to which the ceaseless quarrels of the various districts
with each other would otherwise continually give occasion. This
influence of his is rendered possible by the belief that {p344} victory
can only be achieved through the secret power of the war-medicine which
none but he can compound, and that defeat would infallibly follow if he
were to predict it. Neither he nor his nearest relatives march with the
army to war. He supplies remedies, generally in the shape of magical
medicines, for plagues and sicknesses, and he appoints festivals of
prayer in honour of the Masai god _’Ng ai_. He delivers his predictions
by means of an oracular game like the telling of beads.”​[1222] And
just as Samson’s miraculous strength went from him when his hair was
shorn, so it is believed that the head chief of the Masai would lose
his supernatural powers if his chin were shaved.​[1223] According
to one writer, the Masai pope has never more than one eye: the
father knocks out his son’s eye in order to qualify him for the holy
office.​[1224]

[Sidenote: Among the Nandi of British East Africa the principal
medicine-man is the supreme chief.]

Among the Nandi of British East Africa “the _Orkoiyot_, or principal
medicine man, holds precisely the same position as the Masai
_Ol-oiboni_, that is to say, he is supreme chief of the whole race.” He
is a diviner, and foretells the future by casting stones, inspecting
entrails, interpreting dreams, and prophesying when he is drunk. The
Nandi believe implicitly in his powers. He tells them when to begin
planting their crops: in time of drought he procures rain for them
either directly or by means of the rainmakers: he makes women and
cattle fruitful; and no war-party can expect to be successful if he
has not approved of the foray. His office is hereditary and his person
is usually regarded as absolutely sacred. Nobody may approach him with
weapons in his hand or speak in his presence unless the great man
addresses him; and it is most important that nobody should touch his
head, else it is feared that his powers of divination and so forth
would depart from him. However, one of these sacred pontiffs was
clubbed to death, being held responsible for several public calamities,
to wit, famine, sickness, and defeat in war.​[1225] The Suk and
Turkana, {p345} two other peoples of British East Africa, distinguish
between their chiefs and their medicine-men, who wield great power;
but very often the medicine-man is a chief by virtue of his skill in
medicine or the occult arts.​[1226]

[Sidenote: Rain-makers as chiefs among the tribes of the Upper Nile.

Rain-makers as chiefs among the Latuka.]

Again, among the tribes of the Upper Nile the medicine-men are
generally the chiefs.​[1227] Their authority rests above all upon
their supposed power of making rain, for “rain is the one thing which
matters to the people in those districts, as if it does not come down
at the right time it means untold hardships for the community. It
is therefore small wonder that men more cunning than their fellows
should arrogate to themselves the power of producing it, or that
having gained such a reputation, they should trade on the credulity of
their simpler neighbours.” Hence “most of the chiefs of these tribes
are rainmakers, and enjoy a popularity in proportion to their powers
to give rain to their people at the proper season. . . . Rain-making
chiefs always build their villages on the slopes of a fairly high hill,
as they no doubt know that the hills attract the clouds, and that
they are, therefore, fairly safe in their weather forecasts.” Each of
these rain-makers has a number of rain-stones, such as rock-crystal,
aventurine, and amethyst, which he keeps in a pot. When he wishes to
produce rain he plunges the stones in water, and taking in his hand
a peeled cane, which is split at the top, he beckons with it to the
clouds to come or waves them away in the way they should go, muttering
an incantation the while. Or he pours water and the entrails of a
sheep or goat into a hollow in a stone and then sprinkles the water
towards the sky. Though the chief acquires wealth by the exercise of
his supposed magical powers, he often, perhaps generally, comes to a
violent end; for in time of drought the angry people assemble and kill
him, believing that it is he who prevents the rain from falling. Yet
the office is usually hereditary and passes from father to son. Among
the tribes which cherish these beliefs and observe these customs are
the Latuka, Bari, Laluba, and Lokoiya.​[1228] Thus, {p346} for example,
with regard to the Latuka we are told that “amongst the most important
but also the most dangerous occupations of the greater chiefs is the
procuring of rain for their country. Almost all the greater chiefs
enjoy the reputation of being rainmakers, and the requisite knowledge
usually passes by inheritance from father to son. However, there are
also here and there among the natives persons who, without being
chiefs, busy themselves with rain-making. If there has been no rain in
a district for a long time and the people wish to attract it for the
sake of the sowing, they apply to their chief, bringing him a present
of sheep, goats, or, in urgent cases, cattle or a girl, and if the
present seems to him sufficient he promises to furnish rain; but if it
appears to him too little he asks for more. If some days pass without
rain, it gives the magician an opportunity for claiming fresh presents,
on the ground that the smallness of the offered gifts hinders the
coming of the rain.” When the cupidity of the rain-maker is satisfied,
he goes to work in the usual way, pouring water over two flat stones,
one called the male and the other the female, till they are covered to
a depth of three inches. The “male” stone is a common white quartz; the
“female” is brownish. If still no rain falls, he makes a smoky fire
in the open with certain herbs, and if the smoke mounts straight up,
rain is near. Although an unsuccessful rain-maker is often banished or
killed, his son always succeeds him in the dignity.​[1229] Amongst the
Bari the procedure of the rain-making chief to draw down the water of
heaven is somewhat elaborate. He has many rain-stones, consisting of
rock crystal and pink and green granite. These are deposited in the
hollows of some twenty slabs of gneiss, and across the hollows are
laid numerous iron rods of various shapes and sizes. When rain is to
be made, these iron rods are set up in a perpendicular position, and
water is poured on the crystals and stones. Then the rain-maker takes
up the stones one by one and oils them, praying to his dead father to
send the rain. One of the iron rods is {p347} provided with a hook, and
another is a two-headed spear. With the hook the rain-maker hooks and
attracts the rain-clouds; with the two-headed spear he attacks and
drives them away. In this procedure the prayer to the dead ancestor is
religious, while the rest of the ceremony is magical. Thus, as so often
happens, the savage seeks to compass his object by combining magic with
religion. The logical inconsistency does not trouble him, provided he
attains his end. Further, the rain-maker chief of the Bari is supposed
to be able to make women fruitful. For this purpose he takes an iron
rod with a hollow bulb at each end, in which are small stones. Grasping
the rod by the middle he shakes it over the would-be mother, rattling
the stones and muttering an incantation.​[1230]

[Sidenote: Magical powers of chiefs among the Bongo and Dinkas.]

Again, among the Bongo, a tribe of the same region, the influence of
the chiefs is said to rest in great part on a belief in their magical
powers; for the chief is credited with the knowledge of certain roots,
which are the only means of communicating with the dangerous spirits
of whose mischievous pranks the Bongo stand in great fear.​[1231] In
the Dinka or Denka nation, to the north-east of the Bongo, men who are
supposed to be in close communication with spirits pass for omnipotent;
it is believed that they make rain, conjure away all calamities,
foresee the future, exorcise evil spirits, know all that goes on even
at a distance, have the wild beasts in their service, and can call
down every kind of disaster on their enemies. One of these men became
the richest and most esteemed chief of the Kič tribe through his skill
in ventriloquism. He kept a cage from which the roars of imaginary
lions and the howls of imaginary hyaenas were heard to proceed; and
he gave out that these beasts guarded his house and were ready at his
bidding to rush forth on his enemies. The dread which he infused into
the tribe and its neighbours was incredible; from all sides oxen were
sent to him as presents, so that his herds were the most numerous in
the country. Another of these conjurers in the Tuič tribe had a real
tame {p348} lion and four real fat snakes, which slept in front of his
door, to the great awe of the natives, who could only attribute the
pacific demeanour of these ferocious animals to sorcery.​[1232] But it
does not appear that the real lion inspired nearly so much terror as
the imaginary one; from which we may perhaps infer that among these
people ventriloquism is a more solid basis of political power even than
lion-taming.

[Sidenote: Chiefs and kings as rain-makers in Central Africa.]

In Central Africa, again, the Lendu tribe, to the west of Lake Albert,
firmly believe that certain people possess the power of making rain.
Among them the rain-maker either is a chief or almost invariably
becomes one.​[1233] The Banyoro also have a great respect for the
dispensers of rain, whom they load with a profusion of gifts. The great
dispenser, he who has absolute and uncontrollable power over the rain,
is the king; but he can depute his power to other persons, so that the
benefit may be distributed and the heavenly water laid on over the
various parts of the kingdom.​[1234] A Catholic missionary observes
that “a superstition common to the different peoples of equatorial
Africa attributes to the petty kings of the country the exclusive power
of making the rain to fall; in extreme cases the power is ascribed to
certain kings more privileged than the rest, such as those of Huilla,
Humbé, Varé, Libebé, and others. These kings profit by the superstition
in order to draw to themselves many presents of cattle; for the rain
must fall after the sacrifice of an ox, and if it tarries, the king,
who is never at a loss for excuses to extricate himself from the
scrape, will ascribe the failure to the defects of the victim, and will
seize the pretext to claim more cattle.”​[1235] Among the Ba-Yaka, a
tribe of the Kasai district in the Congo Free State, magicians are
exempt from justice, and the chief is the principal magician;​[1236]
and among the Ba-Yanzi, another {p349} tribe of the same district,
there is, or was a few years ago, a chief who passed for the greatest
magician in the country.​[1237]

[Sidenote: Medicine-men as chiefs in Western Africa.]

In Western as well as in Eastern and Central Africa we meet with the
same union of chiefly with magical functions. Thus in the Fan tribe
the strict distinction between chief and medicine-man does not exist
The chief is also a medicine-man and a smith to boot; for the Fans
esteem the smith’s craft sacred, and none but chiefs may meddle with
it.​[1238] The chiefs of the Ossidinge district in the Cameroons have
as such very little influence over their subjects; but if the chief
happens to be also the fetish-priest, as he generally is among the
Ekois, he has not only powerful influence in all fetish matters (and
most of the vital interests of the people are bound up with fetish
worship), but he also enjoys great authority in general.​[1239] A few
years ago the head chief of Etatin on the Cross River, in Southern
Nigeria, was an old man whom the people had compelled to take office in
order that he should look after the fetishes or jujus and work magic
for the benefit of the community. In accordance with an old custom,
which is binding on the head chief, he was never allowed to leave his
compound, that is, the enclosure in which his house stands. He gave the
following account of himself to an English official, who paid him a
visit: “I have been shut up ten years, but, being an old man, I don’t
miss my freedom. I am the oldest man of the town, and they keep me here
to look after the jujus, and to conduct the rites celebrated when women
are about to give birth to children, and other ceremonies of the same
kind. By the observance and performance of these ceremonies, I bring
game to the hunter, cause the yam crop to be good, bring fish to the
fisherman, and make rain to fall. So they bring me meat, yams, fish,
etc. To make rain, I drink water, and squirt it out, and pray to our
big deities. If I were to go outside this compound, I should fall down
dead on returning to this hut. {p350} My wives cut my hair and nails,
and take great care of the parings.”​[1240]

[Sidenote: Chiefs as rain-makers in Southern Africa.]

As to the relation between the offices of chief and rain-maker in South
Africa a well-informed writer observes: “In very old days the chief
was the great Rain-maker of the tribe. Some chiefs allowed no one else
to compete with them, lest a successful Rain-maker should be chosen as
chief. There was also another reason: the Rain-maker was sure to become
a rich man if he gained a great reputation, and it would manifestly
never do for the chief to allow any one to be too rich. The Rain-maker
exerts tremendous control over the people, and so it would be most
important to keep this function connected with royalty. Tradition
always places the power of making rain as the fundamental glory of
ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems probable that it may have been
the origin of chieftainship. The man who made the rain would naturally
become the chief. In the same way Chaka [the famous Zulu despot]
used to declare that he was the only diviner in the country, for if
he allowed rivals his life would be insecure.”​[1241] These South
African rain-makers smear themselves with mud and sacrifice oxen as an
essential part of the charm; almost everything is thought to turn on
the colour of the beasts. Thus Umbandine, the old king of the Swazies,
had huge herds of cattle of a peculiar colour, which was particularly
well adapted for the production of rain. Hence deputations came to
him from distant tribes praying and bribing him to make rain by the
sacrifice of his cattle; and he used to threaten to “bind up the sky”
if they did not satisfy his demands. The power {p351} which by this
means he wielded was enormous.​[1242] Similarly Mablaan, a chief of the
Bawenda, in the north-eastern corner of the Transvaal, enjoyed a wide
reputation and was revered beyond the limits of his own tribe because
he was credited with the power of rain-making, “a greater power in the
eyes of natives than that of the assegai.” Hence he was constantly
importuned by other chiefs to exercise his power and received valuable
presents of girls, oxen, and red and green beads as inducements to turn
on the heavenly water-tap.​[1243]

[Sidenote: Power of rain-makers among the Matabeles.

The king of the Matabeles as rain-maker.]

Among the Matabeles of South Africa the witch-doctors are supposed to
be on speaking terms with spirits, and their influence is described as
tremendous; in the time of King Lo Bengula some years ago “their power
was as great as, if not greater than, the king’s.”​[1244] Similarly
speaking of the South African tribes in general, Dr. Moffat says that
“the rain-maker is in the estimation of the people no mean personage,
possessing an influence over the minds of the people superior even to
that of the king, who is likewise compelled to yield to the dictates
of this arch-official.”​[1245] In Matabeleland the rainy season falls
in November, December, January, and February. For several weeks
before the rain sets in, the clouds gather in heavy banks, dark and
lowering. Then the king is busy with his magicians compounding potions
of wondrous strength to make the labouring clouds discharge their
pent-up burden on the thirsty earth. He may be seen gazing at every
black cloud, for his people flock from all parts to beg rain from
him, “their rain-maker,” for their parched fields; and they thank and
praise him when a heavy rain has fallen.​[1246] A letter dated from
Bulawayo, the twentieth of November 1880, records that Lo Bengula, king
of the Matabeles, “arrived yesterday evening at his kraal of ‘the
White Rocks.’ He brought with him the rain to his people. For according
to the ideas of the Matabeles, it is the king who ought to ‘make the
rain {p352} and the good season’ in all senses of the word. Now Lo
Bengula had chosen well the day and the hour, for it was in the midst
of a tremendous storm that the king made his solemn entrance into his
capital.” “You must know that the arrival of the king and of the rain
gives rise every year to a little festival. For the rain is the great
benefit conferred by the king, the pledge of future harvests and of
plenty, after eight months of desolating drought.” To bring down the
needed showers the king of the Matabeles boils a magic hell-broth in a
cauldron, which sends up volumes of steam to the blue sky. But to make
assurance doubly sure, he has recourse to religion as well as to magic;
for he sacrifices twelve black oxen to the spirits of his fathers, and
prays to them: “O great spirits of my father and grandfather, I thank
you for having granted last year to my people more wheat than to our
enemies the Mashonas. This year also, in gratitude for the twelve black
oxen which I am about to dedicate to you, make us to be the best-fed
and the strongest people in the world!”​[1247] Thus the king of the
Matabeles acts not only as a magician but as a priest, for he prays and
sacrifices to the spirits of his forefathers.

[Sidenote: Thus in Africa kings have probably often been developed out
of magicians, and especially out of rain-makers.

Kings in Africa punished for drought and dearth.]

The foregoing evidence renders it probable that in Africa the king has
often been developed out of the public magician, and especially out of
the rain-maker. The unbounded fear which the magician inspires and the
wealth which he amasses in the exercise of his profession may both be
supposed to have contributed to his promotion. But if the career of a
magician and especially of a rain-maker offers great rewards to the
successful practitioner of the art, it is beset with many pitfalls into
which the unskilful or unlucky artist may fall. The position of the
public sorcerer is indeed a very precarious one; for where the people
firmly believe that he has it in his power to make the rain to fall,
the sun to shine, and the fruits of the earth to grow, they naturally
impute drought and dearth to his culpable negligence or wilful
obstinacy, and they punish him accordingly. We have seen that in Africa
the chief who fails to procure rain is often exiled or killed.​[1248]
Examples of such punishments could be multiplied. {p353} Thus, in some
parts of West Africa, when prayers and offerings presented to the king
have failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him with ropes and take
him by force to the grave of his forefathers that he may obtain from
them the needed rain.​[1249] The Banjars in West Africa ascribe to
their king the power of causing rain or fine weather. So long as the
weather is fine they load him with presents of grain and cattle. But
if long drought or rain threatens to spoil the crops, they insult and
beat him till the weather changes.​[1250] When the harvest fails or
the surf on the coast is too heavy to allow of fishing, the people of
Loango accuse their king of a “bad heart” and depose him.​[1251] On
the Grain Coast the high priest or fetish king, who bears the title of
Bodio, is responsible for the health of the community, the fertility
of the earth, and the abundance of fish in the sea and rivers; and
if the country suffers in any of these respects the Bodio is deposed
from his office.​[1252] In Ussukuma, a great district on the southern
bank of the Victoria Nyanza, “the rain and locust question is part
and parcel of the Sultan’s government. He, too, must know how to
make rain and drive away the locusts. If he and his medicine-men are
unable to accomplish this, his whole existence is at stake in times of
distress. On a certain occasion, when the rain so greatly desired by
the people did not come, the Sultan was simply driven out (in Ututwa,
near Nassa). The people, in fact, hold that rulers must have power over
Nature and her phenomena.”​[1253] Again, we are told of the natives of
the Nyanza region generally that “they are persuaded that rain only
falls as a result of magic, and the important duty of causing it to
descend devolves on the chief of the tribe. If rain does not come at
the proper time, everybody complains. More than one petty king has
been banished his country because of drought.”​[1254] Similarly {p354}
among the Antimores of Madagascar the chiefs are held responsible for
the operation of the laws of nature. Hence if the land is smitten with
a blight or devastated by clouds of locusts, if the cows yield little
milk, or fatal epidemics rage among the people, the chief is not only
deposed but stripped of his property and banished, because they say
that under a good chief such things ought not to happen.​[1255] So,
too, of the Antaimorona we read that “although the chiefs of this tribe
are chosen by the people, during their tenure of power they enjoy a
respect which borders on adoration; but if a crop of rice fails or
any other calamity happens, they are immediately deposed, sometimes
even killed; and yet their successor is always chosen from the
family.”​[1256] Among the Latukas of the Upper Nile, when the crops are
withering in the fields and all the efforts of the chief to bring down
rain have proved fruitless, the people commonly attack him by night,
rob him of all he possesses, and drive him away. But often they kill
him.​[1257]

[Sidenote: In other parts of the world kings have been punished for
failing to regulate the course of nature.]

In many other parts of the world kings have been expected to regulate
the course of nature for the good of their people and have been
punished if they failed to do so. It appears that the Scythians, when
food was scarce, used to put their king in bonds.​[1258] In ancient
Egypt the sacred kings were blamed for the failure of the crops,​[1259]
but the sacred beasts were also held responsible for the course of
nature. When pestilence and other calamities had fallen on the land, in
consequence of a long and severe drought, the priests took the animals
by night and threatened them, but if the evil did not abate they slew
the beasts.​[1260] On the coral island of Niuē or Savage Island, in the
South Pacific, there formerly reigned a line of kings. But as the kings
were also high priests, and {p355} were supposed to make the food grow,
the people became angry with them in times of scarcity and killed them;
till at last, as one after another was killed, no one would be king,
and the monarchy came to an end.​[1261] Ancient Chinese writers inform
us that in Corea the blame was laid on the king whenever too much or
too little rain fell and the crops did not ripen. Some said that he
must be deposed, others that he must be slain.​[1262] The Chinese
emperor himself is deemed responsible if the drought is at all severe,
and many are the self-condemnatory edicts on this subject published
in the pages of the venerable _Peking Gazette_. In extreme cases the
emperor, clad in humble vestments, sacrifices to heaven and implores
its protection.​[1263] So, too, the kings of Tonquin used to take
blame to themselves when the country was visited by such calamities as
scanty harvests, dearth, floods, destructive hurricanes and cholera.
On these occasions the monarch would sometimes publicly confess his
guilt and impose on himself a penance as a means of appeasing the
wrath of Heaven.​[1264] In former days it sometimes happened that when
the country suffered from drought and dearth the king of Tonquin was
obliged to change his name in the hope that this would turn the weather
to rain. But if the drought continued even after the change of name the
people would sometimes resort to stronger measures and transfer the
title of king from the legitimate monarch to his brother, son, or other
near relation.​[1265]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the North American Indians.]

Among the American Indians the furthest advance towards civilisation
was made under the monarchical and {p356} theocratic governments of
Mexico and Peru; but we know too little of the early history of these
countries to say whether the predecessors of their deified kings were
medicine-men or not. Perhaps a trace of such a succession may be
detected in the oath which the Mexican kings took when they mounted the
throne: they swore that they would make the sun to shine, the clouds
to give rain, the rivers to flow, and the earth to bring forth fruits
in abundance.​[1266] Certainly, in aboriginal America the sorcerer or
medicine-man, surrounded by a halo of mystery and an atmosphere of awe,
was a personage of great influence and importance, and he may well
have developed into a chief or king in many tribes, though positive
evidence of such a development appears to be lacking. Thus Catlin tells
us that in North America the medicine-men “are valued as dignitaries
in the tribe, and the greatest respect is paid to them by the whole
community; not only for their skill in their _materia medica_, but
more especially for their tact in magic and mysteries, in which they
all deal to a very great extent. . . . In all tribes their doctors
are conjurors—are magicians—are sooth-sayers, and I had like to have
said high-priests, inasmuch as they superintend and conduct all their
religious ceremonies; they are looked upon by all as oracles of the
nation. In all councils of war and peace, they have a seat with the
chiefs, are regularly consulted before any public step is taken, and
the greatest deference and respect is paid to their opinions.”​[1267]
Among the Loucheux of North-West America each band is “headed by a
chief and one or more medicine-men. The latter, however, do not possess
any secular power as chiefs, but they acquire an authority by shamanism
to which even the chiefs themselves are subject.” “The Loucheux
are very superstitious, and place implicit faith in the pretended
incantations of their medicine-men, for whom they entertain great fear.
. . . The power of the medicine-men is very great, and they use every
means they can to increase it by working on the fears and credulity of
the people. Their influence exceeds even that of the chiefs. The power
of the {p357} latter consists in the quantity of beads they possess,
their wealth and the means it affords them to work ill to those to
whom they may be evil-disposed; while the power of the medicine-man
consists in the harm they believe he is able to do by shamanism,
should they happen to displease him in any way. It is when sickness
prevails that the conjuror rules supreme; it is then that he fills
his bead bags and increases his riches.”​[1268] Amongst the Tinneh
Indians of the same region “the social standing of a medicine-man is,
on the whole, a desirable one; but it has also its drawbacks and its
dark side. The medicine-man is decidedly influential among his fellow
savages. He is consulted and listened to, on account of the superior
knowledge imparted to him by the spirits. He is feared, on account of
his power to do evil, viz. to cause the death of a person, to ruin
his undertakings, to render him unsuccessful in the hunt by driving
away the game from his path, to cause the loss of his property, of his
strength, of his health, of his faculties, etc. The medicine-man is
rich, because his services, when summoned, or even when accepted though
uncalled for, are generously remunerated. He is respected on account
of his continual intercourse with the supernatural world. His words,
when said in a peculiar low tone, with a momentary glow in the eyes,
which [he] seems able to control at will, or when uttered during his
sleep (real or feigned) are taken as oracles, as the very words of the
spirit. In short, for these tribes who have no chiefs, no religion, no
medical knowledge, he is the nearest approach to a chief, a priest,
and a physician.”​[1269] Similarly in California “the shaman was, and
still is, perhaps the most important individual among the Maidu. In
the absence of any definite system of government, the word of a shaman
has great weight: as a class they are regarded with much awe, and as
a rule are obeyed much more than the chief.”​[1270] As leader of the
local branch {p358} of a secret society the most noted Maidu shaman of
each district was supposed to make rain when it was needed, to ensure
a good crop of edible acorns and a plentiful supply of salmon, and
to drive away evil spirits, disease, and epidemics from the village.
Further, it was his business to inflict disease and death on hostile
villages, which he did by burning certain roots and blowing the smoke
towards the doomed village, while he said, “Over there, over there,
not here! To the other place! Do not come back this way. We are good.
Make those people sick. Kill them, they are bad people.”​[1271] Among
the Yokuts, another tribe of Californian Indians, the rain-makers
exercised great influence. One of them by his insinuating address,
eloquence, and jugglery spread his fame to a distance of two hundred
miles, and cunningly availed himself of two years of drought to levy
contributions far and wide from the trembling Indians, who attributed
to his magic the fall of the rain.​[1272] In the same tribe the wizards
drew large profits from the rattlesnake dance which they danced every
spring, capering about with rattlesnakes twined round their arms; for
after this exhibition many simpletons paid them for complete immunity
from snake-bites, which the wizards were believed able to grant for a
year.​[1273]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the South American Indians.]

In South America also the magicians or medicine-men seem to have been
on the highroad to chieftainship or kingship. One of the earliest
settlers on the coast of Brazil, the Frenchman Thevet, reports that
the Indians “hold these _pages_ (or medicine-men) in such honour and
reverence that they adore, or rather idolise them. You may see the
common folk go to meet them, prostrate themselves, and pray to them,
saying, ‘Grant that I be not ill, that I do not die, neither I nor my
children,’ or some such request. And he answers, ‘You shall not die,
you shall not be ill,’ and such like replies. But sometimes if it
happens that these _pages_ do not tell the truth, and things turn out
otherwise than they predicted, the people make no scruple of killing
them as unworthy of the title and dignity {p359} of _pages_.”​[1274]
The Indians of Brazil, says a modern writer who knew them well, “have
no priests but only magicians, who at the same time use medical help
and exorcism in order to exert influence over the superstition and the
dread of spirits felt by the rude multitude. We may perfectly compare
them with the shamans of the north-eastern Asiatic peoples. But like
the shamans they are not mere magicians, fetish-men, soothsayers,
interpreters of dreams, visionaries, and casters-out of devils; their
activity has also a political character in so far as they influence
the decisions of the leaders and of the community in public business,
and exert a certain authority, more than anybody else, as judges,
sureties, and witnesses in private affairs.”​[1275] Among the Lengua
Indians of the Gran Chaco every clan has its cazique or chief, but he
possesses little authority. In virtue of his office he has to make
many presents, so he seldom grows rich and is generally more shabbily
clad than any of his subjects. “As a matter of fact the magician is
the man who has most power in his hands, and he is accustomed to
receive presents instead of to give them.” It is the magician’s duty
to bring down misfortune and plagues on the enemies of his tribe, and
to guard his own people against hostile magic. For these services he
is well paid and by them he acquires a position of great influence and
authority.​[1276] Among the Indians of Guiana also the magician or
medicine-man (_piai_, _peaiman_) is a personage of great importance. By
his magic art he alone, it is believed, can counteract the machinations
of the great host of evil spirits, to which these savages attribute all
the ills of life. It is almost impossible, we are told, to overestimate
the dreadful sense of constant and unavoidable danger in which the
Indian would live were it not for his trust in the protecting power
of the magician. Every village has one such spiritual guardian, who
is physician, priest, and magician in one. His influence is immense.
No Indian dare refuse him anything he takes a fancy to, {p360} from a
trifle of food up to a man’s wife. Hence these cunning fellows live
in idleness on the fat of the land and acquire a large harem; their
houses are commonly full of women who serve them in the capacity of
beasts of burden as well as of wives, plodding wearily along under
the weight of the baggage on long journeys, while their lord and
master, fantastically tricked out in feathers and paint, strolls
ahead, burdened only with his magic rattle and perhaps his bow and
arrows.​[1277]

[Sidenote: Power of medicine-men among the pagan tribes of the Malay
Peninsula.]

Among the wild pagan tribes of the Malay peninsula the connexion
between the offices of magician and chief is very close; indeed the
two offices are often united in the same person. Among these savages,
“as among the Malays, the accredited intermediary between gods and men
is in all cases the medicine-man or sorcerer. In the Semang tribes the
office of chief medicine-man appears to be generally combined with that
of chief, but amongst the Sakai and Jakun these offices are sometimes
separated, and although the chief is almost invariably a medicine-man
of some repute, he is not necessarily the chief medicine-man, any
more than the chief medicine-man is necessarily the administrative
head of the tribe. In both cases there is an unfailing supply of
aspirants to the office, though it may be taken for granted that, all
else being equal, a successful medicine-man would have much the best
prospect of being elected chief, and that in the vast majority of cases
his priestly duties form an important part of a chief’s work. The
medicine-man is, as might be expected, duly credited with supernatural
powers. His tasks are to preside as chief medium at all the ceremonies,
to instruct the youth of the tribe, to ward off as well as to heal all
forms of sickness and trouble, to foretell the future (as affecting the
results of any given act), to avert when necessary the wrath of heaven,
and even when re-embodied after death in the shape of a wild beast, to
extend a benign protection to his devoted descendants. Among the Sakai
and the Jakun he is provided with a distinctive form of dress and {p361}
body-painting, and carries an emblematic wand or staff by virtue of his
office.”​[1278]

[Sidenote: Development of kings out of magicians among the Malays.]

Throughout the Malay region the rajah or king is commonly regarded
with superstitious veneration as the possessor of supernatural powers,
and there are grounds for thinking that he too, like apparently so
many African chiefs, has been developed out of a simple magician. At
the present day the Malays firmly believe that the king possesses a
personal influence over the works of nature, such as the growth of
the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees. The same prolific virtue
is supposed to reside, though in a lesser degree, in his delegates,
and even in the persons of Europeans who chance to have charge of
districts. Thus in Selangor, one of the native states of the Malay
Peninsula, the success or failure of the rice crops is often attributed
to a change of district officers.​[1279] The Toorateyas of southern
Celebes hold that the prosperity of the rice depends on the behaviour
of their princes, and that bad government, by which they mean a
government which does not conform to ancient custom, will result in a
failure of the crops.​[1280]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Dyaks in the power of the rajah to fertilise
the rice.]

The Dyaks of Sarawak believed that their famous English ruler, Rajah
Brooke, was endowed with a certain magical virtue which, if properly
applied, could render the rice-crops abundant. Hence when he visited a
tribe, they used to bring him the seed which they intended to sow next
year, and he fertilised it by shaking over it the women’s necklaces,
which had been previously dipped in a special mixture. And when he
entered a village, the women would wash and bathe his feet, first with
water, and then with the milk of a young coco-nut, and lastly with
water again, and all this water which had touched his person they
preserved for the purpose of distributing it on their farms, believing
that it ensured an abundant harvest. Tribes which were too far {p362}
off for him to visit used to send him a small piece of white cloth and
a little gold or silver, and when these things had been impregnated by
his generative virtue they buried them in their fields, and confidently
expected a heavy crop. Once when a European remarked that the
rice-crops of the Samban tribe were thin, the chief immediately replied
that they could not be otherwise, since Rajah Brooke had never visited
them, and he begged that Mr. Brooke might be induced to visit his tribe
and remove the sterility of their land.​[1281]

[Sidenote: Links between Malay rajahs and magicians.]

Among the Malays the links which unite the king or rajah with the
magician happen to be unusually plain and conspicuous. Thus the
magician shares with the king the privilege of using cloth dyed
yellow, the royal colour; he has considerable political influence,
and he can compel people to address him in ceremonial language, of
which indeed the phraseology is even more copious in its application
to a magician than to a king. Moreover, and this is a fact of great
significance, the Malay magician owns certain insignia which are said
to be exactly analogous to the regalia of the king, and even bear the
very same name (_kabĕsaran_).​[1282] Now the regalia of a Malay king
are not mere jewelled baubles designed to impress the multitude with
the pomp and splendour of royalty; they are regarded as wonder-working
talismans,​[1283] the possession of which carries with it the right to
the throne; if the king loses them, he thereby forfeits the allegiance
of his subjects. It seems, therefore, to be a probable inference that
in the Malay region the regalia of the kings are only the conjuring
apparatus of their predecessors the magicians, and that in this part
of the world accordingly the magician is the humble grub or chrysalis
which in due time bursts and discloses that gorgeous butterfly the
rajah or king.

[Sidenote: In Celebes the regalia are talismans or fetishes, the
possession of which carries with it the right to the throne.]

Nowhere apparently in the Indian Archipelago is this view of the
regalia as the true fount of regal dignity carried to such lengths
as in southern Celebes. Here the royal {p363} authority is supposed
to be in some mysterious fashion embodied in the regalia, while the
princes owe all the power they exercise, and all the respect they
enjoy, to their possession of these precious objects. In short, the
regalia reign, and the princes are merely their representatives. Hence
whoever happens to possess the regalia is regarded by the people as
their lawful king. For example, if a deposed monarch contrives to
keep the regalia, his former subjects remain loyal to him in their
hearts, and look upon his successor as a usurper who is to be obeyed
only in so far as he can exact obedience by force. And on the other
hand, in an insurrection the first aim of the rebels is to seize the
regalia, for if they can only make themselves masters of them, the
authority of the sovereign is gone. In short, the regalia are here
fetishes, which confer a title to the throne and control the fate of
the kingdom. Houses are built for them to dwell in, as if they were
living creatures; furniture, weapons, and even lands are assigned to
them. Like the ark of God, they are carried with the army to battle,
and on various occasions the people propitiate them, as if they were
gods, by prayer and sacrifice and by smearing them with blood. Some of
them serve as instruments of divination, or are brought forth in times
of public disaster for the purpose of staying the evil, whatever it may
be. For example, when plague is rife among men or beasts, or when there
is a prospect of dearth, the Boogineese bring out the regalia, smear
them with buffalo’s blood, and carry them about. For the most part
these fetishes are heirlooms of which the origin is forgotten; some
of them are said to have fallen from heaven. Popular tradition traces
the foundation of the oldest states to the discovery or acquisition of
one of these miraculous objects—it may be a stone, a piece of wood, a
fruit, a weapon, or what not, of a peculiar shape or colour. Often the
original regalia have disappeared in course of time, but their place
is taken by the various articles of property which were bestowed on
them, and to which the people have transferred their pious allegiance.
The oldest dynasties have the most regalia, and the holiest regalia
consist of relics of the bodies of former princes, which are kept in
golden caskets wrapt in silk. At Paloppo, the {p364} capital of Loowoo,
a kingdom on the coast of Celebes, two toy cannons, with barrels like
thin gas-pipes, are regalia; their possession is supposed to render
the town impregnable. Other regalia of this kingdom are veiled from
vulgar eyes in bark-cloth. When a missionary requested to see them, the
official replied that it was strictly forbidden to open the bundle;
were he to do so, the earth would yawn and swallow them up. In Bima the
principal part of the regalia or public talismans consists of a sacred
brown horse, which no man may ride. It is always stabled in the royal
palace. When the animal passes the government fort on high days and
holidays, it is saluted with the fire of five guns; when it is led to
the river to bathe, the royal spear is carried before it, and any man
who does not give way to the beast, or crosses the road in front of it,
has to pay a fine. But the horse is mortal, and when it goes the way of
all horse-flesh, another steed chosen from the same stud reigns in its
place.​[1284]

[Sidenote: Magical virtue of regalia in Egypt and Africa.

Regalia venerated in Cambodia, Scythia, and ancient Greece.]

But if in the Malay region the regalia are essentially wonder-working
talismans or fetishes which the kings appear to have derived from their
predecessors the magicians, we may conjecture that in other parts of
the world the emblems of royalty may at some time have been viewed in a
similar light and have had a similar origin. In ancient Egypt the two
royal crowns, the white and the red, were supposed to be endowed with
magical virtues, indeed to be themselves divinities, embodiments of
the sun god. One text declares: “The white crown is the eye of Horus;
the red crown is the eye of Horus.” Another text speaks of a crown as
a “great magician.” And applied to the image of a god, the crown was
supposed to confirm the deity in the possession of his soul and of his
form.​[1285] Among the Yorubas of West Africa {p365} at the present
time the king’s crown is sacred and is supposed to be the shrine of
a spirit which has to be propitiated. When the king (_Oni_) of Ife
visited Lagos some years ago, he had to sacrifice five sheep to his
crown between Ibadan and Ife, a two days’ journey on foot.​[1286] Among
the Ashantees “the throne or chair of the king or chief is believed
to be inhabited by a spirit to which it is consecrated, and to which
human sacrifices were formerly offered: at present the victims are
sheep. It is the personification of power; hence a king is not a king
and a chief is not a chief until he has been solemnly installed on
the throne.”​[1287] Among the Hos, a Ewe tribe of Togoland in German
West Africa, the king’s proper throne is small and the king does
not sit on it. Usually it is bound round with magic cords and wrapt
up in a sheep’s skin; but from time to time it is taken out of the
wrappings, washed in a stream, and smeared all over with the blood of
a sheep which has been sacrificed for the purpose. The flesh of the
sheep is boiled and a portion of it eaten by every man who has been
present at the ceremony.​[1288] In Cambodia the regalia are regarded
as a palladium on which the existence of the kingdom depends; they
are committed to Brahmans for safe keeping.​[1289] In antiquity the
Scythian kings treasured as sacred a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and
a cup, all of gold, which were said to have fallen from heaven; they
offered great sacrifices to these sacred things at an annual festival;
and if the man in charge of them fell asleep under the open sky, it
was believed that he would die within the year.​[1290] The sceptre
of king Agamemnon, or what passed for such, was worshipped as a god
at Chaeronea; a man acted as priest of the sceptre for a year at a
time, and sacrifices were offered to it daily.​[1291] The golden lamb
of Mycenae, on the possession of which, according to legend, the two
rivals Atreus and Thyestes based their claim to the throne,​[1292] may
have been a royal talisman of this sort. {p366}

[Sidenote: The belief that kings possess magical or supernatural powers
to control the course of nature for the good of their subjects seems to
have been shared by the ancestors of all the Aryan races from India to
Ireland.

Swedish and Danish kings.

Irish kings.

Magical virtue attributed to the chiefs of the Macleods.]

The belief that kings possess magical or supernatural powers by virtue
of which they can fertilise the earth and confer other benefits on
their subjects would seem to have been shared by the ancestors of all
the Aryan races from India to Ireland, and it has left clear traces
of itself in our own country down to modern times. Thus the ancient
Hindoo law-book called _The Laws of Manu_ describes as follows the
effects of a good king’s reign: “In that country where the king avoids
taking the property of mortal sinners, men are born in due time and
are long-lived. And the crops of the husbandmen spring up, each as
it was sown, and the children die not, and no misshaped offspring is
born.”​[1293] In Homeric Greece kings and chiefs were spoken of as
sacred or divine; their houses, too, were divine and their chariots
sacred;​[1294] and it was thought that the reign of a good king caused
the black earth to bring forth wheat and barley, the trees to be loaded
with fruit, the flocks to multiply, and the sea to yield fish.​[1295]
A Greek historian of a much later age tells us that in the reign of a
very bad king of Lydia the country suffered from drought, for which
he would seem to have held the king responsible.​[1296] There is a
tradition that once when the land of the Edonians in Thrace bore no
fruit, the god Dionysus intimated to the people that its fertility
could be restored by putting their king Lycurgus to death. So they
took him to Mount Pangaeum and there caused him to be torn in pieces
by horses.​[1297] When the crops failed, the Burgundians used to blame
their kings and depose them.​[1298] In the time of the Swedish king
Domalde a mighty famine broke out, which lasted several years, and
could be stayed by the blood neither of beasts nor of men. Therefore,
in a great popular {p367} assembly held at Upsala, the chiefs decided
that King Domalde himself was the cause of the scarcity and must be
sacrificed for good seasons. So they slew him and smeared with his
blood the altars of the gods. Again, we are told that the Swedes
always attributed good or bad crops to their kings as the cause. Now,
in the reign of King Olaf, there came dear times and famine, and the
people thought that the fault was the king’s, because he was sparing
in his sacrifices. So, mustering an army, they marched against him,
surrounded his dwelling, and burned him in it, “giving him to Odin as a
sacrifice for good crops.”​[1299] In the Middle Ages, when Waldemar I.,
King of Denmark, travelled in Germany, mothers brought their infants
and husbandmen their seed for him to lay his hands on, thinking that
children would both thrive the better for the royal touch, and for a
like reason farmers asked him to throw the seed for them.​[1300] It
was the belief of the ancient Irish that when their kings observed the
customs of their ancestors, the seasons were mild, the crops plentiful,
the cattle fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, and the fruit trees
had to be propped up on account of the weight of their produce. A canon
attributed to St. Patrick enumerates among the blessings that attend
the reign of a just king “fine weather, calm seas, crops abundant, and
trees laden with fruit.” On the other hand, dearth, dryness of cows,
blight of fruit, and scarcity of corn were regarded as infallible
proofs that the reigning king was bad. For example, in the reign of the
usurper king Carbery Kinncat, “evil was the state of Ireland: fruitless
her corn, for there used to be only one grain on the stalk; fruitless
her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used
to be {p368} but one acorn on the stalk.”​[1301] Superstitions of the
same sort seem to have lingered in the Highlands of Scotland down to
the eighteenth century; for when Dr. Johnson travelled in Skye it
was still held that the return of the laird to Dunvegan, after any
considerable absence, produced a plentiful capture of herring.​[1302]
The laird of Dunvegan is chief of the clan of the Macleods, and his
family still owns a banner which is called “Macleods Fairy Banner,” on
account of the supernatural powers ascribed to it. When it is unfurled,
victory in war attends it, and it relieves its followers from imminent
danger. But these virtues it can exert only thrice, and already it has
been twice unfurled. When the potato crop failed, many of the common
people desired that the magical banner should be displayed, apparently
in the belief that the mere sight of it would produce a fine crop of
potatoes. Every woman with child who sees it is taken with premature
labour, and every cow casts her calf.​[1303]

[Sidenote: A relic of this belief is the notion that English kings can
heal scrofula by their touch.

Charles II. touching for the king’s evil (scrofula).

English kings touching for scrofula.]

Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions which lingered about our
English kings was the notion that they could heal scrofula by their
touch. The disease was accordingly known as the King’s Evil. Queen
Elizabeth often exercised this miraculous gift of healing. On Midsummer
Day 1633, Charles the First cured a hundred patients at one swoop in
the chapel royal at Holyrood.​[1304] But it was under his son Charles
the Second that the practice seems to have attained its highest vogue.
In this respect the Merry Monarch did not let the grass grow under his
feet. It was the twenty-ninth of May 1660 when he was brought home in
triumph from exile amid a shouting multitude and a forest of brandished
swords, over roads strewed with flowers and through streets hung with
tapestry, while the fountains ran wine and all the bells of London
rang for joy. And it was on the sixth of July that he began to touch
for the King’s {p369} Evil. The ceremony is thus described by Evelyn,
who may have witnessed it. “His Majestie began first to _touch for
y^e evil_, according to costome, thus: His Ma^{tie} sitting under his
state in the Banquetting House, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be
brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, y^e King strokes
their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant
a chaplaine in his formalities says, ‘He put his hands upon them and
he healed them.’ This is sayd to everyone in particular. When they
have been all touch’d they come up again in the same order, and the
other chaplaine kneeling, and having angel gold strung on white ribbon
on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Ma^{tie}, who puts them
about the necks of the touched as they pass, whilst the first chaplaine
repeats, ‘That is y^e true light who came into y^e world.’ Then follows
an Epistle (as at first a Gospell) with the liturgy, prayers for the
sick, with some alteration, lastly y^e blessing; and then the Lo.
Chamberlaine and the Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer
and towell, for his Majesty to wash.”​[1305] Pepys witnessed the same
ceremony at the same place on the thirteenth of April in the following
year and he has recorded his opinion that it was “an ugly office and a
simple.”​[1306] It is said that in the course of his reign Charles the
Second touched near a hundred thousand persons for scrofula. The press
to get near him was sometimes terrific. On one occasion six or seven
of those who came to be healed were trampled to death. While the hope
of a miraculous cure attracted the pious and sanguine, the certainty
of receiving angel gold attracted the needy and avaricious, and it
was not always easy for the royal surgeons to distinguish between the
motives of the applicants. This solemn mummery cost the state little
less than ten thousand pounds a year. The cool-headed William the
Third contemptuously refused to lend himself to the hocus-pocus; and
when his palace was besieged by the usual unsavoury crowd, he ordered
them to be turned away {p370} with a dole. On the only occasion when
he was importuned into laying his hand on a patient, he said to him,
“God give you better health and more sense.” However, the practice was
continued, as might have been expected, by the dull bigot James the
Second​[1307] and his dull daughter Queen Anne. In his childhood Dr.
Johnson was touched for scrofula by the queen, and he always retained
a faint but solemn recollection of her as of a lady in diamonds with a
long black hood.​[1308] To judge by the too faithful picture which his
biographer has drawn of the doctor’s appearance in later life we may
conclude that the touch of the queen’s hand was not a perfect remedy
for the disorder; perhaps the stream of divine grace which had flowed
so copiously in the veins of Charles the Second had been dried up by
the interposition of the sceptical William.

[Sidenote: Other kings and chiefs have claimed to heal diseases by a
touch.]

The kings of France also claimed to possess the same gift of healing
by touch, which they are said to have derived from Clovis or from
St. Louis, while our English kings inherited it from Edward the
Confessor.​[1309] We may suspect that these estimates of the antiquity
of the gift were far too modest, and that the barbarous, nay savage,
predecessors both of the Saxon and of the Merovingian kings had with
the same justice claimed the same powers many ages before. Down to the
nineteenth century the West African tribe of the Walos, in Senegal,
ascribed to their royal family a like power of healing by touch.
Mothers have been seen to bring their sick children to the queen, who
touched them solemnly with her foot on the back, the stomach, the
head, and the legs, after which the women departed in peace, convinced
that {p371} their children had been made whole.​[1310] Similarly the
savage chiefs of Tonga were believed to heal scrofula and cases of
indurated liver by the touch of their feet; and the cure was strictly
homoeopathic, for the disease as well as the cure was thought to be
caused by contact with the royal person or with anything that belonged
to it.​[1311] In fact royal personages in the Pacific and elsewhere
have been supposed to live in a sort of atmosphere highly charged with
what we may call spiritual electricity, which, if it blasts all who
intrude into its charmed circle, has happily also the gift of making
them whole again by a touch.​[1312] We may conjecture that similar
views prevailed in ancient times as to the predecessors of our English
monarchs, and that accordingly scrofula received its name of the King’s
Evil from the belief that it was caused as well as cured by contact
with a king.​[1313] In Loango palsy is called the king’s disease,
because the negroes imagine it to be heaven’s punishment for treason
meditated against the king.​[1314]

[Sidenote: On the whole kings seem to have been often evolved out
of magicians, but in course of time to have exchanged magical for
religious functions, in other words, to have become priests instead of
sorcerers.]

On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in inferring that in
many parts of the world the king is the lineal successor of the old
magician or medicine-man. When once a special class of sorcerers
has been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the
discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are believed
to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power, till their
leaders blossom out into sacred kings. But the great social revolution
which thus begins with democracy and ends in despotism is attended
by an intellectual revolution which affects both the conception and
the functions of royalty. {p372} For as time goes on, the fallacy of
magic becomes more and more apparent to the acuter minds and is slowly
displaced by religion; in other words, the magician gives way to the
priest, who renouncing the attempt to control directly the processes
of nature for the good of man, seeks to attain the same end indirectly
by appealing to the gods to do for him what he no longer fancies he
can do for himself. Hence the king, starting as a magician, tends
gradually to exchange the practice of magic for the priestly functions
of prayer and sacrifice. And while the distinction between the human
and the divine is still imperfectly drawn, it is often imagined that
men may themselves attain to godhead, not merely after their death,
but in their lifetime, through the temporary or permanent possession
of their whole nature by a great and powerful spirit. No class of the
community has benefited so much as kings by this belief in the possible
incarnation of a god in human form. The doctrine of that incarnation,
and with it the theory of the divinity of kings in the strict sense of
the word, will form the subject of the following chapter.

{p373}




CHAPTER VII

INCARNATE HUMAN GODS


[Sidenote: The conception of gods has been slowly evolved.

As religion grows, magic declines into a black art.]

The instances which in the preceding chapters I have drawn from the
beliefs and practices of rude peoples all over the world, may suffice
to prove that the savage fails to recognise those limitations to his
power over nature which seem so obvious to us. In a society where every
man is supposed to be endowed more or less with powers which we should
call supernatural, it is plain that the distinction between gods and
men is somewhat blurred, or rather has scarcely emerged. The conception
of gods as superhuman beings endowed with powers to which man possesses
nothing comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has been slowly
evolved in the course of history.​[1315] By primitive peoples the
supernatural agents are not regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to
man; for they may be frightened and coerced by him into doing his will.
At this stage of thought the world is viewed as a great democracy; all
beings in it, whether natural or supernatural, are supposed to stand on
a footing of tolerable equality. But with the growth of his knowledge
man learns to realise more clearly the vastness of nature and his own
littleness and feebleness in presence of it. The recognition of his
helplessness does not, however, carry with it a corresponding belief in
the impotence of those supernatural beings with which his imagination
peoples the universe. On the contrary, it enhances his {p374}
conception of their power. For the idea of the world as a system of
impersonal forces acting in accordance with fixed and invariable laws
has not yet fully dawned or darkened upon him. The germ of the idea he
certainly has, and he acts upon it, not only in magic art, but in much
of the business of daily life. But the idea remains undeveloped, and
so far as he attempts to explain the world he lives in, he pictures it
as the manifestation of conscious will and personal agency. If then he
feels himself to be so frail and slight, how vast and powerful must he
deem the beings who control the gigantic machinery of nature! Thus as
his old sense of equality with the gods slowly vanishes, he resigns
at the same time the hope of directing the course of nature by his
own unaided resources, that is, by magic, and looks more and more to
the gods as the sole repositories of those supernatural powers which
he once claimed to share with them. With the advance of knowledge,
therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious
ritual; and magic, which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal,
is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a
black art. It is now regarded as an encroachment, at once vain and
impious, on the domain of the gods, and as such encounters the steady
opposition of the priests, whose reputation and influence rise or fall
with those of their gods. Hence, when at a late period the distinction
between religion and superstition has emerged, we find that sacrifice
and prayer are the resource of the pious and enlightened portion of
the community, while magic is the refuge of the superstitious and
ignorant. But when, still later, the conception of the elemental forces
as personal agents is giving way to the recognition of natural law;
then magic, based as it implicitly is on the idea of a necessary and
invariable sequence of cause and effect, independent of personal will,
reappears from the obscurity and discredit into which it had fallen,
and by investigating the causal sequences in nature, directly prepares
the way for science. Alchemy leads up to chemistry.

[Sidenote: The conception of a man-god or deity incarnate in human form
belongs to an early stage of religious history.]

The notion of a man-god, or of a human being endowed with divine or
supernatural powers, belongs essentially to that earlier period of
religious history in which gods and {p375} men are still viewed as
beings of much the same order, and before they are divided by the
impassable gulf which, to later thought, opens out between them.
Strange, therefore, as may seem to us the idea of a god incarnate in
human form, it has nothing very startling for early man, who sees in
a man-god or a god-man only a higher degree of the same supernatural
powers which he arrogates in perfect good faith to himself. Nor does
he draw any very sharp distinction between a god and a powerful
sorcerer. His gods, as we have seen,​[1316] are often merely invisible
magicians who behind the veil of nature work the same sort of charms
and incantations which the human magician works in a visible and
bodily form among his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed
to exhibit themselves in the likeness of men to their worshippers,
it is easy for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to
acquire the reputation of being an incarnate deity. Thus beginning
as little more than a simple conjurer, the medicine-man or magician
tends to blossom out into a full-blown god and king in one. Only in
speaking of him as a god we must beware of importing into the savage
conception of deity those very abstract and complex ideas which we
attach to the term. Our ideas on this profound subject are the fruit
of a long intellectual and moral evolution, and they are so far from
being shared by the savage that he cannot even understand them when
they are explained to him. Much of the controversy which has raged as
to the religion of the lower races has sprung merely from a mutual
misunderstanding. The savage does not understand the thoughts of the
civilised man, and few civilised men understand the thoughts of the
savage. When the savage uses his word for god, he has in his mind a
being of a certain sort: when the civilised man uses his word for
god, he has in his mind a being of a very different sort; and if, as
commonly happens, the two men are equally unable to place themselves
at the other’s point of view, nothing but confusion and mistakes can
result from their discussions. If we civilised men insist on limiting
the name of God to that particular conception of the divine nature
which we ourselves have formed, then we must confess that {p376} the
savage has no god at all. But we shall adhere more closely to the
facts of history if we allow most of the higher savages at least to
possess a rudimentary notion of certain supernatural beings who may
fittingly be called gods, though not in the full sense in which we use
the word. That rudimentary notion represents in all probability the
germ out of which the civilised peoples have gradually evolved their
own high conceptions of deity; and if we could trace the whole course
of religious development, we might find that the chain which links our
idea of the Godhead with that of the savage is one and unbroken.

[Sidenote: Examples of incarnate human deities.

The incarnation either temporary or permanent.]

With these explanations and cautions I will now adduce some examples
of gods who have been believed by their worshippers to be incarnate
in living human beings, whether men or women. The persons in whom a
deity is thought to reveal himself are by no means always kings or
descendants of kings; the supposed incarnation may take place even
in men of the humblest rank. In India, for example, one human god
started in life as a cotton-bleacher and another as the son of a
carpenter.​[1317] I shall therefore not draw my examples exclusively
from royal personages, as I wish to illustrate the general principle
of the deification of living men, in other words, the incarnation of a
deity in human form. Such incarnate gods are common in rude society.
The incarnation may be temporary or permanent. In the former case,
the incarnation—commonly known as inspiration or possession—reveals
itself in supernatural knowledge rather than in supernatural power.
In other words, its usual manifestations are divination and prophecy
rather than miracles. On the other hand, when the incarnation is not
merely temporary, when the divine spirit has permanently taken up its
abode in a human body, the god-man is usually expected to vindicate
his character by working miracles. Only we have to remember that by
men at this stage of thought miracles are not considered as breaches
of natural law. Not conceiving the existence of natural law, primitive
man cannot {p377} conceive a breach of it. A miracle is to him merely an
unusually striking manifestation of a common power.

[Sidenote: Temporary incarnation of gods in human form among the
Polynesians.]

The belief in temporary incarnation or inspiration is world-wide.
Certain persons are supposed to be possessed from time to time by a
spirit or deity; while the possession lasts, their own personality
lies in abeyance, the presence of the spirit is revealed by convulsive
shiverings and shakings of the man’s whole body, by wild gestures and
excited looks, all of which are referred, not to the man himself, but
to the spirit which has entered into him; and in this abnormal state
all his utterances are accepted as the voice of the god or spirit
dwelling in him and speaking through him. Thus, for example, in the
Sandwich Islands, the king personating the god, uttered the responses
of the oracle from his concealment in a frame of wicker-work. But
in the southern islands of the Pacific the god “frequently entered
the priest, who, inflated as it were with the divinity, ceased to
act or speak as a voluntary agent, but moved and spoke as entirely
under supernatural influence. In this respect there was a striking
resemblance between the rude oracles of the Polynesians, and those
of the celebrated nations of ancient Greece. As soon as the god was
supposed to have entered the priest, the latter became violently
agitated, and worked himself up to the highest pitch of apparent
frenzy, the muscles of the limbs seemed convulsed, the body swelled,
the countenance became terrific, the features distorted, and the eyes
wild and strained. In this state he often rolled on the earth, foaming
at the mouth, as if labouring under the influence of the divinity by
whom he was possessed, and, in shrill cries, and violent and often
indistinct sounds, revealed the will of the god. The priests, who were
attending, and versed in the mysteries, received, and reported to the
people, the declarations which had been thus received. When the priest
had uttered the response of the oracle, the violent paroxysm gradually
subsided, and comparative composure ensued. The god did not, however,
always leave him as soon as the communication had been made. Sometimes
the same _taura_, or priest, continued for two or three days possessed
by the spirit or deity; a piece of a native cloth, of a peculiar kind,
worn round one arm, was an indication {p378} of inspiration, or of the
indwelling of the god with the individual who wore it. The acts of the
man during this period were considered as those of the god, and hence
the greatest attention was paid to his expressions, and the whole of
his deportment. . . . When _uruhia_, (under the inspiration of the
spirit,) the priest was always considered as sacred as the god, and was
called, during this period, _atua_, god, though at other times only
denominated _taura_ or priest.”​[1318]

[Sidenote: Temporary incarnation of gods in Mangaia, Fiji, Bali, and
Celebes.

Temporary incarnation of gods in human form.]

In Mangaia, an island of the South Pacific, the priests in whom the
gods took up their abode from time to time were called “god-boxes”
or, for shortness, “gods.” Before giving oracles as gods, they drank
an intoxicating liquor, and in the frenzy thus produced their wild
whirling words were received as the voice of the deity.​[1319] In
Fiji there is in every tribe a certain family who alone are liable to
be thus temporarily inspired or possessed by a divine spirit. “Their
qualification is hereditary, and any one of the ancestral gods may
choose his vehicle from among them. I have seen this possession, and
a horrible sight it is. In one case, after the fit was over, for
some time the man’s muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in an
extraordinary way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on
his naked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a moment or
two beneath his skin, disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in
another part of his chest. When the _mbete_ (which we may translate
‘priest’ for want of a better word) is seized by the possession, the
god within him calls out his own name in a stridulous tone, ‘It is I!
Katouivere!’ or some other name. At the next possession some other
ancestor may declare himself.”​[1320] In Bali there are certain persons
called _pĕrmas_, who are predestined or fitted by nature to become
the temporary abode of the invisible deities. When a god is to be
consulted, the villagers go and compel some of these mediums to lend
their services. Sometimes the medium leaves his consciousness at home,
and is then conducted with marks of honour to the temple, ready to
{p379} receive the godhead into his person. Generally, however, some
time passes before he can be brought into the requisite frame of body
and mind; but the desired result may be hastened by making him inhale
the smoke of incense or surrounding him with a band of singing men or
women. The soul of the medium quits for a time his body, which is thus
placed at the disposal of the deity, and up to the moment when his
consciousness returns all his words and acts are regarded as proceeding
not from himself but from the god. So long as the possession lasts he
is a _dewa kapiragan_, that is, a god who has become man, and in that
character he answers the questions put to him. During this time his
body is believed to be immaterial and hence invulnerable. A dance with
swords and pikes follows the consultation of the oracle; but these
weapons could make no impression on the ethereal body of the inspired
medium.​[1321] In Poso, a district of Central Celebes, sickness is
often supposed to be caused by an alien substance, such as a piece of
tobacco, a stick, or even a chopping-knife, which has been introduced
unseen into the body of the sufferer by the magic art of an insidious
foe. To discover and eject this foreign matter is a task for a god, who
for this purpose enters into the body of a priestess, speaks through
her mouth, and performs the necessary surgical operation with her
hands. An eye-witness of the ceremony has told how, when the priestess
sat beside the sick man, with her head covered by a cloth, she began
to quiver and shake and to sing in a strident tone, at which some one
observed to the writer, “Now her own spirit is leaving her body and a
god is taking its place.” On removing the cloth from her head she was
no longer a woman but a heavenly spirit, and gazed about her with an
astonished air as if to ask how she came from her own celestial region
to this humble abode. Yet the divine spirit condescended to chew betel
and to drink palm-wine like any poor mortal of earthly mould. After she
had pretended to extract the cause of the disease by laying the cloth
from her head on the patient’s stomach and pinching it, she veiled her
face once more, sobbed, {p380} quivered, and shook violently, at which
the people said, “The human spirit is returning into her.”​[1322]

[Sidenote: Deification of the sacrificer in Brahman ritual.

The new birth.]

A Brahman householder who performs the regular half-monthly sacrifices
is supposed thereby to become himself a deity for a time. In the words
of the _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, “He who is consecrated draws nigh to the
gods and becomes one of the deities.”​[1323] “All formulas of the
consecration are _audgrabhana_ (elevatory), since he who is consecrated
elevates himself (_ud-grabh_) from this world to the world of the
gods. He elevates himself by means of these same formulas.”​[1324]
“He who is consecrated indeed becomes both Vishnu and a sacrificer;
for when he is consecrated, he is Vishnu, and when he sacrifices, he
is the sacrificer.”​[1325] After he has completed the sacrifice he
becomes man again, divesting himself of his sacred character with the
words, “Now I am he who I really am,” which are thus explained in the
_Satapatha-Brâhmana_: “In entering upon the vow, he becomes, as it
were, non-human; and as it would not be becoming for him to say, ‘I
enter from truth into untruth’; and as, in fact, he now again becomes
man, let him therefore divest himself (of the vow) with the text: ‘Now
I am he who I really am.’”​[1326] The means by which the sacrificer
passed from untruth to truth, from the human to the divine, was a
simulation of a new birth. He was sprinkled with water as a symbol of
seed. He feigned to be an embryo, and shut himself up in a special hut,
which represented the womb. Under his robe he wore a belt, and over
it the skin of a black antelope; the belt stood for the navel-string,
and the robe and the black antelope skin represented the inner and
outer membranes (the amnion and the chorion) in which an embryo is
wrapt. He might not scratch himself with his nails or a stick because
he was an embryo, and were an embryo scratched with nails or a stick
it would die. If he moved about in {p381} the hut, it was because the
child moves about in the womb. If he kept his fists doubled up, it was
because an unborn babe does the same. If in bathing he put off the
black antelope skin but retained his robe, it was because the child is
born with the amnion but not with the chorion. By these practices he
acquired, in addition to his old natural and mortal body, a new body
that was sacramental and immortal, invested with superhuman powers,
encircled with an aureole of fire. Thus, by a new birth, a regeneration
of his carnal nature, the man became a god. At his natural birth, the
Brahmans said, man is born but in part; it is by sacrifice that he is
truly born into the world. The funeral rites, which ensured the final
passage from earth to heaven, might be considered as a phase of the new
birth. “In truth,” they said, “man is born thrice. At first he is born
of his father and mother; then when he sacrifices he is born again; and
lastly, when he dies and is laid on the fire, he is born again from
it, and that is his third birth. That is why they say that man is born
thrice.”​[1327]

[Sidenote: Temporary incarnation or inspiration produced by drinking
blood.]

But examples of such temporary inspiration are so common in every part
of the world and are now so familiar through books on ethnology that it
is needless to multiply illustrations of the general principle.​[1328]
It may be well, however, to refer to two particular modes of producing
temporary inspiration, because they are perhaps less known than some
others, and because we shall have occasion to refer to them later on.
One of these modes of producing inspiration is by sucking the fresh
blood of a sacrificed victim. In the temple of Apollo Diradiotes at
Argos, a lamb was sacrificed by night once a month; a woman, who had
to observe a rule of chastity, tasted the blood of the lamb, and thus
being inspired by the god she prophesied or divined.​[1329] At Aegira
in Achaia the priestess of Earth drank the fresh blood of a {p382} bull
before she descended into the cave to prophesy.​[1330] In southern
India a devil-dancer “cuts and lacerates his flesh till the blood
flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a burning torch to his
breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own wounds, or drinks the
blood of the sacrifice, putting the throat of the decapitated goat to
his mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he begins to brandish
his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild unsteady step.
Suddenly the afflatus descends. There is no mistaking that glare, or
those frantic leaps. He snorts, he stares, he gyrates. The demon has
now taken bodily possession of him; and, though he retains the power
of utterance and of motion, both are under the demon’s control, and
his separate consciousness is in abeyance. The bystanders signalize
the event by raising a long shout, attended with a peculiar vibratory
noise, which is caused by the motion of the hand and tongue, or of the
tongue alone. The devil-dancer is now worshipped as a present deity,
and every bystander consults him respecting his disease, his wants,
the welfare of his absent relatives, the offerings to be made for the
accomplishment of his wishes, and, in short, respecting everything
for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to be available.”​[1331]
Similarly among the Kuruvikkarans, a class of bird-catchers and beggars
in Southern India, the goddess Kali is believed to descend upon the
priest, and he gives oracular replies after sucking the blood which
streams from the cut throat of a goat.​[1332] At a festival of the
Alfoors of Minahassa, in northern Celebes, after a pig has been killed,
the priest rushes furiously at it, thrusts his head into the carcase,
and drinks of the blood. Then he is dragged away from it by force and
set on a chair, whereupon he begins to prophesy how the rice-crop will
turn out that year. A second time he runs at the carcase and drinks
of the blood; a second time {p383} he is forced into the chair and
continues his predictions. It is thought that there is a spirit in
him which possesses the power of prophecy.​[1333] At Rhetra, a great
religious capital of the Western Slavs, the priest tasted the blood of
the sacrificed oxen and sheep in order the better to prophesy.​[1334]
The true test of a Dainyal or diviner among some of the Hindoo Koosh
tribes is to suck the blood from the neck of a decapitated goat.​[1335]
The Takhas on the border of Cashmeer have prophets who act as inspired
mediums between the deity and his worshippers. At the sacrifices the
prophet inhales the smoke of the sacred cedar in order to keep off evil
spirits, and sometimes he drinks the warm blood as it spouts from the
neck of the decapitated victim before he utters his oracle.​[1336] The
heathen of Harran regarded blood as unclean, but nevertheless drank it
because they believed it to be the food of demons, and thought that
by imbibing it they entered into communion with the demons, who would
thus visit them and lift the veil that hides the future from mortal
vision.​[1337]

[Sidenote: Temporary incarnation or inspiration produced by means of a
sacred tree or plant.]

The other mode of producing temporary inspiration, to which I shall
here refer, consists in the use of a sacred tree or plant. Thus in the
Hindoo Koosh a fire is kindled with twigs of the sacred cedar; and
the Dainyal or sibyl, with a cloth over her head, inhales the thick
pungent smoke till she is seized with convulsions and falls senseless
to the ground. Soon she rises and raises a shrill chant, which is {p384}
caught up and loudly repeated by her audience.​[1338] So Apollo’s
prophetess ate the sacred laurel and was fumigated with it before she
prophesied.​[1339] The Bacchanals ate ivy, and their inspired fury was
by some believed to be due to the exciting and intoxicating properties
of the plant.​[1340] In Uganda the priest, in order to be inspired by
his god, smokes a pipe of tobacco fiercely till he works himself into a
frenzy; the loud excited tones in which he then talks are recognised as
the voice of the god speaking through him.​[1341] In Madura, an island
off the north coast of Java, each spirit has its regular medium, who is
oftener a woman than a man. To prepare herself for the reception of the
spirit she inhales the fumes of incense, sitting with her head over a
smoking censer. Gradually she falls into a sort of trance accompanied
by shrieks, grimaces, and violent spasms. The spirit is now supposed to
have entered into her, and when she grows calmer her words are regarded
as oracular, being the utterances of the indwelling spirit, while her
own soul is temporarily absent.​[1342]

[Sidenote: Inspired victims.]

It is worth observing that many peoples expect the victim as well
as the priest or prophet to give signs of inspiration by convulsive
movements of the body; and if the animal remains obstinately steady,
they esteem it unfit for sacrifice. Thus when the Yakuts sacrifice
to an evil spirit, the beast must bellow and roll about, which is
considered a token that the evil spirit has entered into it.​[1343]
Apollo’s prophetess could give no oracles unless the sacrificial victim
trembled in every limb when the wine was poured on its head. But for
ordinary Greek sacrifices it was enough that the victim should shake
its head; to make it do so, water was poured on it.​[1344] Many other
peoples (Tonquinese, {p385} Hindoos, Chuwash, and so forth) have
adopted the same test of a suitable victim; they pour water or wine on
its head; if the animal shakes its head it is accepted for sacrifice;
if it does not, it is rejected.​[1345] Among the Kafirs of the Hindoo
Koosh the priest or his substitute pours water into the ear and all
down the spine of the intended victim, whether it be a sheep or a
goat. It is not enough that the animal should merely shake its head to
get the water out of its ear; it must shake its whole body as a wet
dog shakes himself. When it does so, a kissing sound is made by all
present, and the victim is forthwith slaughtered.​[1346]

[Sidenote: Divine power acquired by temporary inspiration.]

The person temporarily inspired is believed to acquire, not merely
divine knowledge, but also, at least occasionally, divine power. In
Cambodia, when an epidemic breaks out, the inhabitants of several
villages unite and go with a band of music at their head to look for
the man whom the local god is supposed to have chosen for his temporary
incarnation. {p386} When found, the man is conducted to the altar of the
god where the mystery of incarnation takes place. Then the man becomes
an object of veneration to his fellows, who implore him to protect
the village against the plague.​[1347] A certain image of Apollo,
which stood in a sacred cave at Hylae near Magnesia, was thought to
impart superhuman strength. Sacred men, inspired by it, leaped down
precipices, tore up huge trees by the roots, and carried them on their
backs along the narrowest defiles.​[1348] The feats performed by
inspired dervishes belong to the same class.

[Sidenote: Human gods, or men permanently possessed by a deity.

Human gods in the Pacific.]

Thus far we have seen that the savage, failing to discern the limits
of his ability to control nature, ascribes to himself and to all men
certain powers which we should now call supernatural. Further, we have
seen that, over and above this general supernaturalism, some persons
are supposed to be inspired for short periods by a divine spirit, and
thus temporarily to enjoy the knowledge and power of the indwelling
deity. From beliefs like these it is an easy step to the conviction
that certain men are permanently possessed by a deity, or in some other
undefined way are endued with so high a degree of supernatural power as
to be ranked as gods and to receive the homage of prayer and sacrifice.
Sometimes these human gods are restricted to purely supernatural or
spiritual functions. Sometimes they exercise supreme political power in
addition. In the latter case they are kings as well as gods, and the
government is a theocracy. Thus in the Marquesas or Washington Islands
there was a class of men who were deified in their lifetime. They were
supposed to wield a supernatural power over the elements; they could
give abundant harvests or smite the ground with barrenness; and they
could inflict disease or death. Human sacrifices were offered to them
to avert their wrath. There were not many of them, at the most one
or two in each island. They lived in mystic seclusion. {p387} Their
powers were sometimes, but not always, hereditary. A missionary has
described one of these human gods from personal observation. The god
was a very old man who lived in a large house within an enclosure. In
the house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the house and on the
trees round it were hung human skeletons, head down. No one entered
the enclosure except the persons dedicated to the service of the god;
only on days when human victims were sacrificed might ordinary people
penetrate into the precinct. This human god received more sacrifices
than all the other gods; often he would sit on a sort of scaffold in
front of his house and call for two or three human victims at a time.
They were always brought, for the terror he inspired was extreme. He
was invoked all over the island, and offerings were sent to him from
every side.​[1349] Again, of the South Sea Islands in general we are
told that each island had a man who represented or personified the
divinity. Such men were called gods, and their substance was confounded
with that of the deity. The man-god was sometimes the king himself;
oftener he was a priest or subordinate chief.​[1350] Tanatoa, king of
Raiatea, was {p388} deified by a certain ceremony performed at the
chief temple. “As one of the divinities of his subjects, therefore,
the king was worshipped, consulted as an oracle and had sacrifices and
prayers offered to him.”​[1351] This was not an exceptional case. The
kings of the island regularly enjoyed divine honours, being deified
at the time of their accession.​[1352] At his inauguration the king
of Tahiti received a sacred girdle of red and yellow feathers, “which
not only raised him to the highest earthly station, but identified him
with their gods.”​[1353] A new piece, about eighteen inches long, was
added to the belt at the inauguration of every king, and three human
victims were sacrificed in the process.​[1354] The king’s houses were
called the clouds of heaven; the rainbow was the name of the canoe in
which he voyaged; his voice was spoken of as thunder, and the glare
of the torches in his dwelling as lightning; and when the people saw
them in the evening, as they passed near his house, instead of saying
the torches were burning in the palace, they would remark that the
lightning was flashing in the clouds of heaven. When he moved from one
district to another on the shoulders of his bearers, he was said to be
flying.​[1355] The natives of Futuna, an island in the South Pacific,
“are not content with deifying the evils that afflict them; they place
gods everywhere, and even go so far as to suppose that the greatest of
all the spirits resides in the person of their prince as in a living
sanctuary. From this belief springs a strange mode of regarding their
king, and of behaving under his authority. In their eyes the sovereign
is not responsible for his acts; they deem him inspired by the divine
spirit whose tabernacle he is; hence his will is sacred; even his
whims and rages are revered; and if it pleases him to play the tyrant,
his subjects submit from conscientious motives to {p389} the vexations
he inflicts on them.”​[1356] The gods of Samoa generally appeared in
animal form, but sometimes they were permanently incarnate in men, who
gave oracles, received offerings (occasionally of human flesh), healed
the sick, answered prayers, and so on.​[1357] In regard to the old
religion of the Fijians, and especially of the inhabitants of Somosomo,
it is said that “there appears to be no certain line of demarcation
between departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men,
for many of the priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred
persons, and not a few of them will also claim to themselves the right
of divinity. ‘I am a god,’ Tuikilakila would say; and he believed it
too.”​[1358] In the Pelew Islands it is thought that every god can take
possession of a man and speak through him. The possession may be either
temporary or permanent; in the latter case the chosen person is called
a _korong_. The god is free in his choice, so the position of _korong_
is not hereditary. After the death of a _korong_ the god is for some
time unrepresented, until he suddenly makes his appearance in a new
Avatar. The person thus chosen gives signs of the divine presence by
behaving in a strange way; he gapes, runs about, and performs a number
of senseless acts. At first people laugh at him, but his sacred mission
is in time recognised, and he is invited to assume his proper position
in the state. Generally this position is a distinguished one and
confers on him a powerful influence over the whole community. In some
of the islands the god is political sovereign of the land; and hence
his new incarnation, however humble his origin, is raised to the same
high rank, and rules, as god and king, over all the other chiefs.​[1359]

[Sidenote: Human gods in ancient Egypt.

Human gods in ancient Greece.]

The ancient Egyptians, far from restricting their {p390} adoration
to cats and dogs and such small deer, very liberally extended it to
men. One of these human deities resided at the village of Anabis,
and burnt sacrifices were offered to him on the altars; after which,
says Porphyry, he would eat his dinner just as if he were an ordinary
mortal.​[1360] In classical antiquity the Sicilian philosopher
Empedocles gave himself out to be not merely a wizard but a god.
Addressing his fellow-citizens in verse he said:—

    “_O friends, in this great city that climbs the yellow slope_
    _Of Agrigentum’s citadel, who make good works your scope,_
    _Who offer to the stranger a haven quiet and fair,_
    _All hail! Among you honoured I walk with lofty air._
    _With garlands, blooming garlands you crown my noble brow,_
    _A mortal man no longer, a deathless godhead now._
    _Where e’er I go, the people crowd round and worship pay,_
    _And thousands follow seeking to learn the better way._
    _Some crave prophetic visions, some smit with anguish sore_
    _Would fain hear words of comfort and suffer pain no more._”

He asserted that he could teach his disciples how to make the wind to
blow or be still, the rain to fall and the sun to shine, how to banish
sickness and old age and to raise the dead.​[1361] When Demetrius
Poliorcetes restored the Athenian democracy in 307 B.C., the Athenians
decreed divine honours to him and his father Antigonus, both of them
being then alive, under the title of the Saviour Gods. Altars were set
up to the Saviours, and a priest appointed to attend to their worship.
The people went forth to meet their deliverer with hymns and dances,
with garlands and incense and libations; they lined the streets and
sang that he was the only true god, for the other gods slept, or dwelt
far away, or were not. In the words of a contemporary poet, which were
chanted in public and sung in private:— {p391}

    “_Of all the gods the greatest and the dearest_
    _To the city are come._
    _For Demeter and Demetrius_
    _Together time has brought._
    _She comes to hold the Maiden’s awful rites,_
    _And he joyous and fair and laughing,_
    _As befits a god._
    _A glorious sight, with all his friends about him,_
    _He in their midst,_
    _They like to stars, and he the sun._
    _Son of Poseidon the mighty, Aphrodite’s son,_
    _All hail!_
    _The other gods dwell far away,_
    _Or have no ears,_
    _Or are not, or pay us no heed._
    _But thee we present see,_
    _No god of wood or stone, but godhead true._
    _Therefore to thee we pray._”​[1362]

[Sidenote: Human goddesses among the ancient Germans.]

The ancient Germans believed that there was something holy in women,
and accordingly consulted them as oracles. Their sacred women, we are
told, looked on the eddying rivers and listened to the murmur or the
roar of the water, and from the sight and sound foretold what would
come to pass.​[1363] But often the veneration of the men went further,
and they worshipped women as true and living goddesses. For example, in
the reign of Vespasian a certain Veleda, of the tribe of the Bructeri,
was commonly held to be a deity, and in that character reigned over
her people, her sway being acknowledged far and wide. She lived in a
tower on the river Lippe, a tributary of the Rhine. When the people
of Cologne sent to make a treaty with her, the ambassadors were not
admitted to her presence; the negotiations were conducted through a
minister, who acted as the mouthpiece of her divinity and reported her
oracular utterances.​[1364] The {p392} example shews how easily among
our rude forefathers the ideas of divinity and royalty coalesced. It is
said that among the Getae down to the beginning of our era there was
always a man who personified a god and was called God by the people. He
dwelt on a sacred mountain and acted as adviser to the king.​[1365]

[Sidenote: Human gods in South-East Africa.]

An early Portuguese historian informs us that the Quiteve or king
of Sofala, in south-eastern Africa, “is a woolly-haired Kaffir, a
heathen who adores nothing whatever, and has no knowledge of God;
on the contrary he esteems himself the god of all his lands, and is
so looked upon and reverenced by his subjects.” “When they suffer
necessity or scarcity they have recourse to the king, firmly believing
that he can give them all that they desire or have need of, and can
obtain anything from his dead predecessors, with whom they believe
that he holds converse. For this reason they ask the king to give
them rain when it is required, and other favourable weather for their
harvest, and in coming to ask for any of these things they bring him
valuable presents, which the king accepts, bidding them return to their
homes and he will be careful to grant their petitions. They are such
barbarians that though they see how often the king does not give them
what they ask for, they are not undeceived, but make him still greater
offerings, and many days are spent in these comings and goings, until
the weather turns to rain, and the Kaffirs are satisfied, believing
that the king did not grant their request until he had been well
bribed and importuned, as he himself affirms, in order to maintain
them in their error.”​[1366] The Zimbas, or Muzimbas, another people
of south-eastern Africa, “do not adore idols or recognise any god, but
instead they venerate and honour their king, whom they regard as a
divinity, and they say he is the greatest and best in the world. And
the said king says of himself that he alone is god of the earth, for
which reason if it rains when he does not wish it to do so, or is too
hot, he shoots arrows at the sky for not obeying him.”​[1367] Amongst
the Barotse, a tribe on the upper Zambesi, “there is an old but waning
{p393} belief that a chief is a demigod, and in heavy thunderstorms the
Barotse flock to the chief’s yard for protection from the lightning.
I have been greatly distressed at seeing them fall on their knees
before the chief, entreating him to open the water-pots of heaven and
send rain upon their gardens.” “The king’s servants declare themselves
to be invincible, because they are the servants of God (meaning _the
king_).”​[1368]

[Sidenote: Human gods in South Africa.]

The Maraves of South Africa “have a spiritual head to whom they ascribe
supernatural powers, revering him as a prophet and designating him
by the name of Chissumpe. Besides a considerable territory, which
he owns and rules, he receives tribute from all, even from the king
(_unde_). They believe that this being is invisible and immortal, and
they consult him as an oracle, in which case he makes himself heard.
He is personified by a _Fumo-a-Chissumpe_, that is, by an intimate of
the Chissumpe, whose dignity is hereditary and who is revered exactly
like the supposed Chissumpe, with whom he is naturally identical.
As he names his own successor, disputes as to the succession do not
arise. His oracles are as unintelligible and ambiguous as can well
be imagined. He derives great profit from impostors of both sexes,
who purchase the gift of soothsaying from him. In the settlement
(_Muzinda_) of the Chissumpe there are women whom the people regard
as his wives, but who, according to the universal belief, cannot bear
children. If these women are convicted of an offence with a man, they
are burnt along with the partner of their guilt.”​[1369] The Mashona of
southern Africa informed their bishop that they had once had a god, but
that the Matabeles had driven him away. “This last was in reference to
a curious custom in some villages of keeping a man they called their
god. He seemed to be consulted by the people and had presents given to
him. There was one at a village belonging to a chief {p394} Magondi, in
the old days. We were asked not to fire off any guns near the village,
or we should frighten him away.”​[1370] This Mashona god was formerly
bound to render an annual tribute to the king of the Matabeles in the
shape of four black oxen and one dance. A missionary has seen and
described the deity discharging the latter part of his duty in front
of the royal hut. For three mortal hours, without a break, to the
banging of a tambourine, the click of castanettes, and the drone of a
monotonous song, the swarthy god engaged in a frenzied dance, crouching
on his hams like a tailor, sweating like a pig, and bounding about with
an agility which testified to the strength and elasticity of his divine
legs.​[1371]

[Sidenote: Human god of the Makalakas.]

“In the Makalaka hills, to the west of Matabeleland, the natives all
acknowledge there dwells a god whom they name Ngwali, much worshipped
by the bushmen and Makalakas, and feared even by the Matabele:
even Lo Bengula paid tribute and sent presents to him often. This
individual has only been seen by a few of those who live close by,
and who doubtless profit by the numberless offerings made to this
strange being; but the god never dies; and the position is supposed
to be hereditary in the one family who are the intermediaries for and
connexion between Ngwali and the outer world.”​[1372] This Makalaka
god “resides in the depth of a cave, in the midst of a labyrinth.
Nobody has ever seen him, but he has sons and daughters, who are
priests and priestesses and dwell in the neighbourhood of the grotto.
It is rather odd that not long ago three sons of this god were put to
death like common mortals for having stolen wheat from the king. Lo
Bengula probably thought that they should practise justice even more
strictly than other folk. . . . In the middle of the cavern, they
say, there is a shaft, very deep and very black. From this gulf there
issue from time to time terrible noises like the crash of thunder. On
the edge of the abyss the worshippers tremblingly lay flesh and {p395}
wheat, fowls, cakes, and other presents to appease the hunger of the
dreadful god and secure his favour. After making this offering the
poor suppliants declare aloud their wishes and the object of their
application. They ask to know hidden things, future events, the names
of those who have cast a spell on them, the issue of such and such an
enterprise. After some moments of profound silence there are heard,
amid the crash of subterranean thunder, inarticulate sounds, strange
broken words, of which it is hard to make out the sense, and which the
medicine-men (_amazizis_), who are hand in glove with the makers of
thunder, explain to these credulous devotees.”​[1373]

[Sidenote: Human gods in Central and East Africa.]

The Baganda of Central Africa believed in a god of Lake Nyanza, who
sometimes took up his abode in a man or woman. The incarnate god was
much feared by all the people, including the king and the chiefs. When
the mystery of incarnation had taken place, the man, or rather the god,
removed about a mile and a half from the margin of the lake, and there
awaited the appearance of the new moon before he engaged in his sacred
duties. From the moment that the crescent moon appeared faintly in the
sky, the king and all his subjects were at the command of the divine
man, or _Lubare_ (god), as he was called, who reigned supreme not only
in matters of faith and ritual, but also in questions of war and state
policy. He was consulted as an oracle; by his word he could inflict
or heal sickness, withhold rain, and cause famine. Large presents
were made him when his advice was sought.​[1374] The chief of Urua,
a large region to the west of Lake Tanganyika, “arrogates to himself
divine honours and power and pretends to abstain from food for days
without feeling its necessity; and, indeed, declares that as a god he
is altogether above requiring food and only eats, drinks, and smokes
for the pleasure it affords him.”​[1375] Among the Gallas, when a woman
grows tired of the cares of housekeeping, she {p396} begins to talk
incoherently and to demean herself extravagantly. This is a sign of
the descent of the holy spirit Callo upon her. Immediately her husband
prostrates himself and adores her; she ceases to bear the humble title
of wife and is called “Lord”; domestic duties have no further claim on
her, and her will is a divine law.​[1376]

[Sidenote: Human gods in West Africa.]

The king of Loango is honoured by his people “as though he were a
god; and he is called Sambee and Pango, which mean god. They believe
that he can let them have rain when he likes; and once a year, in
December, which is the time they want rain, the people come to beg of
him to grant it to them.” On this occasion the king, standing on his
throne, shoots an arrow into the air, which is supposed to bring on
rain.​[1377] Much the same is said of the king of Mombasa.​[1378] Down
to a few years ago, when his spiritual reign on earth was brought to an
abrupt end by the carnal weapons of English marines and bluejackets,
the king of Benin was the chief object of worship in his dominions. “He
occupies a higher post here than the Pope does in Catholic Europe; for
he is not only God’s vicegerent upon earth, but a god himself, whose
subjects both obey and adore him as such, although I believe their
adoration to arise rather from fear than love.”​[1379] The king of
Iddah told the English officers of the Niger Expedition, “God made me
after his own image; I am all the same as God; and he appointed me a
king.”​[1380] In the language of the Hos, a Ewe tribe of Togoland, the
word for god is _Mawu_ and the Great God is _Mawu gã_. They personify
the blessing of god and say that the Great God dwells {p397} with a
rich man. “From the personification of the divine blessing to the
deification of the man himself the step is not a long one, and as a
matter of fact it is taken. The Hos know men in whose life are to be
seen so many resemblances to the Great God that they call them simply
_Mawu_. In the neighbourhood of Ho there lived a good many years ago
a man who enjoyed an extraordinary reputation in the whole of the
neighbourhood, and who accordingly named himself _Wuwo_, that is,
‘more than the others.’ The people actually paid him divine honours,
not indeed in the sense that they sacrificed to him, but in the sense
that they followed his words absolutely. They worked on his fields
and brought him rich presents. On the coast there lived a respected
old chief, who called himself _Mawu_. He was richer than all the
other chiefs, and the inhabitants of twenty-seven towns rendered him
unconditional obedience. In the circumstance that he was richer and
more honoured than all the other chiefs he saw his resemblance to the
deity.”​[1381]

[Sidenote: Divinity of kings and chiefs in Madagascar.]

Among the Hovas and other tribes of Madagascar there is said to be a
deep sense of the divinity of kings; and down to the acceptance of
Christianity by the late queen, the Hova sovereigns were regularly
termed “the visible God” (_Andriamánitra híta màso_) and other terms
of similar import were also applied to them.​[1382] The chiefs of the
Betsileo in Madagascar “are considered as far above the common people
and are looked upon almost as if they were gods.” “For the chiefs are
supposed to have power as regards the words they utter, not, however,
merely the power which a king possesses, but power like that of God;
a power which works of itself on account of its inherent virtue, and
not power exerted through soldiers and strong servants.”​[1383] “The
_Ampandzaka-mandzaka_ or sovereign whom the Sakkalava of the north
often call {p398} also _Zanahari ântani_, God on earth, is surrounded
by them with a veneration which resembles idolatry, and the vulgar are
simple enough to attribute the creation of the world to his ancestors.
The different parts of his body and his least actions are described by
nouns and verbs which are foreign to the ordinary language, forming
a separate vocabulary called _Voûla fâli_, sacred words, or _Voûla
n’ ampandzâka_, princely words. The person and the goods of the
_Ampandzaka-mandzaka_ are _fali_, sacred.”​[1384]

[Sidenote: Divine kings in the Malay region.

Miraculous powers attributed to regalia.]

The theory of the real divinity of a king is said to be held strongly
in the Malay region. Not only is the king’s person considered sacred,
but the sanctity of his body is supposed to communicate itself to his
regalia and to slay those who break the royal taboos. Thus it is firmly
believed that any one who seriously offends the royal person, who
imitates or touches even for a moment the chief objects of the regalia,
or who wrongfully makes use of the insignia or privileges of royalty,
will be _kĕna daulat_, that is, struck dead by a sort of electric
discharge of that divine power which the Malays suppose to reside
in the king’s person and to which they give the name of _daulat_ or
sanctity.​[1385] The regalia of every petty Malay state are believed to
be endowed with supernatural powers;​[1386] and we are told that “the
extraordinary strength of the Malay belief in the supernatural powers
of the regalia of their sovereigns can only be thoroughly realised
after a study of their romances, in which their kings are credited
with all the attributes of inferior gods, whose birth, as indeed every
subsequent act of their after-life, is attended by the most amazing
prodigies.”​[1387]

[Sidenote: Divine kings and men in the East Indies.]

Among the Battas of Central Sumatra there is a prince who bears the
hereditary title of Singa Mangaradja and is worshipped as a deity. He
reigns over Bakara, a village on the south-western shore of Lake Toba;
but his worship is diffused among the tribes both near and far. All
sorts of strange stories are told of him. It is said that {p399} he
was seven years in his mother’s womb, and thus came into the world a
seven-year-old child; that he has a black hairy tongue, the sight of
which is fatal, so that in speaking he keeps his mouth as nearly shut
as possible and gives all his orders in writing. Sometimes he remains
seven months without eating, or sleeps for three months together. He
can make the sun to shine or the rain to fall at his pleasure; hence
the people pray to him for a good harvest, and worshippers hasten to
Bakara from all sides with offerings in the hope of thereby securing
his miraculous aid. Wherever he goes, the gongs are solemnly beaten
and the public peace may not be broken. He is said to eat neither pork
nor dog’s flesh.​[1388] The Battas used to cherish a superstitious
veneration for the Sultan of Minangkabau, and shewed a blind submission
to his relations and emissaries, real or pretended, when these persons
appeared among them for the purpose of levying contributions. Even
when insulted and put in fear of their lives they made no attempt at
resistance; for they believed that their affairs would never prosper,
that their rice would be blighted and their buffaloes die, and that
they would remain under a sort of spell if they offended these sacred
messengers.​[1389] In the kingdom of Loowoo the great majority of the
people have never seen the king, and they believe that were they to
see him their belly would swell up and they would die on the spot.
The farther you go from the capital, the more firmly rooted is this
belief.​[1390] In time of public calamity, as during war or pestilence,
some of the Molucca Islanders used to celebrate a festival of heaven.
If no good result followed, they bought a slave, took him at the next
festival to the place of sacrifice, and set him on a raised place
under a certain bamboo-tree. This tree represented heaven, and had
been honoured as its image {p400} at former festivals. The portion
of the sacrifice which had previously been offered to heaven was now
given to the slave, who ate and drank it in the name and stead of
heaven. Henceforth he was well treated, kept for the festivals of
heaven, and employed to represent heaven and receive the offerings in
its name.​[1391] Every Alfoor village of northern Ceram has usually
six priests, of whom the most intelligent discharges the duties of
high priest. This man is the most powerful person in the village;
all the inhabitants, even the regent, are subject to him and must do
his bidding. The common herd regard him as a higher being, a sort
of demi-god. He aims at surrounding himself with an atmosphere of
mystery, and for this purpose lives in great seclusion, generally in
the council-house of the village, where he conceals himself from vulgar
eyes behind a screen or partition.​[1392] However, in this case the god
seems to be in process of incubation rather than full-fledged.

[Sidenote: Divine kings in Burma and Siam.

Divine men in Tonquin.

Divine head of the Babites.]

A peculiarly bloodthirsty monarch of Burma, by name Badonsachen, whose
very countenance reflected the inbred ferocity of his nature, and under
whose reign more victims perished by the executioner than by the common
enemy, conceived the notion that he was something more than mortal,
and that this high distinction had been granted him as a reward for
his numerous good works. Accordingly he laid aside the title of king
and aimed at making himself a god. With this view, and in imitation
of Buddha, who, before being advanced to the rank of a divinity, had
quitted his royal palace and seraglio and retired from the world,
Badonsachen withdrew from his palace to an immense pagoda, the largest
in the empire, which he had been engaged in constructing for many
years. Here he held conferences with the most learned monks, in which
he sought to persuade them that the five thousand years assigned for
the observance of the law of Buddha were now elapsed, and that he
himself was the god who was destined to appear after that period, and
to abolish the old law by {p401} substituting his own. But to his great
mortification many of the monks undertook to demonstrate the contrary;
and this disappointment, combined with his love of power and his
impatience under the restraints of an ascetic life, quickly disabused
him of his imaginary godhead, and drove him back to his palace and his
harem.​[1393] The king of Siam “is venerated equally with a divinity.
His subjects ought not to look him in the face; they prostrate
themselves before him when he passes, and appear before him on their
knees, their elbows resting on the ground.”​[1394] There is a special
language devoted to his sacred person and attributes, and it must be
used by all who speak to or of him. Even the natives have difficulty in
mastering this peculiar vocabulary. The hairs of the monarch’s head,
the soles of his feet, the breath of his body, indeed every single
detail of his person, both outward and inward, have particular names.
When he eats or drinks, sleeps or walks, a special word indicates
that these acts are being performed by the sovereign, and such words
cannot possibly be applied to the acts of any other person whatever.
There is no word in the Siamese language by which any creature of
higher rank or greater dignity than a monarch can be described; and
the missionaries, when they speak of God, are forced to use the native
word for king.​[1395] In Tonquin every village chooses its guardian
{p402} spirit, often in the form of an animal, as a dog, tiger, cat, or
serpent. Sometimes a living person is selected as patron-divinity. Thus
a beggar persuaded the people of a village that he was their guardian
spirit; so they loaded him with honours and entertained him with their
best.​[1396] At the present day the head of the great Persian sect of
the Babites, Abbas Effendi by name, resides at Acre in Syria, and is
held by Frenchmen, Russians, and Americans, especially by rich American
ladies, to be an incarnation of God himself. The late Professor S. I.
Curtiss of Chicago had the honour of dining with “the master,” as he
is invariably called by his followers, when the incarnation expressed
a kindly hope that he might have the pleasure of drinking tea with the
professor in the kingdom of heaven.​[1397]

[Sidenote: Human gods in India.

Divine dairymen among the Todas.]

But perhaps no country in the world has been so prolific of human
gods as India; nowhere has the divine grace been poured out in a more
liberal measure on all classes of society from kings down to milkmen.
Thus amongst the Todas, a pastoral people of the Neilgherry Hills of
southern India, the dairy is a sanctuary, and the milkman who attends
to it has been described as a god. On being asked whether the Todas
salute the sun, one of these divine milkmen replied, “Those poor
fellows do so, but I,” tapping his chest, “I, a god! why should I
salute the sun?” Every one, even his own father, prostrates himself
before the milkman, and no one would dare to refuse him anything. No
human being, except another milkman, {p403} may touch him; and he gives
oracles to all who consult him, speaking with the voice of a god.​[1398]

[Sidenote: Kings and Brahmans considered as gods in India.

Other human gods in India.]

Further, in India “every king is regarded as little short of a present
god.”​[1399] The Hindoo law-book of Manu goes farther and says that
“even an infant king must not be despised from an idea that he is a
mere mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.”​[1400] As to the
Brahmans it is laid down in the same treatise that a Brahman, “be he
ignorant or learned, is a great divinity, just as the fire, whether
carried forth (for the performance of a burnt-oblation) or not carried
forth, is a great divinity.” Further, it is said that though Brahmans
“employ themselves in all sorts of mean occupations, they must be
honoured in every way; for each of them is a very great deity.”​[1401]
In another ancient Hindoo book we read that “verily, there are two
kinds of gods; for, indeed, the gods are the gods; and the Brahmans who
have studied and teach sacred lore are the human gods. The sacrifice
of these is divided into two kinds: oblations constitute the sacrifice
to the gods; and gifts to the priests that to the human gods, the
Brahmans who have studied and teach sacred lore.”​[1402] The spiritual
power of a Brahman priest is described as unbounded. “His anger is
as terrible as that of the gods. His blessing makes rich, his curse
withers. Nay, more, he is himself actually worshipped as a god. No
marvel, no prodigy in nature is believed to be beyond the limits of his
power to accomplish. If the priest were to threaten to bring down the
sun from the sky or arrest it in its daily course in the heavens, no
villager would for a moment doubt his ability to do so.”​[1403] As to
the _mantras_, or sacred texts by means of which the Brahmans exercise
{p404} their miraculous powers, there is a saying everywhere current in
India: “The whole universe is subject to the gods; the gods are subject
to the Mantras; the Mantras to the Brahmans; therefore the Brahmans
are our gods.”​[1404] There is said to have been a sect in Orissa
some years ago who worshipped the late Queen Victoria in her lifetime
as their chief divinity. And to this day in India all living persons
remarkable for great strength or valour or for supposed miraculous
powers run the risk of being worshipped as gods. Thus, a sect in the
Punjaub worshipped a deity whom they called Nikkal Sen. This Nikkal
Sen was no other than the redoubted General Nicholson, and nothing
that the general could do or say damped the ardour of his adorers. The
more he punished them, the greater grew the religious awe with which
they worshipped him.​[1405] At Benares a few years ago a celebrated
deity was incarnate in the person of a Hindoo gentleman who rejoiced
in the euphonious name of Swami Bhaskaranandaji Saraswati, and looked
uncommonly like the late Cardinal Manning, only more ingenuous. His
eyes beamed with kindly human interest, and he took what is described
as an innocent pleasure in the divine honours paid him by his confiding
worshippers.​[1406]

[Sidenote: Lingayat priests worshipped as gods.

Human incarnations of the elephant-headed god Gunputty.]

The Lingayats are the Unitarians of Hindooism, for they believe in only
one god, Siva, rejecting the other two persons of the Hindoo Trinity.
Yet “they esteem the _Jangam_ or priest as superior even to the deity.
They pay homage to the _Jangam_ first and to Siva afterwards. The
_Jangam_ is regarded as an incarnation of the deity. . . . In practice
the _Jangam_ is placed first and, as stated above, is worshipped
as {p405} god upon earth.”​[1407] In 1900 a hill-man in Vizagapatam
gave out that he was an incarnate god, and his claims to divinity
were accepted by a following of five thousand people, who, when a
sceptical government sent an armed force to suppress the movement,
which threatened political trouble, testified to the faith that was in
them by resisting even to the shedding of their blood. Two policemen
who refused to bow the knee to the new god were knocked on the head.
However, in the scuffle the deity himself was arrested and laid by
the heels in gaol, where he died just like a common mortal.​[1408]
At Chinchvad, a small town about ten miles from Poona in western
India, there lives a family of whom one in each generation is believed
by a large proportion of the Mahrattas to be an incarnation of the
elephant-headed god Gunputty. That celebrated deity was first made
flesh about the year 1640 in the person of a Brahman of Poona, by name
Mooraba Gosseyn, who sought to work out his salvation by abstinence,
mortification, and prayer. His piety had its reward. The god himself
appeared to him in a vision of the night and promised that a portion of
his, that is, of Gunputty’s holy spirit should abide with him and with
his seed after him even to the seventh generation. The divine promise
was fulfilled. Seven successive incarnations, transmitted from father
to son, manifested the light of Gunputty to a dark world. The last of
the direct line, a heavy-looking god with very weak eyes, died in the
year 1810. But the cause of truth was too sacred, and the value of the
church property too considerable, to allow the Brahmans to contemplate
with equanimity the unspeakable loss that would be sustained by a world
which knew not Gunputty. Accordingly they sought and found a holy
vessel in whom the divine spirit of the master had revealed itself
anew, and the revelation has been happily continued in an unbroken
succession of vessels from that time to this. But a mysterious law of
spiritual economy, whose operation in the history of religion we may
deplore though we cannot alter, has decreed that the miracles {p406}
wrought by the god-man in these degenerate days cannot compare with
those which were wrought by his predecessors in days gone by; and it
is even reported that the only sign vouchsafed by him to the present
generation of vipers is the miracle of feeding the multitude whom he
annually entertains to dinner at Chinchvad.​[1409]

[Sidenote: Worship of the Maharajas as incarnations of Krishna.]

A Hindoo sect, which has many representatives in Bombay and Central
India, holds that its spiritual chiefs or Maharajas, as they are
called, are representatives or even actual incarnations on earth of the
god Krishna. Hence in the temples where the Maharajas do homage to the
idols, men and women do homage to the Maharajas, prostrating themselves
at their feet, offering them incense, fruits, and flowers, and waving
lights before them, as the Maharajas themselves do before the images of
the gods. One mode of worshipping Krishna is by swinging his images in
swings. Hence, in every district presided over by a Maharaja, the women
are wont to worship not Krishna but the Maharaja by swinging him in
pendulous seats. The leavings of his food, the dust on which he treads,
the water in which his dirty linen is washed, are all eagerly swallowed
by his devotees, who worship his wooden shoes, and prostrate themselves
before his seat and his painted portraits. And as Krishna looks down
from heaven with most favour on such as minister to the wants of his
successors and vicars on earth, a peculiar rite called Self-devotion
has been instituted, whereby his faithful worshippers make over their
bodies, their souls, and, what is perhaps still more important, their
worldly substance to his adorable incarnations; and women are taught to
believe that the highest bliss for themselves and their families is to
be attained by yielding themselves to the embraces of those beings in
whom the divine nature {p407} mysteriously coexists with the form and
even the appetites of true humanity.​[1410]

[Sidenote: Pretenders to divinity among Christians.]

Christianity itself has not uniformly escaped the taint of these
unhappy delusions; indeed it has often been sullied by the
extravagances of vain pretenders to a divinity equal to or even
surpassing that of its great Founder. In the second century Montanus
the Phrygian claimed to be the incarnate Trinity, uniting in his single
person God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.​[1411]
Nor is this an isolated case, the exorbitant pretension of a single
ill-balanced mind. From the earliest times down to the present day many
sects have believed that Christ, nay God himself, is incarnate in every
fully initiated Christian, and they have carried this belief to its
logical conclusion by adoring each other. Tertullian records that this
was done by his fellow-Christians at Carthage in the second century;
the disciples of St. Columba worshipped him as an embodiment of Christ;
and in the eighth century Elipandus of Toledo spoke of Christ as “a
god among gods,” meaning that all believers were gods just as truly
as Jesus himself. The adoration of each other was customary among the
Albigenses, and is noticed hundreds of times in the records of the
Inquisition at Toulouse in the early part of the fourteenth century. It
is still practised by the Paulicians of Armenia and the Bogomiles about
Moscow. The Paulicians, indeed, presume to justify their faith, if not
their practice, by the authority of St. Paul, who said, “It is not I
that speak, but Christ that dwelleth in me.”​[1412] Hence the members
of this Russian sect are known as the Christs. “Among them men and
women alike take upon themselves the calling of teachers and prophets,
and in this character they lead a strict, ascetic life, refrain from
the most ordinary and innocent pleasures, exhaust themselves by
long fasting {p408} and wild ecstatic religious exercises, and abhor
marriage. Under the excitement caused by their supposed holiness and
inspiration, they call themselves not only teachers and prophets, but
also ‘Saviours,’ ‘Redeemers,’ ‘Christs,’ ‘Mothers of God.’ Generally
speaking, they call themselves simply Gods, and pray to each other as
to real gods and living Christs or Madonnas.”​[1413]

[Sidenote: Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit.

Incarnation of the Holy Ghost.]

In the thirteenth century there arose a sect called the Brethren
and Sisters of the Free Spirit, who held that by long and assiduous
contemplation any man might be united to the deity in an ineffable
manner and become one with the source and parent of all things, and
that he who had thus ascended to God and been absorbed in his beatific
essence, actually formed part of the Godhead, was the Son of God in
the same sense and manner with Christ himself, and enjoyed thereby
a glorious immunity from the trammels of all laws human and divine.
Inwardly transported by this blissful persuasion, though outwardly
presenting in their aspect and manners a shocking air of lunacy and
distraction, the sectaries roamed from place to place, attired in
the most fantastic apparel and begging their bread with wild shouts
and clamour, spurning indignantly every kind of honest labour and
industry as an obstacle to divine contemplation and to the ascent of
the soul towards the Father of spirits. In all their excursions they
were followed by women with whom they lived on terms of the closest
familiarity. Those of them who conceived they had made the greatest
proficiency in the higher spiritual life dispensed with the use of
clothes altogether in their assemblies, looking upon decency and
modesty as marks of inward corruption, characteristics of a soul that
still grovelled under the dominion of the flesh and had not yet been
elevated into communion with the divine spirit, its centre and source.
Sometimes their progress towards this mystic communion was accelerated
by the Inquisition, {p409} and they expired in the flames, not merely
with unclouded serenity, but with the most triumphant feelings of
cheerfulness and joy.​[1414] In the same century a Bohemian woman named
Wilhelmina, whose head had been turned by brooding over some crazy
predictions about a coming age of the Holy Ghost, persuaded herself and
many people besides that the Holy Ghost had actually become incarnate
in her person for the salvation of a great part of mankind. She died at
Milan in the year 1281 in the most fragrant odour of sanctity, and her
memory was held in the highest veneration by a numerous following, and
even honoured with religious worship both public and private.​[1415]

[Sidenote: Modern incarnations of Jesus Christ.]

About the year 1830 there appeared, in one of the states of the
American Union bordering on Kentucky, an impostor who declared that he
was the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind, and that he had reappeared
on earth to recall the impious, the unbelieving, and sinners to their
duty. He protested that if they did not mend their ways within a
certain time, he would give the signal, and in a moment the world
would crumble to ruins. These extravagant pretensions were received
with favour even by persons of wealth and position in society. At last
a German humbly besought the new Messiah to announce the dreadful
catastrophe to his fellow-countrymen in the German language, as they
did not understand English, and it seemed a pity that they should be
damned merely on that account. The would-be Saviour in reply confessed
with great candour that he did not know German. “What!” retorted the
German, “you the Son of God, and don’t speak all languages, and don’t
even know German? Come, come, you are a knave, a hypocrite, and a
madman. Bedlam is the place for you.” The spectators laughed, and went
away ashamed of their credulity.​[1416] About thirty years ago a new
sect was founded at Patiala in the Punjaub by a wretched creature named
Hakim Singh, who lived in extreme poverty and filth, gave himself out
to be a {p410} reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and offered to baptize the
missionaries who attempted to argue with him. He proposed shortly to
destroy the British Government, and to convert and conquer the world.
His gospel was accepted by four thousand believers in his immediate
neighbourhood.​[1417] Cases like these verge on, if they do not cross,
the wavering and uncertain line which divides the raptures of religion
from insanity.

[Sidenote: Transmigrations of human deities.]

Sometimes, at the death of the human incarnation, the divine spirit
transmigrates into another man. In the kingdom of Kaffa, in eastern
Africa, the heathen part of the people worship a spirit called _Deòce_,
to whom they offer prayer and sacrifice, and whom they invoke on all
important occasions. This spirit is incarnate in the grand magician
or pope, a person of great wealth and influence, ranking almost with
the king, and wielding the spiritual, as the king wields the temporal
power. It happened that, shortly before the arrival of a Christian
missionary in the kingdom, this African pope died, and the priests,
fearing lest the missionary might assume the position vacated by the
deceased prelate, declared that the _Deòce_ had passed into the king,
who henceforth, uniting the spiritual with the temporal power, reigned
as god and king.​[1418] Before beginning to work at the salt-pans in
a Laosian village, the workmen offer sacrifice to the divinity of the
salt-pans. This divinity is incarnate in a woman and transmigrates at
her death into another woman.​[1419] In Bhotan the spiritual head of
the government is a dignitary called the Dhurma Rajah, who is supposed
to be a perpetual incarnation of the deity. At his death the new
incarnate god shews himself in an infant by the refusal of his mother’s
milk and a preference for that of a cow.​[1420]

[Sidenote: Transmigrations of the divine Lamas.

Divinity of the Grand Lama of Lhasa.]

The Buddhist Tartars believe in a great number of living Buddhas,
who officiate as Grand Lamas at the {p411} head of the most important
monasteries. When one of these Grand Lamas dies his disciples do not
sorrow, for they know that he will soon reappear, being born in the
form of an infant. Their only anxiety is to discover the place of his
birth. If at this time they see a rainbow they take it as a sign sent
them by the departed Lama to guide them to his cradle. Sometimes the
divine infant himself reveals his identity. “I am the Grand Lama,” he
says, “the living Buddha of such and such a temple. Take me to my old
monastery. I am its immortal head.” In whatever way the birthplace
of the Buddha is revealed, whether by the Buddha’s own avowal or by
the sign in the sky, tents are struck, and the joyful pilgrims, often
headed by the king or one of the most illustrious of the royal family,
set forth to find and bring home the infant god. Generally he is born
in Tibet, the holy land, and to reach him the caravan has often to
traverse the most frightful deserts. When at last they find the child
they fall down and worship him. Before, however, he is acknowledged as
the Grand Lama whom they seek he must satisfy them of his identity.
He is asked the name of the monastery of which he claims to be the
head, how far off it is, and how many monks live in it; he must also
describe the habits of the deceased Grand Lama and the manner of his
death. Then various articles, as prayer-books, tea-pots, and cups, are
placed before him, and he has to point out those used by himself in his
previous life. If he does so without a mistake his claims are admitted,
and he is conducted in triumph to the monastery.​[1421] At the head of
all the Lamas is the Dalai Lama of Lhasa, {p412} the Rome of Tibet.
He is regarded as a living god, and at death his divine and immortal
spirit is born again in a child. According to some accounts the mode
of discovering the Dalai Lama is similar to the method, already
described, of discovering an ordinary Grand Lama. Other accounts speak
of an election by drawing lots from a golden jar. Wherever he is born,
the trees and plants put forth green leaves; at his bidding flowers
bloom and springs of water rise; and his presence diffuses heavenly
blessings. His palace stands on a commanding height; its gilded cupolas
are seen sparkling in the sunlight for miles.​[1422] In 1661 or 1662
Fathers Grueber and d’Orville, on their return from Peking to Europe,
spent two months at Lhasa waiting for a caravan, and they report
that the Grand Lama was worshipped as a true and living god, that he
received the title of the Eternal and Heavenly Father, and that he
was believed to have risen from the dead no less than seven times. He
lived withdrawn from the business of this passing world in the recesses
of his palace, where, seated aloft on a cushion and precious carpets,
he received the homage of his adorers in a chamber screened from the
garish eye of day, but glittering with gold and silver, and lit up by
the blaze of a multitude of torches. His worshippers, with heads bowed
to the earth, attested their veneration by kissing his feet, and even
bribed the attendant Lamas with great sums to give them a little of the
natural secretions of his divine person, which they either swallowed
with their food or wore about their necks as an amulet that fortified
them against the assaults of every ailment.​[1423]

[Sidenote: Incarnate human gods in the Chinese empire.]

But he is by no means the only man who poses as a god in these regions.
A register of all the incarnate gods in the Chinese empire is kept
in the _Li fan yüan_ or Colonial {p413} Office at Peking. The number
of gods who have thus taken out a license is one hundred and sixty.
Tibet is blessed with thirty of them, northern Mongolia rejoices in
nineteen, and southern Mongolia basks in the sunshine of no less than
fifty-seven. The Chinese government, with a paternal solicitude for the
welfare of its subjects, forbids the gods on the register to be reborn
anywhere but in Tibet. They fear lest the birth of a god in Mongolia
should have serious political consequences by stirring the dormant
patriotism and warlike spirit of the Mongols, who might rally round
an ambitious native deity of royal lineage and seek to win for him,
at the point of the sword, a temporal as well as a spiritual kingdom.
But besides these public or licensed gods there are a great many
little private gods, or unlicensed practitioners of divinity, who work
miracles and bless their people in holes and corners; and of late years
the Chinese government has winked at the rebirth of these pettifogging
deities outside of Tibet. However, once they are born, the government
keeps its eye on them as well as on the regular practitioners, and
if any of them misbehaves he is promptly degraded, banished to a
distant monastery, and strictly forbidden ever to be born again in the
flesh.​[1424]

[Sidenote: Divine head of the Taoist religion in China.]

At the head of Taoism, the most numerous religious sect of China, is
a pope who goes by the name of the Heavenly Master and is believed to
be an incarnation and representative on earth of the god of heaven.
His official title is _Chên-yen_, or “the True Man.” When one of these
pontiffs or incarnate deities departs this life, his soul passes into
a male member of his family, the ancient house of Chang. In order to
determine the chosen vessel, all the male members of the clan assemble
at the palace, their names are engraved on tablets of lead, the tablets
are thrown into a vase full of water, and the one which bears the
name of the new incarnation floats on the surface. The reputation and
power of the pope are very great. He lives in princely style at his
palace on the Dragon and Tiger {p414} mountains in the province of
Kiang-si, about twenty-five miles to the south-west of Kuei-Ki. The
road, which is kept in good repair, partly flagged, and provided at
regular intervals with stone halls for the repose of weary pilgrims,
leads gradually upward through a bleak and barren district, treeless
and thinly peopled, to the summit of a pass, from which a beautiful
prospect suddenly opens up of a wide and fertile valley watered by a
little stream. The scene charms the traveller all the more by contrast
with the desert country which he has just traversed. This is the
beginning of the pope’s patrimony, which he holds from the emperor
free of taxes. The palace stands in the middle of a little town. It is
new and of no special interest, having been rebuilt after the Taiping
rebellion. For in their march northward the rebels devastated the papal
domains with great fury. About a mile to the east of the palace lie
the ruins of stately temples, which also perished in the great rising
and have only in part been rebuilt. However, the principal temple is
well preserved. It is dedicated to the god of heaven and contains a
colossal image of that deity. The papal residence naturally swarms
with monks and priests of all ranks. But the courts and gardens of
the monasteries, littered with heaps of broken bricks and stones
and mouldering wood, present a melancholy spectacle of decay. And
the ruinous state of the religious capital reflects the decline of
the papacy. The number of pilgrims has fallen off and with them the
revenues of the holy see. Of old the pope ranked with viceroys and
the highest dignitaries of the empire; now he is reduced to the level
of a mandarin of the third class, and wears a blue button instead
of a red. Formerly he repaired every year to the imperial court at
Peking or elsewhere in order to procure peace and prosperity for the
whole kingdom by means of his ceremonies; and on his journey the gods
and spirits were bound to come from every quarter to pay him homage,
unless he considerately hung out on his palanquin a board with the
notice, “You need not trouble to salute.” The people, too, gathered
up the dust or mud from under his feet to preserve it as a priceless
talisman. Nowadays, if he goes to court at all, it seems to be not
oftener than once in three years; and his {p415} services are seldom
wanted except to ban the demons of plague. But he still exercises the
right of elevating deceased mandarins to the rank of local deities, and
as he receives a fee for every deification, the ranks of the celestial
hierarchy naturally receive many recruits. He also draws a considerable
revenue from the manufacture and sale of red and green papers inscribed
with cabalistic characters, which are infallible safeguards against
demons, disease, and calamities of every sort.​[1425]

[Sidenote: Divine kings of Peru.

Divine rulers among the Chibchas.

Divine kings of Mexico.]

From our survey of the religious position occupied by the king in
rude societies we may infer that the claim to divine and supernatural
powers put forward by the monarchs of great historical empires like
those of Egypt, China, Mexico, and Peru, was not the simple outcome of
inflated vanity or the empty expression of a grovelling adulation; it
was merely a survival and extension of the old savage apotheosis of
living kings. Thus, for example, as children of the Sun the Incas of
Peru were revered like gods; they could do no wrong, and no one dreamed
of offending against the person, honour, or property of the monarch
or of any of the royal race. Hence, too, the Incas did not, like most
people, look on sickness as an evil. They considered it a messenger
sent from their father the Sun to call them to come and rest with
him in heaven. Therefore the usual words in which an Inca announced
his approaching end were these: “My father calls me to come and rest
with him.” They would not oppose their father’s will by offering
sacrifice for recovery, but openly declared that he had called them
to his rest.​[1426] Issuing from the sultry valleys upon the lofty
{p416} table-land of the Colombian Andes, the Spanish conquerors were
astonished to find, in contrast to the savage hordes they had left
in the sweltering jungles below, a people enjoying a fair degree of
civilisation, practising agriculture, and living under a government
which Humboldt has compared to the theocracies of Tibet and Japan.
These were the Chibchas, Muyscas, or Mozcas, divided into two kingdoms,
with capitals at Bogota and Tunja, but united apparently in spiritual
allegiance to the high pontiff of Sogamozo or Iraca. By a long and
ascetic novitiate, this ghostly ruler was reputed to have acquired
such sanctity that the waters and the rain obeyed him, and the weather
depended on his will.​[1427] The Mexican kings at their accession,
as we have seen,​[1428] took an oath that they would make the sun to
shine, the clouds to give rain, the rivers to flow, and the earth to
bring forth fruits in abundance.​[1429] We are told that Montezuma, the
last king of Mexico, was worshipped by his people as a god.​[1430]

[Sidenote: Divinity of the Chinese emperors.

Divinity of the Mikado.]

In China, if the emperor is not himself worshipped as a deity, he is
supposed by his subjects to be the lord and master of all the gods.
On this subject a leading authority on Chinese religion observes: “To
no son of China would it ever occur to question the supreme authority
wielded by the emperor and his proxies, the mandarins, not only over
mankind, but also over the gods. For the gods or _shen_ are souls of
intrinsically the same nature as those existing in human beings; why
then, simply because they have no human bodies, should they be placed
above the emperor, who is no less than a son of Heaven, that is to say,
a magnitude second to none but Heaven or the Power above {p417} whom
there is none—who governs the universe and all that moves and exists
therein? Such absurdity could not possibly be entertained by Chinese
reason. So it is a first article of China’s political creed that the
emperor, as well as Heaven, is lord and master of all the gods, and
delegates this dignity to his mandarins, each in his jurisdiction. With
them then rests the decision which of the gods are entitled to receive
the people’s worship, and which are not. It is the imperial government
which deifies disembodied souls of men, and also divests them of their
divine rank. Their worship, if established against its will or without
its consent, can be exterminated at its pleasure, without revenge
having to be feared from the side of the god for any such radical
measure; for the power of even the mightiest and strongest god is as
naught compared with that of the august Celestial Being with whose
will and under whose protection the Son reigns supreme over everything
existing below the empyrean, unless he forfeits this omnipotent support
through neglect of his imperial duties.”​[1431] As the emperor of China
is believed to be a Son of Heaven, so the Emperor of Japan, the Mikado,
is supposed to be an incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who
rules the universe, gods and men included. Once a year all the gods
wait upon him, and spend a month at his court. During that month, the
name of which means “without gods,” no one frequents the temples, for
they are believed to be deserted.​[1432]

[Sidenote: Divinity of early Babylonian kings.]

The early Babylonian kings, from the time of Sargon I. till the fourth
dynasty of Ur or later, claimed to be gods in their lifetime. The
monarchs of the fourth dynasty of Ur in particular had temples built
in their honour; they set up their statues in various sanctuaries
and commanded the people to sacrifice to them; the eighth month was
especially dedicated to the kings, and sacrifices were offered to them
at the new moon and on the fifteenth of each month.​[1433] Again, the
Parthian monarchs of the Arsacid house {p418} styled themselves brothers
of the sun and moon and were worshipped as deities. It was esteemed
sacrilege to strike even a private member of the Arsacid family in a
brawl.​[1434]

[Sidenote: Divinity of Egyptian kings.]

The kings of Egypt were deified in their lifetime, sacrifices were
offered to them, and their worship was celebrated in special temples
and by special priests. Indeed the worship of the kings sometimes cast
that of the gods into the shade. Thus in the reign of Merenra a high
official declared that he had built many holy places in order that the
spirits of the king, the ever-living Merenra, might be invoked “more
than all the gods.”​[1435] “It has never been doubted that the king
claimed actual divinity; he was the ‘great god,’ the ‘golden Horus,’
and son of Ra. He claimed authority not only over Egypt, but over ‘all
lands and nations,’ ‘the whole world in its length and its breadth, the
east and the west,’ ‘the entire compass of the great circuit of the
sun,’ ‘the sky and what is in it, the earth and all that is upon it,’
‘every creature that walks upon two or upon four legs, all that fly
or flutter, the whole world offers her productions to him.’ Whatever
in fact might be asserted of the Sun-god, was dogmatically predicable
of the king of Egypt. His titles were directly derived from those of
the sun-god.”​[1436] “In the course of his existence,” we are told,
“the king of Egypt exhausted all the possible conceptions of divinity
which the Egyptians had framed for themselves. A superhuman god by
his birth and by his royal office, he became the deified man after
his death. {p419} Thus all that was known of the divine was summed up
in him.”​[1437] “The divinity of the king was recognised in all the
circumstances of the public life of the sovereign. It was not enough
to worship Pharaoh in the temple; beyond the limits of the sanctuary
he remained the ‘good god’ to whom all men owed a perpetual adoration.
The very name of the sovereign was sacred like his person; people swore
by his name as by that of the gods, and he who took the oath in vain
was punished.”​[1438] In particular the king of Egypt was identified
with the great sun-god Ra. “Son of the sun, decked with the solar
crowns, armed with the solar weapons, gods and men adored him as Ra,
defended him as Ra from the attacks which menaced in him the divine
being who, in his human existence, knew the glory and the dangers of
being ‘an incarnate sun’ and ‘the living image on earth of his father
Tum of Heliopolis.’”​[1439] Even the life of the gods depended on
the divine life of the king. Gods and men, it is said, “live by the
words of his mouth.”​[1440] “O gods,” said the king before celebrating
divine worship, “you are safe, if I am safe. Your doubles are safe if
my double is safe at the head of all living doubles. All live, if I
live.”​[1441] The king was addressed as “Lord of heaven, lord of earth,
sun, life of the whole world, lord of time, measurer of the sun’s
course, Tum for men, lord of well-being, creator of the harvest, maker
and fashioner of mortals, bestower of breath upon all men, giver of
life to all the host of gods, pillar of heaven, threshold of the earth,
weigher of the equipoise of both worlds, lord of rich gifts, increaser
of the corn,” and so forth.​[1442] Yet, as we should expect, the
exalted powers thus ascribed to the king differ in degree rather than
in kind from those which every Egyptian claimed for himself. Professor
Tiele observes that “as every good man at his death became Osiris, as
every one in danger or need could by the use of magic sentences assume
the form of a deity, it is quite comprehensible how the king, not only
after {p420} death, but already during his life, was placed on a level
with the deity.”​[1443]

[Sidenote: Evolution of sacred kings out of magicians.

Magicians or medicine-men the oldest professional class.]

We have now completed our sketch, for it is no more than a sketch, of
the evolution of that sacred kingship which attained its highest form,
its most absolute expression, in the monarchies of Peru and Egypt,
of China and Japan. Historically, the institution appears to have
originated in the order of public magicians or medicine-men; logically
it rests on a mistaken deduction from the association of ideas. Men
mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence
imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their
thoughts, permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over
things. The men who for one reason or another, because of the strength
or the weakness of their natural parts, were supposed to possess
these magical powers in the highest degree, were gradually marked off
from their fellows and became a separate class, who were destined to
exercise a most far-reaching influence on the political, religious,
and intellectual evolution of mankind. Social progress, as we know,
consists mainly in a successive differentiation of functions, or, in
simpler language, a division of labour. The work which in primitive
society is done by all alike and by all equally ill, or nearly so, is
gradually distributed among different classes of workers and executed
more and more perfectly; and so far as the products, material or
immaterial, of this specialised labour are shared by all, the whole
community benefits by the increasing specialisation. Now magicians or
medicine-men appear to constitute the oldest artificial or professional
class in the evolution of society.​[1444] For sorcerers are found in
every savage tribe known to us; and among the lowest savages, such as
the Australian aborigines, they are the only professional class that
exists. As time goes on, and the process of differentiation continues,
{p421} the order of medicine-men is itself subdivided into such classes
as the healers of disease, the makers of rain, and so forth;​[1445]
while the most powerful member of the order wins for himself a position
as chief and gradually develops into a sacred king, his old magical
functions falling more and more into the background and being exchanged
for priestly or even divine duties, in proportion as magic is slowly
ousted by religion. Still later, a partition is effected between the
civil and the religious aspect of the kingship, the temporal power
being committed to one man and the spiritual to another. Meanwhile
the magicians, who may be repressed but cannot be extirpated by the
predominance of religion, still addict themselves to their old occult
arts in preference to the newer ritual of sacrifice and prayer; and in
time the more sagacious of their number perceive the fallacy of magic
and hit upon a more effectual mode of manipulating the forces of nature
for the good of man; in short, they abandon sorcery for science. I
am far from affirming that the course of development has everywhere
rigidly followed these lines: it has doubtless varied greatly in
different societies. I merely mean to indicate in the broadest outline
what I conceive to have been its general trend. Regarded from the
industrial point of view the evolution has been from uniformity to
diversity of function: regarded from the political point of view,
it has been from democracy to despotism. With the later history of
monarchy, especially with the decay of despotism and its displacement
by forms of government better adapted to the higher needs of humanity,
we are not concerned in this enquiry: our theme is the growth, not the
decay, of a great and, in its time, beneficent institution.

{p423}




APPENDIX

HEGEL ON MAGIC AND RELIGION


My friend Professor James Ward has pointed out to me that the view
which I have taken of the nature and historical relations of magic and
religion was anticipated by Hegel in his _Lectures on the Philosophy of
Religion_.​[1446] So far as I understand the philosopher’s exposition,
the agreement between us amounts to this: we both hold that in the
mental evolution of humanity an age of magic preceded an age of
religion, and that the characteristic difference between magic and
religion is that, whereas magic aims at controlling nature directly,
religion aims at controlling it indirectly through the mediation of a
powerful supernatural being or beings to whom man appeals for help and
protection. That I take to be the substance of Hegel’s meaning in the
following passages which I extract from his lectures on the philosophy
of religion.

Speaking of what he calls the religion of nature he observes: “Fear
of the powers of nature, of the sun, of thunder-storms, etc., is here
not as yet fear which might be called religious fear, for this has its
seat in freedom. The fear of God is a different fear from the fear of
natural forces. It is said that ‘fear is the beginning of wisdom’; this
fear cannot present itself in immediate religion. It first appears in
man when he knows himself to be powerless in his particularity, when
his particularity trembles within him. . . . It is not, however, fear
in this higher sense only that is not present here, but even the fear
of the powers of nature, so far as it enters at all at this first stage
of the religion of nature, changes round into its opposite, and becomes
magic.

“The absolutely primary form of religion, to which we give the name
of magic, consists in this, that the Spiritual is the ruling power
over nature. This spiritual element does not yet exist, {p424} however,
as Spirit; it is not yet found in its universality, but is merely the
particular, contingent, empirical self-consciousness of man, which,
although it is only mere passion, knows itself to be higher in its
self-consciousness than nature—knows that it is a power ruling over
nature. . . . This power is a direct power over nature in general, and
is not to be likened to the indirect power, which we exercise by means
of implements over natural objects in their separate forms. . . . Here
the power over nature acts in a direct way. It thus is magic or sorcery.

“As regards the external mode in which this idea actually appears, it
is found in a form which implies that this magic is what is highest in
the self-consciousness of those peoples. But in a subordinate way magic
steals up to higher standpoints too, and insinuates itself into higher
religions, and thus into the popular conception of witches, although in
that form it is recognised as something which is partly impotent, and
partly improper and godless.

“There has been an inclination on the part of some (as, for example,
in the Kantian philosophy) to consider prayer too as magic, because
man seeks to make it effectual, not through mediation, but by starting
direct from Spirit. The distinction here, however, is that man appeals
to an absolute will, for which even the individual or unit is an object
of care, and which can either grant the prayer or not, and which in so
acting is determined by general purposes of good. Magic, however, in
the general sense, simply amounts to this,—that man has the mastery as
he is in his natural state, as possessed of passions and desires.

“Such is the general character of this primal and wholly immediate
standpoint, namely, that the human consciousness, any definite human
being, is recognised as the ruling power over nature in virtue of
his own will. The natural has, however, by no means that wide range
which it has in our idea of it. For here the greater part of nature
still remains indifferent to man, or is just as he is accustomed to
see it. Everything is stable. Earthquakes, thunder-storms, floods,
animals, which threaten him with death, enemies, and the like, are
another matter. To defend himself against these recourse is had to
magic.​[1447] Such is the oldest mode of religion, the wildest, most
barbarous form. . . .

“By recent travellers, such as Captain Parry, and before him Captain
Ross, this religion has been found among the Esquimaux, wholly without
the element of mediation and as the crudest consciousness. Among other
peoples a mediation is already present. {p425}

“Captain Parry says of them​[1448]: ‘. . . They have not the slightest
idea of Spirit, of a higher existence, of an essential substance as
contrasted with their empirical mode of existence. . . . On the other
hand, they have amongst them individuals whom they call _Angekoks_,
magicians, conjurers. Those assert that they have it in their power to
raise a storm, to create a calm, to bring whales near, etc., and say
that they learnt these arts from old _Angekoks_. The people regard them
with fear; in every family, however, there is at least one. A young
_Angekok_ wished to make the wind rise, and he proceeded to do it by
dint of phrases and gestures. These phrases had no meaning and were
directed toward no Supreme Being as a medium, but were addressed in an
immediate way to the natural object over which the _Angekok_ wished to
exercise power; he required no aid from any one whatever.’ . . .

“This religion of magic is very prevalent in Africa, as well as among
the Mongols and Chinese; here, however, it is no longer found in the
absolute crudeness of its first form, but mediations already come in,
which owe their origin to the fact that the Spiritual has begun to
assume an objective form for self-consciousness.

“In its first form this religion is more magic than religion; it is
in Africa among the negroes that it prevails most extensively. . . .
In this sphere of magic the main principle is the direct domination
of nature by means of the will, of self-consciousness—in other words
that Spirit is something of a higher kind than nature. However bad this
magic may look regarded in one aspect, still in {p426} another it is
higher than a condition of dependence upon nature and fear of it. . . .

“Such, then, is the very first form of religion, which cannot indeed
as yet be properly called religion. To religion essentially pertains
the moment of objectivity, and this means that spiritual power shows
itself as a mode of the Universal relatively to self-consciousness,
for the individual, for the particular empirical consciousness. This
objectivity is an essential characteristic, on which all depends. Not
until it is present does religion begin, does a God exist, and even in
the lowest condition there is at least a beginning of it. The mountain,
the river, is not in its character as this particular mass of earth,
as this particular water, the Divine, but as a mode of the existence
of the Divine, of an essential, universal Being. But we do not yet
find this in magic as such. It is the individual consciousness as this
particular consciousness, and consequently the very negation of the
Universal, which is what has the power here; not a god in the magician,
but the magician himself is the conjurer and conqueror of nature. . . .
Out of magic the religion of magic is developed.”​[1449]




NOTES


CHAPTER I—The King of the Wood


[1] Strictly speaking, _nemus_ is a natural opening or glade in a
forest. Thus Lucan says (_Pharsal._ i. 453 _sq._) that the Druids
inhabited “deep glades in sacred groves far from the haunts of men”
(“_nemora alta remotis incolitis lucis_”), as the words are rendered
by Haskins in his edition, who compares Propertius v. 9. 24, “_lucus
ubi umbroso fecerat orbe nemus_.” But commonly _nemus_ means no more
than a wood or grove. See for example Lucan, _Pharsal._ iii. 396,
“_procumbunt nemora et spoliantur robora silvae_.” At Nemi the sacred
grove (_lucus_) formed part of the woodlands (_nemus_), as we learn
from Cato, quoted by Priscian, _Inst._ iv. 21 (vol. i. p. 129, ed. M.
Hertz), “_lucum Dianium in nemore Aricino_,” etc. As to the thick woods
of Nemi in antiquity see Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 263 _sq._; _id._, _Metam._
xv. 485.


[2] Cato, _loc. cit._; Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 756; Statius, _Sylvae_, iii.
1. 56; Philostratus, _Vit. Apollon._ iv. 36. A loose expression of
Appian (_Bellum Civile_, v. 24) has sometimes given rise to the notion
that there was a town called Nemus. But this is a mistake. See E.
Desjardins, _Essai sur la Topographie du Latium_ (Paris, 1854), p. 214,
and on the other side, A. Bormann, _Altitalische Chorographie_ (Halle,
1852), pp. 135 _sq._


[3] The site was excavated in 1885 and 1886 by Sir John Savile Lumley,
now Lord Savile, who was then English ambassador at Rome. Further
excavations were conducted in 1886–1888 by Signor Luigi Boccanera,
and again in 1895 by Signor Eliseo Borghi. See _Notizie degli Scavi_,
1885, pp. 159 _sq._, 192 _sq._, 227 _sq._, 254 _sq._, 317–321, 344,
428 _sq._, 478 _sq._; _id._ 1887, pp. 23–25, 120 _sq._, 195–198; _id._
1888, pp. 193 _sq._, 392 _sq._; _id._ 1889, pp. 20–22; _id._ 1895,
pp. 106–108, 206, 232, 324, 424–438; _Bulletino dell’ Instituto di
Corrispondenza Archeologica_, 1885, pp. 149–157, 225–242; R. Lanciani,
in the _Athenaeum_, October 10, 1885, pp. 477 _sq._; R. P. Pullan, in
_Archaeologia: Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity_, l. (1887)
pp. 58–65; O. Rossbach, in _Verhandlungen der vierzigsten Versammlung
deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner in Görlitz_ (Leipsic, 1890), pp.
147–164; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue of Classical Antiquities
from the Site of the Temple of Diana, Nemi, Italy_ (preface dated
1893). The temple measured 30 metres in length by 15.90 in breadth
(_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1885, p. 193). It had columns on either side
of the _pronaos_ (Vitruvius, iv. 7. 4). A few votive offerings found
on the site in earlier times are described in Graevius’s _Thesaurus
Antiquitatum Romanarum_, xii. col. 752–757, 808. For the inscriptions
of Nemi and Aricia see _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv. Nos.
2156–2226, 4180–4210, 4268–4275a; W. Henzen, in _Hermes_, vi. (1872)
pp. 6–13; G. Tomassetti, in _Museo Italiano di Antichità Classica_, ii.
(1888) coll. 481 _sqq._ Among these inscriptions the many dedications
to Diana serve to identify the site beyond a doubt. The evidence of
ancient writers is collected by Cluverius, _Italia Antiqua_, ii. pp.
920–935. See also H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. (Berlin,
1902) pp. 588–592; and for the topography, Sir W. Gell, _The Topography
of Rome and its Vicinity_ (London, 1834), i. pp. 182–191, ii. pp.
112–117.


[4] Appian, _Bellum Civile_, v. 24.


[5] Suetonius, _Divus Julius_, 54. Serving his own gods thus, he
naturally felt no compunction at relieving the barbarous Gaulish gods
of their little savings (Suetonius, _ib._).


[6] Appian, _loc. cit._


[7] _Fasti_, iii. 267 _sq._


[8] Juvenal, _Sat._ iv. 117 _sq._; Persius, _Sat._ vi. 56, with the
scholiast’s note; Martial, _Epigr._ ii. 19. 3, xii. 32. 10. Persius
calls this part of the road the slope of Virbius. Juvenal and Martial
call it the Arician slope. But the former was probably the correct
name, for at Rome also there was a “slope of Virbius” on the Esquiline,
near a sanctuary of Diana (Livy, i. 48. 6). The double coincidence
with Aricia is probably significant, as has been acutely pointed out
by Mr. A. B. Cook (_Classical Review_, xvi. (1902) p. 380, n. 3). We
shall return to this later on. As to Virbius, we shall hear more of him
presently.


[9] W. Henzen, in _Hermes_, vi. (1872) pp. 6–12; _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_, xiv., Nos. 2215, 2216, 2218.


[10] At the place called S. Maria, in the commune of Nemi, there have
been found remains of a magnificent villa of the first or second
century, built in terraces just above the lake and adorned with
variegated marbles, frescoes, and works of art. See _Notizie degli
Scavi_, 1888, pp. 194–196, 393 _sq._ The place is near the mouth of the
ancient emissary, below the village of Genzano; the vineyards beside
the lake are here littered with fragments of fine marbles. In January
1901 I visited the site in the company of Mr. St. Clair Baddeley, who
has kindly furnished me with some notes on the subject.


[11] Cicero, _Ad Atticum_, xv. 4. 5.


[12] Suetonius, _Divus Julius_, 46. From a letter of Cicero to Atticus
(vi. 1. 25) we infer that the house was building in 50 B.C.


[13] Some of the timbers and fittings of these vessels were fished up
from the bottom of the lake in 1895. Especially remarkable are the
beautiful bronze heads of lions and wolves with mooring-rings in their
mouths. Caligula’s name (C . CAESARIS . AVG . GERMANICI) is stamped on
the leaden water-pipes, and the style of the bronzes is that of the
first century. See _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1895, pp. 361–396, 461–474;
J. C. G. Boot, in _Verslagen en Mededeelingen der kon. Akademie
van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde_, III. Reeks, xii. deel
(Amsterdam, 1895), pp. 278–285; R. Lanciani, _New Tales of Old Rome_
(London, 1901), pp. 205–214.


[14] Tacitus, _Histor._ iii. 36.


[15] _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv., Nos. 2213, 2216, 4191.
Hadrian also had a monument in the grove dedicated to him by the senate
and people of Aricia (_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1895, pp. 430 _sq._). A
bust of Caesar and a statue of Tiberius have been found on the spot.
See G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, p. 31; O. Rossbach, in
_Verhandlungen der vierzig. Versamml. deutscher Philologen_, p. 159.


[16] Catullus, xxxiv. 9 _sqq._


[17] _Bulletino dell’ Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica_, 1885,
pp. 228 _sq._; _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1887, pp. 24, 195; id. 1888,
p. 393; O. Rossbach, in _Verhandl. d. vierzig. Versamml. deutscher
Philologen_, pp. 150 note, 161; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_,
pp. 4, 15, 34 _sq._


[18] _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1887, p. 195; _id._ 1888, p. 393;
_Bulletino di Corr. Archeol._ 1885, p. 230; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._,
pp. 150 note, 151 note, 163; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, pp.
35, 40. Greek hunters dedicated spears and javelins to Pan (_Anthologia
Palatina_, vi. 57, 177). Compare W. H. D. Rouse, _Greek Votive
Offerings_ (Cambridge, 1902), p. 71.


[19] W. Helbig, in _Bulletino dell’ Inst. di Corr. Archeol._ 1885, pp.
231 _sq._; _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1887, p. 195; _id._ 1888, p. 393.
Helbig observes that the ancients sometimes used tridents in boar-hunts.


[20] Pliny, _Epist._ i. 6. In the second century of our era the
mountains and oak woods of Greece harboured numbers of wild boars. See
Pausanias, i. 32. 1, iii. 20. 4, v. 6. 6, vii. 26. 10, viii. 23. 9, ix.
23. 7.


[21] W. Roscoe, _Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth_,³ iv. 376.


[22] O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ pp. 157 _sq._; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated
Catalogue_, pp. 3, 31, with the plate facing p. 43.


[23] _Bulletino dell’ Inst. di Corr. Archeol._ 1885, p. 153; G. H.
Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, p. 23.


[24] Polybius, _Hist._ iv. 18 and 19.


[25] Xenophon, _Anabasis_, v. 3. 4–13.


[26] Pausanias, x. 35. 7.


[27] R. Andree, _Votive und Weihegaben des Katholischen Volks in
Süddeutschland_ (Brunswick, 1904), pp. 37, 50, 152 _sqq._


[28] R. Andree, _op. cit._ p. 41.


[29] R. Andree, _op. cit._ pp. 41–50.


[30] See V. Hehn, _Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere in ihrem übergang
aus Asien_⁷ (Berlin, 1902), pp. 520 _sq._: “In the course of history
the flora of the Italian peninsula assumed more and more a southern
character. When the first Greeks landed in lower Italy the forests
consisted predominantly of deciduous trees, the beeches reached
lower down than now, when they are confined to the highest mountain
regions. Centuries later in the landscapes on the walls of Pompeii we
see nothing but evergreen trees, the _Laurus nobilis_, the olive, the
cypress, the oleander; in the latest times of the empire and in the
Middle Ages the lemon-trees and orange-trees appear, and since the
discovery of America the magnolias, the agaves, and the Indian figs.
There can be no question that this revolution has been wrought mainly
by the hand of man.”


[31] ξιφήρης οὖν ἐστιν ἀεί, περισκοπῶν τὰς ἐπιθέσεις, ἕτοιμος
ἀμύνεσθαι, is Strabo’s description (v. 3. 12), who may have seen him
“pacing there alone.”


[32] E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part I. (Washington, 1899)
p. 293.


[33] Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 136, “_Licet de hoc ramo hi qui
de sacris Proserpinae scripsisse dicuntur, quiddam esse mysticum
adfirment, publica tamen opinio hoc habet. Orestes post occisum regem
Thoantem_,” etc.; _id._ on Virgil, _Aen._ ii. 116; Valerius Flaccus,
_Argonaut._ ii. 304 _sq._; Strabo, v. 3. 12; Pausanias, ii. 27. 4;
Solinus, ii. 11; Suetonius, _Caligula_, 35. The custom of breaking the
branch, and its supposed connexion with the Golden Bough of Virgil, are
recorded by Servius alone (on Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 136). For the title
“King of the Wood” see Suetonius, _l.c._; and compare Statius, _Sylv._
iii. 1. 55 _sq._—

    “_Jamque dies aderat, profugis cum_ regibus _aptum_
    _Fumat Aricinum Triviae nemus_”;

Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 271 _sq._—

    “Regna _tenent fortesque manu, pedibusque fugaces;_
    _Et perit exemplo postmodo quisque suo_”;

_id._, _Ars am._ i. 259 _sq._—

    “_Ecce suburbanae templum nemorale Dianae,_
    _Partaque per gladios_ regna _nocente manu_”;

Valerius Flaccus, _Argon._ ii. 304 _sq._—

    “_Jam nemus Egeriae, jam te ciet altus ab alba_
    _Juppiter et soli non mitis Aricia_ regi.”

An archaic Greek relief, found in 1791 near the outlet of the lake,
in the Vallericcia, has been sometimes thought to portray the combat
between a priest and a candidate for the office. But the subject is
rather the murder of Aegisthus by Orestes in presence of Clytaemnestra
and Electra. See Sir W. Gell, _Topography of Rome_, ii. 116 _sq._;
O. Jahn, in _Archäologische Zeitung_, vii. (1849) coll. 113–118;
Baumeister’s _Denkmäler_, p. 1112; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ pp. 148
_sq._; R. Lanciani, _New Tales of Old Rome_, p. 204.


[34] Thus there have been found many models of the organs of
generation, both male and female, including wombs; figures of women
with infants on their laps or on their arms; and couples seated side
by side, the woman pregnant or carrying a child. See _Bulletino dell’
Inst. di Corrisp. Archeologica_, 1885, pp. 183 _sq._; _Notizie degli
Scavi_, 1885, pp. 160, 254; _id._ 1895, p. 424; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._
p. 160; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, pp. 4, 15, 17. Another
group represents a woman just after delivery, supported by the midwife,
who holds the child in her lap. See Graevius, _Thesaurus Antiquitatum
Romanarum_, xii. col. 808. As to the huntress Diana, see above, p. 6.


[35] Statius, _Sylvae_, iii. 1. 52–60; Gratius Faliscus, _Cynegeticon_,
i. 484 _sq._ As to the date we know from the calendars (W. Warde
Fowler, _The Roman Festivals of the Republic_, p. 198) and from Festus
(p. 343 ed. Müller; compare Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 100) that the
festival of Diana on the Aventine at Rome fell on the Ides, that
is, the 13th of August. Further, the Ides of August was held as the
birthday of Diana at Lanuvium (_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv.,
No. 2112; G. Wilmanns, _Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum_, No. 319; C.
G. Bruns, _Fontes Juris Romani_,⁷ ed. O. Gradenwitz, p. 389; H. Dessau,
_Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, No. 7212). Moreover, Martial (xii.
67. 2) and Ausonius (_De feriis Romanis_, 5 _sq._) speak of the Ides of
August as Diana’s day. Hence we may safely conclude that the _Hecateias
idus_ which Statius (_l.c._) mentions as the date of the festival of
Diana at Nemi were no other than the Ides of August, all the more that
the poet describes the time as the hottest of the year. Compare G.
Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_ (Munich, 1902), p. 201.


[36] O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ pp. 150 note, 161. A coin of P. Clodius
Turrinus (43 B.C.) portrays Diana with a long torch in either hand. See
E. Babelon, _Monnaies de la République Romaine_ (Paris, 1885), i. 355.


[37] Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 269 _sq._; Propertius, iii. 24. (30) 9 _sq._,
ed. Paley.


[38] _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1888, p. 193 _sq._; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._
p. 164.


[39] _Bulletino dell’ Inst. di Corrisp. Archeologica_, 1885, p. 157;
_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1888, p. 393; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated
Catalogue_, pp. 24–26.


[40] On the dedication of burning lamps and candles in antiquity,
see M. P. Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_ (Leipsic, 1906), p. 345, note
5. As to the derivation of the Catholic from the old heathen custom,
see R. Andree, _Votive und Weihegaben des Katholischen Volks in
Süddeutschland_ (Brunswick, 1904), p. 77.


[41] _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv., No. 2213; G. Wilmanns,
_Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum_, No. 1767; H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones
Latinae Selectae_, No. 3243.


[42] _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1885, p. 478; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._
p. 158; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, pp. 9 _sq._ The true
character of this circular basement was first pointed out by Mr. A. B.
Cook (_Classical Review_, xvi. (1902) p. 376). Previous writers had
taken it for an altar or a pedestal. But the mosaic pavement and the
bases of two columns which were found in position on it exclude the
hypothesis of an altar and cannot easily be reconciled with that of a
pedestal, for which, moreover, it appears to be too large. A rain-water
gutter runs round it and then extends in the direction of the larger
temple. As to the temple of Vesta at Rome see J. H. Middleton, _The
Remains of Ancient Rome_, i. 297 _sq._; O. Richter, _Topographie der
Stadt Rom_² (Munich, 1902), pp. 88 _sq._; G. Boni, in _Notizie degli
Scavi_, May 1900, pp. 159 _sqq._


[43] G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, p. 30.


[44] J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii.² 336.


[45] Juvenal, iv. 60 _sq._; Asconius, _In Milonianam_, p. 35, ed.
Kiesseling and Schoell; Symmachus, _Epist._ ix. 128 and 129 (Migne’s
_Patrologia Latina_, xviii. col. 355); _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_, vi., No. 2172, xiv., No. 4120; Wilmanns, _Exempla
Inscriptionum Latinarum_, No. 1750. The Alban Vestals gave evidence
at Milo’s trial in 52 B.C. (Asconius, _l.c._); one of them was tried
for breaking her vow of chastity late in the fourth century A.D.
(Symmachus, _l.c._).


[46] _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv., Nos. 3677, 3679.


[47] Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ ii. 296; Macrobius, _Saturn._ iii. 4. 11.


[48] Statius, _Sylvae_, iii. 1. 55 _sqq._; Gratius Faliscus,
_Cynegeticon_, i. 483–492.


[49] J. Rendel Harris, _The Annotators of the Codex Bezae_ (London,
1901), pp. 93–102.


[50] See below, vol. ii. pp. 324 _sqq._


[51] _Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record_, New Series,
vii. (London, 1865), “The Departure of my Lady Mary from this
World,” p. 153. The Greek original of the treatise was discovered by
Tischendorf. This passage was kindly indicated to me by my learned
friend Mr. J. Rendel Harris. He writes to me: “In these late Syrian
calendars the festivals are simply taken over from the Greek and Roman
calendars without any adjustment at all, as a study of the detailed
saints’ days shows.”


[52] _Johanni Apostoli de transitu Beatae Mariae Virginis Liber_: ex
recensione et cum interpretatione Maximiliani Engeri (Elberfeldae,
1854), pp. 101, 103. This and the preceding passage are both cited by
the late Prof. E. Lucius in his book _Die Anfänge des Heiligenkultes
in der christlichen Kirche_ (Tübingen, 1904), pp. 488 sq., 521. From
them and from the entries in the Syrian calendars (see the next note),
Lucius rightly inferred that the Assumption of the Virgin Mary had
been assigned by the Church to the 15th of August with reference to
the ripening of the grapes and other fruits, and that the Christian
festival replaced an old heathen festival of first-fruits, which must
have been held about the same time. But he appears to have overlooked
the occurrence of Diana’s festival on the 13th of August.


[53] N. Nilles, _Kalendarium Manuale utriusque Ecclesiae Orientalis et
Occidentalis_² (Innsbruck, 1896–7), i. pp. 249, 480. Professor Nilles
compares the blessing of the herbs (_Krautweihe_), which still takes
place in various parts of German-speaking lands on August 15th for the
purpose of defeating the charms of witches.


[54] B. Schmidt, _Das Volksleben der Neugriechen_ (Leipsic, 1871), p.
58. My learned friend Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, who is well acquainted with
Greece, both ancient and modern, gave me similar information.


[55] Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyclop. d. class. Wissenschaften_, ii.
1342; Pausanias, vii. 18. 12; Xenophon, _Anabasis_, v. 3. 12. On the
other hand the very sight of the image of Artemis at Pellene was said
to render trees barren and to blight the fruits of the earth. See
Plutarch, _Aratus_, 32.


[56] A. Dieterich, “Sommertag,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_,
viii. (1905) Beiheft, pp. 108 _sqq._, with fig. 2.


[57] Furtwängler, _Die antiken Gemmen_, iii. 231, with plates XX. 66,
XXII. 18, 26, 30, 32, all cited by Mr. A. B. Cook, _Classical Review_,
xvi. (1902) p. 378, note 4. Furtwängler held that these gems portray
Diana of Nemi herself.


[58] Catullus, xxxiv. 17 _sqq._


[59] G. Pitrè, _Spettacoli e Feste popolari Siciliane_ (Palermo, 1881),
pp. 356, 358, 360, 361, 362; G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi
Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890), p. 176; G. Amalfi, _Tradizioni ed Usi nella
peninsola Sorrentina_ (Palermo, 1890), p. 50.


[60] Olaus Magnus, _Historia de Gentium Septentrionalium variis
conditionibus_, xvi. 9.


[61] Note of Mr. F. C. Conybeare.


[62] Strabo, xi. 8. 12, xi. 14. 16, xii. 3. 37.


[63] This is inferred from entries in the ancient Celtic calendar of
which numerous fragments, engraved on bronze, were found in 1897 at
Coligny near Lyons. In this calendar the month Rivros seems to mean
“the harvest month” and to correspond to August. Sir John Rhys believes
that the harvest-god Rivos, who is only known from this calendar,
answers to the better-known Celtic god Lug. See Sir John Rhys, in
_Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History
of Religion_ (Oxford, 1908), ii. 222 _sqq._; and as to the Coligny
calendar in general see further Sir John Rhys, “Celtae and Galli,”
_Proceedings of the British Academy, 1905–1906_, pp. 71 _sqq._; _id._
“Notes on the Coligny Calendar,” _Proceedings of the British Academy_,
vol. iv.


[64] Dedications to Juno and Venus have been found in the grove
(_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1888, p. 393; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated
Catalogue_, p. 44), also a bronze statuette of Jupiter (O. Rossbach,
_op. cit._ p. 162), and a mutilated or unfinished bust supposed to
represent that deity (_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1885, p. 344; G. H.
Wallis, _op. cit._ p. 54).


[65] Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 762 _sqq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 273 _sqq._;
_id._, _Metam._ xv. 482 _sqq._; Strabo, v. 3. 12. As to the stream,
see P. Rosa, in _Monumenti ed Annali pubblic. dall’ Instituto
di Corrispondenza Archeologica nel 1856_, p. 7; R. Lanciani, in
_Athenaeum_, October 10, 1885, p. 477. The water was diverted some
years ago to supply Albano.


[66] Festus, p. 77, ed. C. O. Müller.


[67] Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 273 _sqq._; _id._, _Metam._ xv. 482 _sqq._;
Cicero, _De legibus_, i. 1. 4; Livy, i. 19. 5, i. 21. 3; Plutarch,
_Numa_, 4, 8, 13, 15; Dionysius Halicarn. _Antiquit. Roman._ ii. 60
_sq._; Juvenal, _Sat._ iii. 12; Lactantius, _Divin. Inst._ i. 22;
Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 35; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ vii.
763. Ovid, Livy, Lactantius, and Augustine speak of Egeria as the
wife of Numa, whereas Juvenal and Servius call her his mistress. The
language of Plutarch is somewhat ambiguous, but he uses the phrase
γάμων θείων ἠξιωμένος (c. 4).


[68] Plutarch, _Numa_, 4.


[69] Juvenal, _Sat._ iii. 10 _sqq._; Livy, i. 21. 3. As to the position
of this grove and spring see O. Gilbert, _Geschichte und Topographie
der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, i. 109 _sqq._, ii. pp. 152 _sqq._; O.
Richter, _Topographie der Stadt Rom_² (Munich, 1902), pp. 342 _sq._
According to the latter writer, the valley of Egeria was outside the
Servian wall, at the foot of the Caelian Mount, and is now traversed
by the streets Via delle Mole di S. Sisto and Via della Ferratella.
He identifies the sacred spring with a copious source at the Villa
Fonseca. On the other hand, Statius (_Sylvae_, v. 3. 290 _sq._),
Lactantius (_Divin. Inst._ iii. 22), and Servius (on Virgil, vii.
763) held that Numa’s Egeria was not at Rome but at Nemi. The grove
of Egeria is now popularly identified with a little wood called the
_Bosco Sacro_, which stands in a commanding situation to the left of
the Appian Way, about a mile and a half from Rome (Baedeker’s _Central
Italy and Rome_,¹³ p. 378).


[70] Plutarch, _Numa_, 13. That they carried the water in pitchers on
their heads may be inferred from Propertius, v. 4. 15 _sq._; Ovid,
_Fasti_, iii. 11–14.


[71] This is the view of A. Schwegler (_Römische Geschichte_, i.
548 note), O. Gilbert (_Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im
Altertum_, i. 111), and G. Wissowa (in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der
griech. und röm. Mythologie_, _s.v._ “Egeria”).


[72] O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ p. 151. “The old bath” is mentioned in an
inscription found on the spot (_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv.,
No. 4190).


[73] _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1885, pp. 159 _sq._, 192, 254; _id._ 1888,
p. 193; _Bulletino dell’ Inst. di Corrisp. Archeologica_, 1885, pp.
153, 154 _sq._; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ p. 160; _Archaeologia: or
Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity_, l. (1887), Pt. I. pp. 61
_sq._, 64; G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, pp. 2, 4, 22. Amongst
these models may be specially noted the torso of a woman clad in a long
robe, with her breast cut open so as to expose the bowels. It may be
the offering of a woman who suffered from some internal malady.


[74] For an example of the custom in modern times see J. J. Blunt,
_Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs discoverable in Modern Italy
and Sicily_ (London, 1823), p. 135. The custom is still widespread
among the Catholic population of Southern Germany. See R. Andree,
_Votive und Weihegaben des Katholischen Volks in Süddeutschland_
(Brunswick, 1904), pp. 94 _sqq._, 112 _sqq._, 123 _sqq._


[75] R. Lanciani, in _Athenaeum_, October 10, 1885, p. 477.


[76] Xenophon, _Cyneget._ i. 2 and 11; Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 10–19.
1092 _sq._


[77] Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 20 _sqq._; Apollodorus, _Epitoma_, i. 18
_sq._, ed. R. Wagner; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 47; Ovid, _Metam._ xv. 497
_sqq._


[78] Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 761 _sqq._, with the commentary of Servius;
Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 263 _sqq._, vi. 735 _sqq._; _id._, _Metam._ xv. 497
_sqq._; Scholiast on Persius, _Sat._ vi. 56, p. 347 _sq._, ed. O. Jahn;
Lactantius, _Divin. Inst._ i. 17; Pausanias, ii. 27. 4; Apollodorus,
iii. 10. 3; Scholiast on Pindar, _Pyth._ iii. 96. It was perhaps in his
character of a serpent that Aesculapius was said to have brought the
dead Hippolytus to life. See my note on Pausanias, ii. 10. 3.


[79] An inscription in the public museum at Naples mentions a
_flamen Virbialis_ (_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, x., No. 1493).
Another inscription mentions a similar priesthood at Aricia, but the
inscription is forged (Orelli, _Inscript. Latin._ No. 1457; compare
H. Dessau on _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv., No. 2213).
The same title _flamen Virbialis_ has sometimes been wrongly read
in an inscription of Gratianopolis, in Narbonensian Gaul (_Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xii., No. 2238; Orelli, _Inscript. Latin._
Nos. 2212, 4022). For the worship of Virbius we have also the testimony
of Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 776: “_Nam et Virbius inter deos
colitur_.”


[80] Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 779 _sq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 265 _sq._


[81] Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 776. Helbig proposed to identify as
Virbius some bronze statuettes found at Nemi, which represent a young
man naked except for a cloak thrown over his left arm, holding in his
extended right hand a shallow bowl, while in his raised left hand he
seems to have held a spear or staff on which he leaned. See _Bulletino
dell’ Inst. di Corrisp. Archeologica_, 1885, p. 229. But to this it has
been objected by Rossbach (_op. cit._ p. 162) that Virbius appears to
have been portrayed as an older, probably bearded man (Ovid, _Metam._
xv. 538 _sqq._).


[82] Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 761; compare _id._ on _Aen._ vii.
84. See also Ovid, _Metam._ xv. 545 _sq._—

“_Hoc nemus inde colo de disque minoribus unus_ _Nomine sub dominae
lateo atque accenseor illi._”


[83] P. Ribadeneira, _Flos Sanctorum_ (Venice, 1763), ii. 93 _sq._;
_Acta Sanctorum_, August 13, pp. 4 _sqq._ (Paris and Rome, 1867).
The merit of tracing the saint’s pedigree belongs to Mr. J. Rendel
Harris. See his _Annotators of Codex Bezae_ (London, 1901), pp. 101
_sq._ Prudentius has drawn a picture of the imaginary martyrdom which
might melt the stoniest heart (_Peristeph._ xi. p. 282 _sqq._, ed.
Th. Obbarius). According to the _Acta Sanctorum_ the saint shared
the crown of martyrdom with twenty members of his household, of whom
nineteen were beheaded, while one of them, his nurse _Concordia_, was
scourged to death (“_plumbatis caesa_”). It is an odd coincidence
that his Greek prototype Hippolytus dedicated just twenty horses to
Aesculapius (Pausanias, ii. 27. 4); and it is another odd coincidence,
if it is nothing worse, that the bones of Orestes, the other mythical
hero of Nemi, were buried beside the temple of _Concordia_ in Rome,
and that Servius, who mentions this tradition (on Virgil, _Aen._ ii.
116), should immediately afterwards quote the words “_virgine caesa_.”
If we knew why the hero Hippolytus dedicated just twenty horses to
the god who raised him from the dead, we might perhaps know why the
saint Hippolytus went to heaven attended by a glorious company of
just twenty martyrs. Bunsen courageously stood out for the historical
reality of the martyr, whom he would fain identify with his namesake
the well-known writer of the third century (_Hippolytus and his Age_,
London, 1852, i. pp. 212 _sqq._).


[84] Cato, _Origines_, i., quoted by Priscian, _Inst._ iv. 21, vol.
i. p. 129, ed. Hertz; _M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica quae
extant_, ed. H. Jordan, p. 12.


[85] Livy, ii. 25; Dionysius Halicarnas. _Antiquit. Roman._ vi. 29.


[86] Festus, p. 145, ed. C. O. Müller.


[87] Persius, _Sat._ vi. 55 _sqq._


[88] Wissowa suggests that Manius Egerius was a half-forgotten male
counterpart of Egeria (W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, _s.v._ “Egeria”); and Dessau observes that the name
Egerius “_sine dubio cohaeret cum Egerio fonte_” (_Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_, xiv. p. 204). The same view is taken by Messrs. A. B. Cook
and E. Pais. Mr. Cook holds that the original form of the names was
Aegerius and Aegeria, which he would interpret as “the Oak God” and
“the Oak Goddess.” See A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_,
xvi. (1905) pp. 291 _sq._; E. Pais, _Ancient Legends of Roman History_
(London, 1906), p. 142.


[89] As Cluverius seems to do (_Italia Antiqua_, p. 931).


[90] This is substantially the view of Prof. Wissowa, who holds that
the reference is to the foundation of a common altar in the grove by
all the members of the league (_Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. 199).


[91] Scholars are not agreed as to whether the list of confederate
Latin cities in Cato is complete, and whether the Latin dictator he
mentions was the head of the league or only of Tusculum. In regard to
the former question we must remember that the passage of Cato is known
to us only from Priscian, who seems to have quoted no more than suited
his purpose, which was merely to illustrate a grammatical termination
(_Ardeatis_ for the later _Ardeas_). Probably, therefore, the original
passage contained many more names of towns which Priscian did not
think it needful to cite. This is the view of H. Dessau (in _Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv. p. 204). With regard to the second
question, Mommsen held that the dictatorship in question was merely the
chief magistracy of Tusculum, the presidency of the Latin league being
vested in two praetors, not in a dictator (Livy, viii. 3. 9). Most
scholars, however, appear to be of opinion that the dictator referred
to was head of the league. See H. Jordan, _M. Catonis praeter librum
de re rustica quae extant_, pp. xli. _sqq._; J. Beloch, _Der italische
Bund unter Roms Hegemonie_ (Leipsic, 1880), p. 188; H. Nissen,
_Italische Landeskunde_, ii. (Berlin, 1902) pp. 557 _sq._


[92] G. H. Wallis, _Illustrated Catalogue_, pp. 5, 36; _Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv., No. 4186.


[93] _Bulletino di Corrisp. Archeologica_, 1885, p. 232; _Notizie
degli Scavi_, 1885, pp. 255, 320; _id._ 1895, p. 108; G. H. Wallis,
_Illustrated Catalogue_, pp. 5, 55. The use of this rude currency is
said to have been superseded in the reign of Servius Tullius, who
substituted stamped ingots of copper (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiii. 43).


[94] Livy, xxvi. 11. 9; Tacitus, _Historiae_, iv. 53; E. Babelon,
_Monnaies de la République romaine_, i. pp. ii. _sq._


[95] Herodotus, iv. 103; Euripides, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, 38 _sqq._;
Strabo, vi. 4. 2, p. 308; Pausanias, iii. 16. 7–10; K. O. Müller, _Die
Dorier_,² i. 385 _sqq._


[96] Pausanias, ii. 32. 1; Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 1423–1430, with
Paley’s comment. Diodorus Siculus speaks (iv. 62) of the “godlike
honours” accorded to Hippolytus at Troezen.


[97] Pausanias, i. 22. 1, ii. 32. 1.


[98] S. Wide, _De sacris Troezeniorum, Hermionensium, Epidauriorum_
(Upsala, 1898), pp. 86 _sq._ C. Boetticher thought that “the whole
legend of Hippolytus represents simply the conflict of the worship
of Aphrodite with that of Artemis at Troezen” (_Der Baumkultus der
Hellenen_, p. 445, n. 2).


[99] Pausanias, ii. 32. 3.


[100] Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ v. 72; Pausanias, vi. 24. 7. As to the
myrtle and Aphrodite, see C. Boetticher, _Der Baumkultus der Hellenen_,
pp. 444 _sqq._; V. Hehn, _Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere_⁷ (Berlin,
1902), pp. 220 _sqq._


[101] Pausanias, i. 22. 1; Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 30 _sqq._, with the
scholiast’s note; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 62; J. Tzetzes, _Scholia on
Lycophron_, 1329.


[102] Pausanias, ii. 32. 6 Ἀφροδίτης Ἀσκραίας, where Bekker and all
subsequent editors have changed Ἀσκραίας into Ἀκραίας. But Ἀσκραίας has
the better manuscript authority. The title is derived from _askra_, “a
fruitless oak” (Hesychius, _s.v._ ἄσκρα). See Mr. A. B. Cook, “Zeus,
Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xvii, (1903) pp. 415 _sq._


[103] Pausanias, ii. 32. 10. In Greek _saronis_ is a hollow oak. See
Callimachus, _Hymn to Zeus_, 22; Hesychius and _Etymologicum Magnum_,
_s.v._ σαρωνίδες; A. B. Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical
Review_, xviii. (1904) p. 370. Mythology derived the name Saronian from
a certain Saron, an ancient king of Troezen and a mighty hunter, who
had been drowned while swimming after a doe (Pausanias, ii. 30. 7). In
this mythical hunter associated with Artemis we may perhaps detect a
duplicate of Hippolytus.


[104] Pausanias, ii. 31. 4, 8, and 9.


[105] See Kühner-Blass, _Grammatik der griech. Sprache_, ii. 288 _sq._


[106] Pausanias, ii. 27. 4.


[107] Pausanias, ii. 33. 2 with my commentary, vol. iii. pp. 285 _sq._
vol. v. pp. 596 _sqq._


[108] Strabo, v. 1. 4, 8, and 9, pp. 212, 214 _sq._ As to the
topography, see Bunbury in Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography_, _s.v._ “Timavus”; H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii.
233. I have to thank my friend Mr. A B. Cook for drawing my attention
to the association of the horse and wolf in the early cults of Greece
and Italy.


[109] M. Salomon Reinach would explain Hippolytus at Troezen as a
sacred horse, which was torn to pieces by his worshippers at a solemn
sacrifice, just as Dionysus Zagreus was said to have been rent in
pieces by his worshippers. See S. Reinach, “Hippolyte,” _Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft_, x. (1907) pp. 47–60; _id._ _Cultes, Mythes, et
Religions_, iii. (Paris, 1908) pp. 54–67.


[110] No argument can be drawn from the bronze wolf-heads of Caligula’s
ships (above, p. 5, note 5), since these may have been purely
ornamental.


[111] Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 60.


[112] Plutarch, _Theseus_, 5.


[113] Athenaeus, xiii. 83, p. 605A. For dedications of hair to Apollo
see _Anthologia Palatina_, vi. 198, 279.


[114] Statius, _Theb._ ii. 253 _sqq._


[115] Pausanias, i. 43. 4.


[116] Herodotus, iv. 33 _sq._; Callimachus, _Hymn to Delos_, 291
_sqq._; Pausanias, i. 43. 4.


[117] _Anthologia Palatina_, vi. 276, 277; Pollux, iii. 38; Hesychius,
_s.v._ γάμων ἔθη. Pollux seems to imply that the hair was dedicated to
Hera and the Fates as well as to Artemis.


[118] G. Deschamps and G. Cousin, in _Bulletin de Correspondance
hellénique_, xi. (1887) pp. 390 _sq._; _id._ xii. (1888) pp. 97 _sq._,
249 _sqq._, 479–490.


[119] Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 60.


[120] J. Marquardt, _Privatleben der Römer_, pp. 599 _sq._


[121] Suetonius, _Nero_, 12. On hair-offerings in general see G.
A. Wilken, _Ueber das Haaropfer_ (Amsterdam, 1886) (reprinted from
the _Revue Coloniale Internationale_). On the hair-offerings of the
Greeks see Fr. Wieseler, in _Philologus_, ix. (1854), pp. 711–715; G.
Deschamps and G. Cousin, in _Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique_,
xii. (1888) pp. 479–490; W. H. D. Rouse, _Greek Votive Offerings_
(Cambridge, 1902), pp. 240–245.


[122] Herodotus, ii. 65; Diodorus Siculus, i. 83. The latter writer’s
account is the fuller, and has been followed in the text.


[123] Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 6.


[124] W. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,² p. 329. He refers
to Sozomenus, _Histor. Eccles._ v. 10. 7; Socrates, _Histor. Eccles._
i. 18; and Eusebius, _Vita Constant._ iii. 58, from whose testimonies
we learn that at Heliopolis, in Syria, it was the custom to prostitute
maidens to strangers before marriage. Eusebius speaks of the religious
prostitution of married women as well as of maidens. Constantine
destroyed the temple of the goddess in which these impure rites seem to
have been performed. To moderns, Heliopolis (the City of the Sun) is
better known as Baalbec; its magnificent ruins are the finest remains
of Greek architecture in the East.


[125] This is recognised by G. A. Wilken (_Ueber das Haaropfer_, p.
105).


[126] G. A. Wilken, _Das Haaropfer_, pp. 61 _sqq._; W. Robertson
Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,² pp. 323 _sqq._; I. Goldziher,
_Muhammedanische Studien_, i. (Halle a. S. 1888) pp. 247 _sqq._ See
also below, p. 102.


[127] Pausanias, viii. 41. 3. To the references given in my note on the
passage add Pollux, ii. 30.


[128] Callimachus, _Hymn to Delos_, 278 _sqq._; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iv.
91; Strabo, vi. 1. 15, p. 264; Plutarch, _De Pythiae oraculis_, 16.
In Apollo’s temple at Delphi there were dedicated a radish of gold, a
beet of silver, and a turnip of lead, which was thought to signify the
respective value of these vegetables (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xix. 86). A
poet speaks of tithes and first-fruits hung up for Apollo on a high
pillar at Delphi (Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ i. 24. 164, p. 419,
ed. Potter).


[129] Diogenes Laertius, _Vit. Philos._ ii. 44, iii. 2; Plutarch,
_Quaest. Conviv._ viii. 1. 2; J. T. Wood, _Discoveries at Ephesus:
Inscriptions from the great Theatre_, pp. 4, 16. Apollo’s birthday
(the 7th of Thargelion) was probably the festival known in the Delian
calendar as the Apollonia, not the Delia as was formerly supposed. The
Delia seems to have fallen in early spring, not in early summer. See C.
Robert in _Hermes_, xxi. (1886) pp. 161–169; Aug. Mommsen, _Feste der
Stadt Athen_ (Leipsic, 1898), p. 451. On this harvest-festival at Delos
see W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_, pp. 232 _sqq._, who,
however, took the festival to be the Delia.


[130] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 383 _sq._; L. Ideler, _Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 242.


[131] _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 518. As to the season of the ripening
of the corn in Greece both in ancient and modern times, see G. Busolt’s
discussion of the evidence, _Griechische Geschichte_, iii. 2 (Gotha,
1904), pp. 909 _sqq._, note.


[132] Philostratus, _Heroica_, xx. 24.


[133] _Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique_, xviii. (1894) pp. 87–93;
_id._ xx. (1896) pp. 639–641; E. Curtius in _Archäologischer Anzeiger_,
1895, pp. 109 _sq._; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,²
Nos. 611, 665, 718.


[134] Strabo, ix. 2. 11, p. 404.


[135] Plutarch, _Aristides_, 20. Probably the custom of sending out new
fire from Delos and Delphi was common, though the existing evidence
of it is scanty. The same remark applies to the practice of bringing
tithes of the harvest to these sanctuaries.


[136] Herodotus, iv. 33; Callimachus, _Hymn to Delos_, 278 _sqq._
Herodotus does not tell us in what the sacred offerings consisted;
Pausanias says (i. 31. 2) that no one knew what they were. But from the
evidence of Callimachus, compared with that of Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ iv.
91) and Mela (iii. 37), it appears that they were believed to be the
first-fruits of the corn.


[137] H. Stein on Herodotus, iv. 33; O. Crusius in W. H. Roscher’s
_Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie_, i. 2813, 2831;
Preller-Robert, _Griechische Mythologie_, i. 298 _sq._; Wernicke, in
Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyclopädie der_ _class. Altertumswissenschaft_,
ii. coll. 1355, 1356, 1357, 1358, 1359, 1380, 1383, 1393, 1402. The
names of the maidens were variously given as Hyperoche and Laodice
(Herodotus, iv. 33), or Hekaerge and Opis, (Pausanias, i. 43. 4, v.
7. 8; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ xi. 532), or Upis, Loxo, and Hekaerge
(Callimachus, _Hymn to Delos_, 292). Herodotus further mentions (iv.
35) another pair of Hyperborean maidens, Arge and Opis by name, who
came with Apollo and Artemis to Delos, and were buried behind the
sanctuary of Artemis in the island. They are clearly the equivalents
of the Hekaerge and Opis or Upis of the other writers. For Hekaerge as
an epithet of Artemis see Servius, _loc. cit._; Clement of Alexandria,
_Strom._ v. 8. 49, p. 674, ed. Potter, quoting Apollodorus of Corcyra:
μέλπετε ὧ παῖδες ἑκάεργον καὶ ἑκαέργαν. For Opis or Upis as a name of
Artemis see Macrobius, _Saturn._ v. 22. 3–6; Callimachus, _Hymn to
Artemis_, 204; Palaephatus, _De incredib._ 32.


[138] Pseudo-Plato, _Axiochus_, p. 371A; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ xi.
532: “_Alii putant Opim et Hecaergon nutritores Apollinis et Dianae
fuisse; hinc itaque Opim ipsam Dianam cognominatam, quod supra dictum
est, Apollinem vero Hecaergon_.”


[139] Herodotus, iv. 34 _sq._ According to Herodotus, each grave
contained the dust of a pair of Hyperborean damsels.


[140] Porphyry, _Vita Pythagorae_, 16.


[141] Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie der class.
Altertumswissenschaft_, ii. 1339. This general statement the writer
supports with a wealth of detailed evidence, to which I can only refer
the reader.


[142] This appears from the name _Partheniai_ applied at Sparta to
the men who were born of the _parthenoi_ (unmarried women) during the
absence of the married men at the Messenian war. See Ephorus, cited by
Strabo, vi. 3. 3, p. 279. Whether this explanation was historically
correct or not (and other explanations of it were given, see W. L.
Newman on Aristotle, _Politics_, vii. (v.) 7, p. 1306 b 29), it proves
that in Greek of the best period _parthenos_ did not connote chastity.
Compare what Herodotus says of the Thracians (v. 6): τὰς δὲ παρθένους
οὐ φυλάσσουσι, ἀλλ’ ἐῶσι τοῖσι αὐταὶ βούλονται ἀνδράσι μίσγεσθαι. As to
the worship of unmarried goddesses in Western Asia, Sir W. M. Ramsay
observes: “It is, in fact, probable, though with our present knowledge
not susceptible of proof, that the term Parthenos in connection with
the Anatolian system should be rendered simply as ‘the Unmarried,’
and should be regarded as evidence of the religious existence of the
pre-Greek social system. The Parthenos goddess was also the Mother; and
however much the Parthenoi who formed part of her official retinue may
have been modified by Greek feeling, it is probable that originally the
term indicated only that they were not cut off by marriage from the
divine life” (_Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, i. p. 96). Similarly
in a celebrated passage of Isaiah (vii. 14) the Hebrew word (עַלְמָה)
which is translated “virgin” in our English version means no more than
“young woman.” A correct translation would have obviated the necessity
for the miracle which so many generations of devout but unlearned
readers have discovered in the text; for while it would unquestionably
be a miracle if a virgin were to conceive and bear a son, there is
nothing whatever miraculous or even unusual about a young woman doing
so.


[143] L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, ii. 444.
The whole of Dr. Farnell’s treatment of this subject is excellent
(pp. 442–449). He suggests doubtfully that the epithets _Peitho_,
_Hegemone_, and _Eukleia_ may possibly refer to marriage. But clearly
“persuasion,” “leader,” and “good fame” do not in themselves imply any
allusion to wedlock. The passage of Euripides referred to in the text
is _Supplices_, 958 _sq._: οὐδ’ Ἄρτεμις λοχία προσφθέγξαιτ’ ᾶν τὰς
ἀτέκνους.


[144] Thus she was identified with Anaitis (Plutarch, _Artoxerxes_,
27; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscr. Graec._² No. 775), and with Nana
(_Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum_, iii. 131), or Nanaea, the goddess
of Elymais (2 Maccabees, i. 13 and 15, compared with Polybius, xxxi.
11, and Josephus, _Antiquit. Jud._ xii. 9). This Nanaea was sometimes
identified with Aphrodite instead of with Artemis (Appian, _Syriace_,
66). She seems to have been the old Babylonian goddess Nana, Nanai, or
Nannaia, who was identical with the Ishtar (Astarte) of Erech. See H.
Zimmern, in Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_,³
p. 422; R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_ (New York,
1901), pp. 116 _sq._, 245; W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und
röm. Mythologie_, iii. 4 _sq._ _s.v._ “Nana.” For the identification of
Artemis with another Semitic mother-goddess, see W. Robertson Smith,
_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_² (London, 1903), p. 298. As to
the dissolute worship of Anaitis, see Strabo, xi. 14, 16, p. 532. And
as to the identification of Artemis with Asiatic goddesses of this
type see L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, ii. 478 _sqq._;
Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa, _Encycl. d. class. Alter._ ii. 1369 _sqq._


[145] Pausanias, iv. 31. 8; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscript.
Graecarum_,² No. 656.


[146] The statues on which this description is based are in the
Vatican, the Lateran, and the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol
at Rome. The first of these is figured and described in Baumeister’s
_Denkmäler_, i. 130 _sq._, and the second is described by O. Benndorf
and R. Schoene, _Die antiken Bildwerke des Lateranischen Museums_, pp.
260 _sq._ See also Roscher’s _Lexik. d. griech. und röm. Myth._ i. 588
_sqq._; S. Reinach, _Répertoire de la Statuaire grecque et romaine_,
i. pp. 298, 299, 300, 302, ii. pp. 321 _sq._ Both the Vatican and the
Lateran statues have the necklace of acorns, and the Lateran copy (No.
768) has in addition a circlet of acorns hanging on the bosom. The
acorns probably refer to the oak-tree under which the Amazons were said
to have set up the image of the goddess at Ephesus (Callimachus, _Hymn
to Artemis_, 237 _sqq._). The statue in the Palazzo dei Conservatori
(No. 47) has serpents twined round the arms. The many breasts of the
Ephesian Artemis are mentioned by Minucius Felix (_Octavius_, xxii. 5).
On the worship of the Ephesian Artemis continued as that of the Virgin
Mary see Sir W. M. Ramsay, “The Worship of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus,”
_The Expositor_, June 1905, pp. 401 _sqq._


[147] Strabo, xiv. I. 23, p. 641. That a goddess of fertility should
be served by such ministers may strike us as a contradiction. Yet it
is typical of the Oriental worship of the great Mother Goddess. I have
suggested an explanation of the custom elsewhere. See _Adonis, Attis,
Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 236 _sqq._


[148] Pausanias, vii. 2. 7 _sq._; Preller-Robert, _Griechische
Mythologie_, i. 329; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_,
ii. 480 _sqq._


[149] Indeed the eloquent church father Lactantius let the cat out of
the bag when he bluntly called Hippolytus the lover of Artemis (_Divin.
Institut._ i. 17).


[150] Herodotus, v. 82–87; Pausanias, ii. 30. 4, ii. 32. 2; Schol.
on Aristides, vol. iii. pp. 598 _sq._, ed. Dindorf. As H. Stein (on
Herodotus, v. 82) rightly observes, Damia and Auxesia were “goddesses
of tilth and of the fruitful field, agrarian deities who were
accordingly compared and identified with Demeter and Kora [Proserpine],
but who were in truth only separate personifications of the two sides
of Demeter’s character.” See further my note on Pausanias, ii. 30. 4.
We shall return hereafter to the custom of stone-throwing as a charm to
fertilise the fields.


[151] See, for example, Catullus’s fine poem on her (No. xxxiv.).


[152] This was pointed out long ago by P. Buttmann (_Mythologus_, ii.
151).


[153] Seneca speaks of Diana as “_regina nemorum_” or “Queen of the
Woods” (_Hippolytus_, 406), perhaps with a reminiscence of the _Rex
Nemorensis_, as Mr. A. B. Cook has suggested (_Classical Review_, xvi.
(1902) p. 373, note 4).


[154] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 242, pointed out to me by Mr. A. B.
Cook, who compares Herodotus, vii. 31.


[155] See below, vol. ii. pp. 26 _sq._, 56 _sq._, 100 _sq._, 316 _sqq._


[156] As to the double-headed bust see W. Helbig, in _Notizie degli
Scavi_, 1885, p. 227; O. Rossbach, _op. cit._ p. 159; G. H. Wallis,
_Illustrated Catalogue of Classical Antiquities from the Site of
the Temple of Diana, Nemi_, pp. 32 _sq._; A. B. Cook, in _Classical
Review_, xvi. (1902) p. 373; _id._ “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_,
xvi. (1905) pp. 289 _sqq._; F. Granger, “A Portrait of the Rex
Nemorensis,” _Classical Review_, xxi. (1907) pp. 194–197; _id._ in
_Classical Review_, xxii. (1908) p. 217; J. G. Frazer, “The Leafy
Bust at Nemi,” _Classical Review_, xxii. (1908) pp. 147–149. The
interpretation adopted in the text is that of Professor F. Granger.
The way had been prepared for it by Mr. A. B. Cook’s suggestion
that the busts represent “the double form of Diana’s favourite,
Hippolytus-Virbius.” Previous writers took the view that the heads were
those of water-gods. As to the identification of the leaves on the
busts, about which botanists are not agreed, see Mr. Francis Darwin’s
letter to me, quoted in my article, “The Leafy Bust at Nemi” (_l.c._).


CHAPTER II—Priestly Kings


[157] J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii.² 321 _sqq._ Kings
of the Sacred Rites are known from inscriptions to have existed at
Lanuvium, Bovillae, and Tusculum. See _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_,
xiv., Nos. 2089, 2413, 2634. At Rome the Sacrificial King held office
for life (Dionysius Halicarn. _Antiquit. Rom._ iv. 74. 4).


[158] Plato, _Politicus_, p. 290 E; Aristotle, _Constitution
of Athens_, 57; Lysias, _Or._ vi. 4; G. Gilbert, _Handbuch der
griechischen Staatsalterthümer_,² i. 281 _sqq._


[159] Aristotle, _Politics_, viii. (vi.) 8. 20, p. 1322 b 26 _sqq._;
G. Gilbert, _op. cit._ ii. 323 _sq._; G. F. Schömann, _Griechische
Alterthümer_,⁴ i. 145 _sq._, ii. 423 sq.


[160] Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 616; Ch.
Michel, _Recueil d’Inscriptions grecques_, No. 716.


[161] P. Cauer, _Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 431, lines 46
_sqq._ Another inscription in the same collection (No. 428) also refers
to the kings of Mytilene. Both inscriptions are printed in Ch. Michel’s
_Recueil_, Nos. 356, 357.


[162] Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 570; Ch.
Michel, _Recueil_, No. 707.


[163] P. Cauer, _Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 496; Ch.
Michel, _Recueil_, No. 1383.


[164] G. F. Schömann, _Handbuch der griech. Alterthümer_,⁴ ii. 270
_sqq._; E. Ziebarth, “Der Fluch im griechischen Recht,” _Hermes_,
xxx. (1895) pp. 57–70; Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study
of Greek Religion_² (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 138–145; and my note on
Pausanias, iii. 2. 7. For example, the people of Teos cursed poisoners
and all persons who hindered the importation of corn (Cauer, _op. cit._
No. 480; Ch. Michel, _op. cit._ No. 1318). On the other hand, at Athens
in the time of Solon public curses were levelled at all who exported
anything but olive oil (Plutarch, _Solon_, 24). These particular curses
may interest students of the history of free trade.


[165] Plutarch, _Quaest. Graec._ 12. Aug. Mommsen (_Delphika_, pp.
250 _sq._) is probably right in comparing this ceremony with the
swinging-festival (_Aiora_) at Athens, as to which see _The Golden
Bough_, Second Edition, ii. 453 _sqq._


[166] _Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum Graeciae Septentrionalis_, i.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 188, 223; G. F. Schömann, _op. cit._
i. 146; G. Gilbert, _op. cit._ ii. 323 _sq._


[167] Strabo, viii. 7. 2, p. 384. In this passage the word βασιλέα is
omitted in some editions, but has the authority of several MSS. (Strabo
ed. C. Müller, p. 998), and is probably right.


[168] This was the case at Elis (H. Roehl, _Inscriptiones Graecae
antiquissimae_, No. 112; P. Cauer, _op. cit._ No. 253; E. S. Roberts,
_Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, i. No. 292), in Cos (Dittenberger,
_op. cit._ No. 616), in Chios (_ib._ No. 570), at Mytilene (Cauer,
_op. cit._ Nos. 428, 431), at Cyme (Plutarch, _Quaest. Graec._ 2), and
perhaps in Siphnos (Isocrates, _Or._ xix. 36). The Kings of Elis may
have been the officials called _Basilai_ who sacrificed on the top of
Mount Cronius at Olympia at the spring equinox (Pausanias, vi. 20. 1).


[169] Livy, ii. 2. 1; Dionysius Halicarn., _Antiquit. Rom._ iv. 74. 4.


[170] Aristotle, _Politics_, iii. 14. 13, p. 1285 b 14 _sqq._;
Demosthenes, _Contra Neaer._ § 74 _sqq._ p. 1370; Plutarch, _Quaest.
Rom._ 63.


[171] Xenophon, _Repub. Lacedaem._ 15, compare _id._ 13; Aristotle,
_Politics_, iii. 14. 3, p. 1285 a 3 _sqq._ Argos was governed, at least
nominally, by a king as late as the time of the great Persian war
(Herodotus, vii. 149); and at Orchomenus, in the secluded highlands of
Northern Arcadia, the kingly form of government persisted till towards
the end of the fifth century B.C. (Plutarch, _Parallela_, 32). As to
the kings of Thessaly in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., see F.
Hiller von Gaertringen in _Aus der Anomia_ (Berlin, 1890), pp. 1–16.


[172] Herodotus, vi. 56.


[173] Strabo, xiv. 1. 3, pp. 632 _sq._ These Ephesian kings, who
probably held office for life, are not to be confounded with the purely
priestly functionaries called Essenes or King Bees, whose tenure of
office was annual. See below, vol. ii. p. 135.


[174] Herodotus, iv. 162.


[175] Strabo, xii. 3. 37, 5. 3; compare xi. 4. 7, xii. 2. 3, 2. 6, 3.
31 _sq._, 3. 34, 8. 9, 8. 14. But see _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th
ed. art. “Priest,” xix. 729.


[176] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 243.


[177] See the _Lî-Kî_ (Legge’s translation), _passim_ (_Sacred Books of
the East_, vols. xxvii., xxviii.).


[178] W. Ellis, _History of Madagascar_ (London, N.D.), i. 359 _sq._


[179] Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas: die geistige
Cultur der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), p. 129.


[180] Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des nations civilisées du
Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale_, i. 94. As to the ruins of Palenque,
see H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, iv. 288
_sqq._; T. Maler, “Mémoire sur l’état de Chiapa (Mexique),” _Revue
d’Ethnographie_, iii. (1885) pp. 327 _sqq._


[181] Father Croonenberghs, “La Mission du Zambèze,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xiv. (1882) p. 453.


[182] Herodotus, v. 75.


[183] Pausanias, iii. 1. 5.


[184] J. Rendel Harris, _The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends_
(London, 1903); _id._, _The Cult of the Heavenly Twins_ (Cambridge,
1906). See also below, pp. 262 _sqq._ With the Spartan custom we may
compare the use which the Zulus made of twins in war. See Dudley Kidd,
_Savage Childhood, a Study of Kafir Children_ (London, 1906), p. 47
_sq._: “In war time a twin used to be hunted out and made to go right
in front of the attacking army, some few paces in front of the others.
He was supposed to be fearless and wild. His twin, if a sister, and if
surviving, was compelled to tie a cord very tightly round her loins
during the fight, and had to starve herself; she was also expected to
place the twin brother’s sleeping-mat in that part of the hut which the
_itongo_ [ancestral spirits] loved to haunt. This brought success in
war. But the great chief Tshaka stopped this practice, for he said that
the wild twin did foolhardy things and brought the army into needless
danger.”


[185] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 101; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 43; Seneca,
_Natur. Quaest._ i. 1. 13; Lucian, _Dial. deorum_, xxvi. 2; Ovid,
_Fasti_, v. 720; Plutarch, _De defect. oraculorum_, 30; Lactantius
Placidus, _Comment. in Statii Theb._ viii. 792; Th. Henri Martin, in
_Revue Archéologique_, N.S. xiii. (1866) pp. 168–174; P. Sébillot,
_Légendes, Croyances et Superstitions de la Mer_ (Paris, 1886), ii.
87–109. Seafaring men in different parts of the world still see and
draw omens from these weird lights on the masts. See Edward FitzGerald,
quoted in _County Folk-lore, Suffolk_ (London, 1893), pp. 121 _sq._; W.
W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_ (London, 1900), p. 279.


[186] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 101. Compare Seneca, _Natur. Quaest._ i.
1. 14.


[187] Potocki, _Voyages dans les Steps d’Astrakhan et du Caucase_, i.
143.


[188] Dionysius Halicarn. _Antiquit. Roman._ vi. 13; Cicero, _De natura
deorum_, ii. 2. 6.


CHAPTER III—Sympathetic Magic


[189] The expression Homoeopathic Magic was first used, so far as I
am aware, by Mr. Y. Hirn (_Origins of Art_ (London, 1900), p. 282).
The expression Mimetic Magic was suggested by a writer in _Folk-lore_
(viii. 1897, p. 65), whom I believe to be Mr. E. S. Hartland. The
expression Imitative Magic was used incidentally by me in the first
edition of _The Golden Bough_ (vol. ii. p. 268).


[190] That magic is based on a mistaken association of ideas was
pointed out long ago by Professor E. B. Tylor (_Primitive Culture_,² i.
116), but he did not analyse the different kinds of association.


[191] It has been ingeniously suggested by Mr. Y. Hirn that magic by
similarity may be reduced to a case of magic by contact. The connecting
link, on his hypothesis, is the old doctrine of emanations, according
to which everything is continually sending out in all directions copies
of itself in the shape of thin membranes, which appear to the senses
not only as shadows, reflections, and so forth, but also as sounds and
names. See Y. Hirn, _Origins of Art_ (London, 1900), pp. 293 _sqq._
This hypothesis certainly furnishes a point of union for the two
apparently distinct sides of sympathetic magic, but whether it is one
that would occur to the savage mind may be doubted.


[192] For the Greek and Roman practice, see Theocritus, _Id._ ii.;
Virgil, _Ecl._ viii. 75–82; Ovid, _Heroides_, vi. 91 _sq._; _id._
_Amores_, iii. 7. 29 _sq._; R. Wünsch, “Eine antike Rachepuppe,”
_Philologus_, lxi. (1902) pp. 26–31.


[193] Henry’s _Travels among the Northern and Western Indians_, quoted
by the Rev. Jedediah Morse, _Report to the Secretary of War of the
United States on Indian Affairs_ (Newhaven, 1822), Appendix, p. 102. I
have not seen Henry’s book.


[194] Peter Jones, _History of the Ojebway Indians_, p. 146; W. H.
Keating, _Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s
River_ (London, 1825), ii. 159; J. G. Kohl, _Kitschi-Gami_, ii. 80.
Similar practices are reported among the Illinois, the Mandans, and
the Hidatsas of North America (Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle
France_, vi. 88; Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das Innere
Nord-America_, ii. 188; Washington Matthews, _Ethnography and Philology
of the Hidatsa Indians_, p. 50), and the Aymaras of Bolivia and Peru
(D. Forbes, “On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru,” _Journal of
the Ethnological Society of London_, ii. (1870) p. 236).


[195] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ (London, 1903), i. 485 _sq._


[196] Above, p. 7.


[197] W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906), p. 458. Among the
Kusavans or potters of Southern India “if a male or female recovers
from cholera, small-pox, or other severe illness, a figure of the
corresponding sex is offered. A childless woman makes a vow to offer
up the figure of a baby, if she brings forth offspring. Figures of
animals—cattle, sheep, horses, etc.—are offered at the temple when they
recover from sickness, or are recovered after they have been stolen”
(E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 192; _id._,
_Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 349). The analogy of these
offerings to the various votive figures found in the sanctuary of Diana
at Nemi is obvious.


[198] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), pp. 25 _sq._ The meaning and origin of the name Viracocha,
as applied by the Peruvians to the Spaniards, is explained with
great frankness by the Italian historian G. Benzoni, who had himself
travelled in America at the time of the conquest. He says (_History of
the New World_, pp. 252 _sq._, Hakluyt Society): “When the Indians saw
the very great cruelties which the Spaniards committed everywhere on
entering Peru, not only would they never believe us to be Christians
and children of God, as boasted, but not even that we were born on this
earth, or generated by a man and born of a woman; so fierce an animal
they concluded must be the offspring of the sea, and therefore called
us _Viracocchie_, for in their language they call the sea _cocchie_ and
the froth _vira_; thus they think that we are a congelation of the sea,
and have been nourished by the froth; and that we are come to destroy
the world, with other things in which the Omnipotence of God would
not suffice to undeceive them. They say that the winds ruin houses
and break down trees, and the fire burns them; but the _Viracocchie_
devour everything, they consume the very earth, they force the rivers,
they are never quiet, they never rest, they are always rushing about,
sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other, seeking for gold
and silver; yet never contented, they game it away, they make war,
they kill each other, they rob, they swear, they are renegades, they
never speak the truth, and they deprive us of our support. Finally, the
Indians curse the sea for having cast such very wicked and harsh beings
on the land. Going about through various parts of this kingdom I often
met some natives, and for the amusement of hearing what they would say,
I used to ask them where such and such a _Christian_ was, when not only
would they refuse to answer me, but would not even look me in the face:
though if I asked them where such and such a _Viracocchie_ was, they
would reply directly.” An explanation of the name much more flattering
to Spanish vanity is given by Garcilasso de la Vega, himself half a
Spaniard (_Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, vol. ii. pp. 65 _sqq._,
Hakluyt Society, Markham’s translation).


[199] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_ (London, 1900), pp. 570–572.


[200] J. Kreemer, “Regenmaken, Oedjoeng, Tooverij onder de Javanen,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xxx.
(1886) pp. 117 _sq._


[201] J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 56.


[202] A. C. Haddon, “The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres
Straits,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) pp.
399 _sq._


[203] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 324 _sq._


[204] W. H. Furness, _The Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters_
(Philadelphia, 1902), pp. 93.


[205] C. Hose and W. McDougall, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 178.


[206] J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_ (London, 1901), pp.
329–331.


[207] W. G. Aston, _Shinto (the Way of the Gods)_ (London, 1905), pp.
331 _sq._


[208] J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, v. (Leyden,
1907) pp. 920 _sq._


[209] _Le Livre des Récompenses et des Peines, traduit du Chinois_, par
Stanislas Julien (Paris, 1835), p. 345.


[210] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, iii. 547.


[211] W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography: Bulletin_ No. 5
(Brisbane, 1903), p. 31.


[212] Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _The Native Tribes of Central
Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 549 _sq._


[213] C. J. F. S. Forbes, _British Burma_ (London, 1878), p. 232.


[214] L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 153.


[215] H. Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_, p. 314.


[216] A. Hillebrandt, _Vedische Opfer und Zauber_ (Strasburg, 1897), p.
177; W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam, 1900), pp. 121,
166, 173, 184. Compare H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_ (Berlin,
1894), p. 508.


[217] W. Caland, _op. cit._ p. 164.


[218] H. W. Magoun, “The Asuri-Kalpa; a Witchcraft Practice of the
Atharva-Veda,” _American Journal of Philology_, x. (1889) pp. 165–197.


[219] _Asiatick Researches_, v. (Fourth Edition, London, 1807) p. 389.


[220] J. A. Dubois, _Mœurs, institutions, et cérémonies des peuples de
l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), ii. 63.


[221] Fr. Fawcett, in _Madras Government Museum, Bulletin_, iii. No. 1
(Madras, 1900), p. 85.


[222] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), ii. 278 _sq._


[223] _Id._, _The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh_ (Calcutta, 1896), i. 137.


[224] A. A. Perera, “Glimpses of Singhalese Social Life,” _Indian
Antiquary_, xxxiii. (1904) p. 57. For more evidence of such practices
in India, see E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_,
pp. 328 _sqq._; _id._, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 489
_sq._, vi. 124; W. Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, pp. 248 _sq._


[225] E. Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 61 _sq._


[226] E. Doutté, _op. cit._ p. 299.


[227] G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique:
les origines_ (Paris, 1895), pp. 213 _sq._


[228] F. Chabas, _Le Papyrus magique Harris_ (Chalon-sur-Saône, 1860),
pp. 169 _sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, in _Archaeologia_, Second Series,
vol. ii. (1890) pp. 428 _sq._; _id._, _Egyptian Magic_ (London,
1899), pp. 73 _sqq._ The case happened in the reign of Rameses III.,
about 1200 B.C. Compare A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im
Altertum_, p. 475. As to Egyptian magic in general see A. Erman, _Die
ägyptische Religion_ (Berlin, 1905), pp. 148 _sqq._


[229] M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_ (Boston,
U.S.A., 1898), pp. 268, 286, compare pp. 270, 272, 276, 278; R. F.
Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_ (New York, 1901), pp. 375,
376, 377 _sqq._; C. Fossey, _La Magie assyrienne_ (Paris, 1902), pp.
77–81.


[230] M. Jastrow, _op. cit._ pp. 286 _sq._; C. Fossey, _op. cit._ p. 78.


[231] E. A. Wallis Budge, “On the Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,
a scribe in the temple of Amen-Rā at Thebes, about B.C. 305,”
_Archaeologia_, Second Series, ii. (1890) pp. 393–601; _id._, _Egyptian
Magic_, pp. 77 _sqq._; _id._, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London,
1904), i. 270–272.


[232] See an article by R. M. O. K. entitled “A Horrible Rite in the
Highlands,” in the _Weekly Scotsman_, Saturday, August 24, 1889;
Professor J. Rhys in _Folklore_, iii. (1892) p. 385; R. C. Maclagan,
“Notes on Folklore Objects collected in Argyleshire,” _Folklore_,
vi. (1895) pp. 144–148; J. Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_ (London,
1893), pp. 3 _sq._; J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 46–48.
Many older examples of the practice of this form of enchantment in
Scotland are collected by J. G. Dalyell in his _Darker Superstitions of
Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 328 _sqq._


[233] J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 47, 48.


[234] Bryan J. Jones, in _Folklore_, vi. (1895) p. 302. For evidence
of the custom in the Isle of Man see J. Train, _Historical and
Statistical Account of the Isle of Man_, ii. 168; in England, see
Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, iii. 10 _sqq._; in Germany, see J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ ii. 913 _sq._; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur
deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 272 _sq._ As to the custom in general, see
E. B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_,³ pp. 106
_sqq._; R. Andree, “Sympathie-Zauber,” _Ethnographische Parallelen und
Vergleiche_, Neue Folge, pp. 8 _sqq._


[235] Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_, iii. 220.


[236] E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part I.
(Washington, 1899) p. 435.


[237] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” _Memoir
of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific
Expedition_, vol. i. No. 4 (April 1900), p. 314.


[238] J. R. Swanton, “Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida”
(Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 47 _sq._ (_The Jesup North Pacific
Expedition_, vol. v.).


[239] S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p. 318.


[240] C. Lumholtz, “Symbolism of the Huichol Indians,” _Memoirs of the
American Museum of Natural History_, vol. iii. (May 1900) p. 52.


[241] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), p. 37.


[242] A. Delegorgue, _Voyage dans l’Afrique Australe_ (Paris, 1847),
ii. 325 _sq._


[243] E. Casalis, _The Basutos_, p. 251.


[244] Binger, _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée_ (Paris, 1892), ii. 230.


[245] W. G. Aston, _Shinto_ (_the Way of the Gods_) (London, 1905), p.
331.


[246] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants_²
(London, 1870), p. 213.


[247] J. B. Neumann, “Het Pane- en Bila-Stroomgebied op het eiland
Sumatra,” _Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, deel iii. (1886) Afdeeling, meer
uitgebreide artikelen, No. 3, p. 515.


[248] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua_ (The Hague, 1886), p. 343.


[249] Dr. MacFarlane, quoted by A. C. Haddon, in _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) pp. 389 _sq._


[250] C. Poensen, “Iets over de kleeding der Javanen,” _Mededeelingen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xx. (1876) pp. 274
_sq._; C. M. Pleyte, “Plechtigheden en gebruiken uit den cyclus van het
familienleven der volken van den Indischen Archipel,” _Bijdragen tot de
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië_, xli. (1892) p. 578.
A slightly different account of the ceremony is given by J. Kreemer
(“Hoe de Javaan zijne zieken verzorgt,” _Mededeelingen van wege het
Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xxxvi. (1892) p. 116).


[251] S. A. Buddingh, “Gebruiken bij Javaansche Grooten,” _Tijdschrift
voor Neêrlands Indië_, 1840, deel ii. pp. 239–243.


[252] J. Knebel, “Varia Javanica,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) pp. 34–37.


[253] F. W. Leggat, quoted by H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and
British North Borneo_ (London, 1896), i. 98 _sq._


[254] Diodorus Siculus, iv. 39.


[255] Stanislaus Ciszewski, _Künstliche Verwandtschaft bei den
Südslaven_ (Leipsic, 1897), pp. 103 _sqq._ In the Middle Ages a
similar form of adoption appears to have prevailed, with the curious
variation that the adopting parent who simulated the act of birth was
the father, not the mother. See J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_,
pp. 160, 464 _sq._; J. J. Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_, pp. 254 _sq._ F.
Liebrecht, however, quotes a mediaeval case in which the ceremony was
performed by the adopting mother (_Zur Volkskunde_, p. 432).


[256] For this information I have to thank Dr. C. Hose, formerly
Resident Magistrate of the Baram district, Sarawak.


[257] Rev. J. Roscoe, “The Bahima,” _Journal of the R. Anthropological
Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 104.


[258] Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 5; Hesychius, _s.v._
Δευτερόποτμος.


[259] W. Caland, _Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche_
(Amsterdam, 1896), p. 89. Among the Hindoos of Kumaon the same custom
is reported to be still observed. See Major Reade in _Panjab Notes and
Queries_, ii. p. 74, § 452.


[260] W. S. Routledge and K. Routledge, _With a Prehistoric People,
the Akikuyu of British East Africa_ (London, 1910), pp. 151 _sq._ The
ceremony was briefly described by me on Dr. Crawford’s authority in
_Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 228.


[261] As to these rites among the Akikuyu see W. S. Routledge and K.
Routledge, _op. cit._ pp. 154 _sqq._


[262] _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, iii. 422 _sqq._; _Totemism
and Exogamy_, i. 44, iii. 463 _sqq._, 485, 487 _sq._, 489 _sq._, 505,
532, 542, 545, 546, 549.


[263] W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 119;
M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_ (Oxford, 1897), pp. 358
_sq._ (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xlii.).


[264] W. H. Keating, _Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St.
Peter’s River_ (London, 1825), ii. 159.


[265] Theocritus, _Id._ ii. 28 _sq._; Virgil, _Ecl._ viii. 81 sq. In
neither of these passages is the wax said to have been fashioned in the
likeness of the beloved one, but it may have been so.


[266] As to the waxen models of the human body, or parts of it, which
are still dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Kevelaer, see R. Andree,
_Votive und Weihegaben des Katholischen Volks in Süddeutschland_
(Brunswick, 1904) p. 85; and as to votive images of hearts in general,
see _id._ pp. 127 _sq._


[267] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xii. (1880) p. 41;
_id._, _Mœurs et Superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp.
97 _sq._


[268] Plutarch, _De sera numinis vindicta_, 14.


[269] Th. Shaw, “The Inhabitants of the Hills near Rajamahall,”
_Asiatic Researches_, iv. 69 (8vo edition, London, 1807).


[270] M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_ (Oxford, 1897), pp. 7
_sq._, 263 _sq._; W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam,
1900), pp. 75 _sq._


[271] Plutarch, _Quaest. conviv._ v. 7. 2, 8 _sq._; Aelian, _Nat.
animalium_, xvii. 13.


[272] Schol. on Aristophanes, _Birds_, 266; Schol. on Plato, _Gorgias_,
p. 494 B.


[273] Alfred Newton, _Dictionary of Birds_ (London, 1893–1896), p. 129.


[274] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxx. 94. The Greek name for jaundice, and
for this singular bird, was _ikteros_. The Romans called jaundice “the
king’s malady” (_morbus regius_). See below, p. 371, note⁴.


[275] _Nat. Hist._ xxxvii. 170.


[276] This precious remedy was communicated to me by my colleague and
friend Professor R. C. Bosanquet of Liverpool. The popular Greek name
for jaundice is χρυσῆ.


[277] W. von Schulenburg, _Wendische Volkssagen und Gebräuche_
(Leipsic, 1880), p. 223.


[278] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ ii. 981; G. Lammert,
_Volksmedizin und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern_ (Würzburg, 1869),
p. 248.


[279] Dr. S. Weissenberg, “Krankheit und Tod bei den südrussischen
Juden,” _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 358.


[280] K. Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855),
p. 92; A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 302, § 477.


[281] Alfred Newton, _Dictionary of Birds_, p. 115.


[282] Dr. J. Gengler, “Der Kreuzschnabel als Hausarzt,” _Globus_, xci.
(1907) pp. 193 _sq._; A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p.
117, § 164; Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen
Westböhmen_ (Prague, 1905), p. 218; P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und
Volksglaube in Schlesien_, ii. (Leipsic, 1906) p. 231.


[283] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 302, § 477.


[284] Gilbert White, _The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne_,
part ii. letter 28.


[285] M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, pp. 31, 536 _sq._; W.
Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_, p. 103. In ancient Indian magic it
is often prescribed that charms to heal sickness should be performed
at the hour when the stars are vanishing in the sky. See W. Caland,
_op. cit._ pp. 85, 86, 88, 96. Was this in order that the ailment might
vanish with the stars?


[286] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_
(London, 1904), p. 352; _id._, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
251.


[287] F. Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beuce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), i. 172 _sq._


[288] J. Perham, “Manangism in Borneo,” _Journal of the Straits Branch
of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 19 (1887), p. 100; H. Ling Roth,
_The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i. 280.


[289] Marcellus, _De medicamentis_, xv. 82.


[290] Marcellus, _op. cit._ xxxiv. 100.


[291] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 176.


[292] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 179 _sqq._


[293] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 184 _sq._


[294] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 193 _sqq._, 199 _sqq._,
206 _sq._ In the south of France and in the Pyrenees a number of
caves have been found adorned with paintings or carvings of animals
which have long been extinct in that region, such as the mammoth,
the reindeer, and the bison. All the beasts thus represented appear
to be edible, and none of them to be fierce carnivorous creatures.
Hence it has been ingeniously suggested by M. S. Reinach that the
intention of these works of art may have been to multiply by magic
the animals so represented, just as the Central Australians seek to
increase kangaroos and emus in the manner described above. He infers
that the comparatively high development of prehistoric art in Europe
among men of the reindeer age may have been due in large measure
to the practice of sympathetic magic. See S. Reinach, “L’Art et la
magie,” _L’Anthropologie_, xiv. (1903) pp. 257–266; id., _Cultes,
Myths et Religions_, i. (Paris, 1905) pp. 125–136. Paintings and
carvings executed in caves and on rocks by the aborigines have been
described in various parts of Australia. See G. Grey, _Journals of
two Expeditions of Discovery_ (London, 1841), i. 201–206; R. Brough
Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 289–294, ii. 309; E. M. Curr,
_The Australian Race_, ii. 476; Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes
of Central Australia_, pp. 614–618; J. F. Mann, in _Proceedings of
the Geographical Society of Australia_, i. (1885) pp. 50 _sq._,
with illustrations; W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the
North-west-central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 116. We may conjecture
that the Hebrew prohibition to make “the likeness of any beast that
is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the
heaven, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the
likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth” (Deuteronomy
iv. 17 _sq._), was primarily directed rather against magic than
idolatry in the strict sense. Ezekiel speaks (viii. 10–12) of the
elders of Israel offering incense to “every form of creeping things,
and abominable beasts,” portrayed on the walls of their chambers.
If hieroglyphs originated, as seems possible, in representations of
edible animals and plants which had long been in use for the purpose
of magically multiplying the species, we could readily understand why,
for example, dangerous beasts of prey should be conspicuously absent
from the so-called Hittite system of hieroglyphs, without being forced
to have recourse to the rationalistic explanation of their absence
which has been adopted by Professors G. Hirschfeld and W. M. Ramsay.
See W. M. Ramsay, _The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, i. p. xv. On
the relations of art and magic, see Y. Hirn, _Origins of Art_ (London,
1900), pp. 278–297.


[295] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
291–294.


[296] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 185
_sq._


[297] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
310.


[298] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
309 _sq._


[299] See below, pp. 162–164.


[300] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_ (London,
1904), p. 798.


[301] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
287 _sq._


[302] With what follows compare my article “The Origin of
Circumcision,” _The Independent Review_, November 1904, pp. 204 _sqq._;
_Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 181–184.


[303] F. Bonney, “On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River
Darling, New South Wales,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xiii. (1884) pp. 134 _sq._ Compare J. Fraser, “The Aborigines of New
South Wales,” _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New
South Wales_, xvi. (1882) pp. 229, 231; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_, pp. 451, 465.


[304] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
507, 509 _sq._


[305] Mr. Bussel in Sir G. Grey’s _Journals of Two Expeditions of
Discovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 330.


[306] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
382, 461; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 598.


[307] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
464; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 599 _sqq._;
W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies_, p. 162, § 283. In North-Western
Queensland the blood may be drawn for this purpose from any healthy
man, not necessarily from a kinsman.


[308] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 380.


[309] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 461
_sq._; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 560, 562, 598.


[310] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
251, 463; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 352, 355.


[311] W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies_, p. 174, § 305.


[312] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 250
_sq._ Among the northern Arunta the foreskin is buried, along with the
blood, in a hole (_ib._ p. 268).


[313] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 667.


[314] E. Clement, “Ethnographical Notes on the Western Australian
Aborigines,” _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, xvi. (1904) p.
11. Among the western coastal tribes of the Northern Territory of South
Australia the foreskin is held against the bellies of those who have
been present at the operation, then it is placed in a bag which the
operator wears round his neck till the wound has healed, when he throws
it into the fire. See H. Basedow, _Anthropological Notes on the Western
Coastal Tribes of the Northern Territory of South Australia_, p. 12
(printed by Hussey and Gillingham, Adelaide).


[315] B. H. Purcell, “Rites and Customs of the Australian Aborigines,”
_Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie_, p. (287)
(_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxv. 1893). Cloniny is perhaps a
misprint for Cloncurry.


[316] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
360 _sq._, 599. Compare _id._, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
257.


[317] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 256
_sq._


[318] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
391.


[319] Lieut.-Colonel D. Collins, _Account of the English Colony in New
South Wales_, Second Edition (London, 1804), p. 366.


[320] D. Collins, _op. cit._ p. 363.


[321] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 94; compare W. T. Pritchard, “Notes on
certain Anthropological Matters respecting the South Sea Islanders
(the Samoans),” _Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London_, i.
(1863–4), pp. 324–326.


[322] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
367, 368, 599.


[323] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
9, 368, 552, 553, 554 _sq._ See further E. Palmer, “On Plants used
by the Natives of North Queensland,” _Journal and Proceedings of the
Royal Society of New South Wales for 1883_, xvii. 101. The seeds of
the splendid pink water-lily (the sacred lotus) are also eaten by the
natives of North Queensland. The plant grows in lagoons on the coast.
See E. Palmer, _loc. cit._


[324] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
372.


[325] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_,
pp. 353 _sq._ Some of the dwarf tribes of the Gaboon, who practise
circumcision, place the severed foreskins in the trunks of a species of
nut-tree (_Kula edulis_), which seems to be their totem; for the tree
is said to have a certain sanctity for them, and some groups take their
name from it, being called _A-Kula_, “the people of the nut-tree.”
They eat the nuts, and have a special ceremony at the gathering of the
first nuts of the season. See Mgr. Le Roy, “Les Pygmées,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xxix. (1897) pp. 222 _sq._, 237.


[326] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
341.


[327] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 123
_sqq._


[328] See above, pp. 75–77.


[329] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 538
_sqq._, 563, 564, 565, 566, 569, 571, 576, 586 _sq._, 588, 589, 592,
613, 616, 641, 655 _sq._, 675 _sq._; Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes
of Central Australia_, pp. 213 _sq._, 450 _sqq._; _id._, _Northern
Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 18, 329, 588 _sqq._


[330] See below, pp. 176 _sq._


[331] W. Blandowski, “Personal Observations made in an Excursion
towards the Central Parts of Victoria,” _Transactions of the
Philosophical Society of Victoria_, i. (Melbourne, 1855) p. 72. Compare
R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 61; Spencer and Gillen,
_Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 453 _sq._


[332] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 452
_sq._


[333] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
594, 596.


[334] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 451.


[335] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
592–594.


[336] A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_, p. 193; _Reports of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 193, 221.


[337] W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin_ No. 5
(Brisbane, 1903), pp. 18, 23, §§ 68, 83. We are reminded of the old
Greek saying to be born “of an oak or a rock” (Homer, _Odyssey_, xix.
163). See A. B. Cook, “Oak and Rock,” _Classical Review_, xv. (1901)
pp. 322–326. In Samoa, a child sometimes received as his god for life
the deity who chanced to be invoked at the moment of his birth, whether
that was his father’s or his mother’s god. See G. Turner, _Samoa_, p.
79.


[338] See below, pp. 183 _sq._


[339] Lieut.-Colonel D. Collins, _Account of the English Colony of New
South Wales_, Second Edition (London, 1804), pp. 353, 372 _sqq._ The
Cammeray of whom Collins speaks are no doubt the tribe now better known
as the Kamilaroi. _Carrahdy_, which he gives as the native name for a
high priest, is clearly the Kamilaroi _kuradyi_, “medicine-man” (W.
Ridley, _Kamilaroi and other Australian Languages_, Sydney, 1875, p.
158).


[340] If the possession of the foreskin conferred on the possessor a
like power over the person to whom it had belonged, we can readily
understand why the Israelites coveted the foreskins of their enemies
the Philistines (1 Samuel xviii. 25–27, 2 Samuel iii. 14). Professor H.
Gunkel interprets a passage of Ezekiel (xxxii. 18–32) as contrasting
the happy lot of the circumcised warrior in the under world with the
misery of his uncircumcised foe in the same place, and confesses
himself unable to see why circumcision should be thought to benefit
the dead. See H. Gunkel, “Über die Beschneidung im alten Testament,”
_Archiv für Papyrusforschung_, ii. (1903) p. 21. (Prof. Gunkel’s
paper was pointed out to me by my friend Mr. W. Wyse.) The benefit,
on the theory here suggested, was very substantial, since it allowed
the dead to come to life again, the grave being a bourne from which
only uncircumcised travellers fail, sooner or later, to return. But
I confess that Prof. Gunkel’s explanation of the passage seems to me
rather far-fetched.


[341] G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery_, ii. 335.


[342] See above, pp. 28 _sqq._


[343] J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 62; J. F. Mann, in
_Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australia_, i. (1885) p. 48.


[344] E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central
Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 345 _sq._; W. E. Roth, _Ethnological
Studies_, pp. 165 _sq._; J. Mathew, _Eaglehawk and Crow_, p. 122;
Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 498;
_id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 505 _sqq._


[345] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
506.


[346] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 497.
Compare _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 506.


[347] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
552 _sqq._


[348] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition (1907), pp. 77 _sqq._


[349] J. B. Purvis, _Through Uganda to Mount Elgon_ (London, 1909), pp.
302 _sq._


[350] J. H. Weeks, “Notes on some Customs of the Lower Congo People,”
_Folk-lore_, xix. (1908) p. 422.


[351] Plato, _Phaedo_, 18, p. 72 E καὶ μήν, ἔφη ὁ Κέβης ὑπολαβών, καὶ
κατ’ ἐκεῖνόν γε τὸν λόγον, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰ ἀληθής ἐστιν, ὃν σὺ εἴωθας
θαμὰ λέγειν, ὅτι ἡμῖν ἡ μάθησις οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ἀνάμνησις τυγχάνει οὖσα,
καὶ κατὰ τοῦτον ἀνάγκη που ἡμᾶς ἐν προτέρῳ τινὶ χρόνῳ μεμαθηκέναι ἂ νῦν
ἀναμιμνησκόμεθα. τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, εἰ μὴ ἦν που ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ πρὶν ἐν
τῷδε τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ εἴδει γενέσθαι· ὥστε καὶ ταύτη ἀθάνατόν τι ἔοικεν ἡ
ψυχὴ εἶναι. Compare Wordsworth, _Ode on Intimations of Immortality_:

_Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting._


[352] E. M. Gordon, _Indian Folk-tales_ (London, 1908), p. 49.


[353] E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iii. 398.


[354] R. V. Russel, in _Census of India, 1901_, vol. xiii. _Central
Provinces_, p. 93.


[355] _Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, p. 130 (Canadian Reprint).


[356] “Greek Law and Folklore,” _Classical Review_, ix. (1895) pp.
247–250. For the rules themselves see H. Roehl, _Inscriptiones
Graecae Antiquissimae_, No. 395; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum
Graecarum_,² No. 877; Ch. Michel, _Recueil d’inscriptions grecques_,
No. 398.


[357] This has been suggested by Mr. J. E. King for infant burial
(_Classical Review_, xvii. (1903) p. 83 _sq._); but we need not confine
the suggestion to the case of infants.


[358] Herodotus, iv. 26; Hesychius, _s.v._ Γενέσια; Im. Bekker,
_Anecdota Graeca_, i. pp. 86, 231; Isaeus, ii. 46; _The Oxyrhynchus
Papyri_, ed. Grenfell and Hunt, part iii. (London, 1903), p. 203
εὐωχίαν ἣν ποιήσονται πλησίον τοῦ τάφου μου κατ’ ἔτος τῆ γενεθλίᾳ μου
ἐφ’ ᾧ διέπειν ἀργυρίου δραχμὰς ἑκατόν. My attention was called to this
subject by my friend Mr. W. Wyse, who supplied me with many of the
Greek passages referred to, including the one in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.


[359] _Vitarum Scriptores Graeci_, ed. A. Westermann, p. 450; Plutarch,
_Aratus_, 53; Diogenes Laertius, _Vit. Philosoph._ x. 18.


[360] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
547 _sqq._


[361] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
473–475.


[362] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
548.


[363] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
207–211.


[364] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 434
_sq._, 475.


[365] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 418
_sqq._


[366] “In the Alcheringa lived ancestors who, in the native mind,
are so intimately associated with the animals or plants the names of
which they bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroo totem may
sometimes be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man.
The identity of the human individual is often sunk in that of the
animal or plant from which he is supposed to have originated” (Spencer
and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 119).


[367] Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 45 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[368] A. C. Haddon in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix.
(1890) p. 427; _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
Torres Straits_, v. 333, 338.


[369] A. C. Kruyt, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja’s,” _Verslagen en
Mededeelingen der konink. Akademie van Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling
Letterkunde, IV. Reeks, III. Deel (Amsterdam, 1899), pp. 203 _sq._ I
follow the experienced Messrs. N. Adriani and A. C. Kruijt (Kruyt)
in calling the natives of Central Celebes by the name of Toradjas,
though that name is not used by the people themselves, but is only
applied to them in a derogatory sense by the Buginese. It means no
more than “inlanders.” The people are divided into a number of tribes,
each with its own name, who speak for the most part one language but
have no common name for themselves collectively. See Dr. N. Adriani,
“Mededeelingen omtrent de Toradjas van Midden-Celebes,” _Tijdschrift
voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) p. 221.


[370] J. W. Thomas, “De jacht op het eiland Nias,” _Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxvi. 277.


[371] Van Schmid, “Aanteekeningen nopens de zeden, gewoonten en
gebruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen en bijgeloovigheden der bevolking
van de eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa Laut,” _Tijdschrift voor
Neêrlands Indië_, 1843, dl. ii. pp. 601 _sq._


[372] B. A. Hely, “Notes on Totemism, etc., among the Western Tribes,”
_British New Guinea, Annual Report for 1894–95_, p. 56.


[373] E. Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances superstitieuses
des Cambodgiens,” _Cochinchine française: excursions et reconnaissances_,
No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), p. 157.


[374] James Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_ (London, 1893), p. 5.


[375] A. G. Morice, “Notes, archaeological, industrial, and
sociological, on the Western Dénés,” _Transactions of the Canadian
Institute_, iv. (1892–93) p. 108; _id._, _Au pays de l’Ours Noir: chez
les sauvages de la Colombie Britannique_ (Paris and Lyons, 1897), p. 71.


[376] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, verhalen en overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 502. As to the district of Galela
in Halmahera see G. Lafond in _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_
(Paris), ii. série, ix. (1838) pp. 77 _sqq._ (where Galeta is
apparently a misprint for Galela); F. S. A. de Clercq, _Bijdragen tot
de Kennis der Residentie Ternate_ (Leyden, 1890), pp. 112 _sq._; W.
Kükenthal, _Forschungsreise in den Molukken und in Borneo_ (Frankfort,
1896), pp. 147 _sqq._


[377] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 300.


[378] The theory that taboo is a negative magic was first, I believe,
clearly formulated by Messrs. Hubert and Mauss in their essay,
“Esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie,” _L’Année Sociologique_,
vii. (Paris, 1904) p. 56. Compare A. van Gennep, _Tabou et Totémisme à
Madagascar_ (Paris, 1904), pp. 19 _sqq._ I reached the same conclusion
independently and stated it in my _Lectures on the Early History
of the Kingship_ (London, 1905), pp. 52–54, a passage which I have
substantially reproduced in the text. When I wrote it I was unaware
that the view had been anticipated by my friends Messrs. Hubert and
Mauss. See my note in _Man_, vi. (1906) pp. 55 _sq._ The view has been
criticised adversely by my friend Mr. R. R. Marett (_The Threshold of
Religion_, pp. 85 _sqq._). But the difference between us seems to be
mainly one of words; for I regard the supposed mysterious force, to
which he gives the Melanesian name of _mana_, as supplying, so to say,
the physical basis both of magic and of taboo, while the logical basis
of both is furnished by a misapplication of the laws of the association
of ideas. And with this view Mr. Marett, if I apprehend him aright,
is to a certain extent in agreement (see particularly pp. 102 _sq._,
113 _sq._ of his essay). However, in deference to his criticisms I
have here stated the theory in question less absolutely than I did in
my _Lectures_. As to the supposed mysterious force which I take to
underlie magic and taboo I may refer particularly to what I have said
in _The Golden Bough_,² i. 319–322, 343. In speaking of taboo I here
refer only to those taboos which are protected by magical or religious
sanctions, not to those of which the sanctions are purely civil or
legal; for I take civil or legal taboos to be merely a later extension
of magical or religious taboos, which form the original stock of the
institution. See my article “Taboo” in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_,
Ninth Edition, vol. xxiii. pp. 16, 17.


[379] M. J. van Baarda, in _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 507.


[380] F. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin of
the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. Part I. (1901) p. 161.


[381] R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Huzulen,” _Globus_, lxxvi.
(1899) p. 273.


[382] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxviii. 28.


[383] B. Pilsudski, “Schwangerhaft, Entbindung und Fehlgeburt bei den
Bewohnern der Insel Sachalin,” _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 763.


[384] Rev. E. M. Gordon, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal_, New Series, i. (1905) p. 185; _id._, _Indian Folk
Tales_ (London, 1908), pp. 82 _sq._


[385] Van Schmid, “Aanteekeningen nopens de zeden, gewoonten en
gebruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen en bijgeloovigheden der bevolking
van de eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa Laut,” _Tijdschrift voor
Neêrlands Indië_, 1843, dl. ii. p. 604.


[386] A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en
maatschappelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,” _Mededeelingen van wege het
Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xl. (1896) pp. 262 _sq._; _id.
ib._ xliv. (1900) p. 235.


[387] C. Snouck Hurgronje, _De Atjehers_ (Batavia and Leyden, 1893–94),
i. 409; E. A. Klerks, “Geographisch en ethnographisch opstal over
de landschappen Korintje, Sĕrampas en Soengai Tĕnang,” _Tijdschrift
voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxxix. (1897) p. 73; J.
C. van Eerde, “Een huwelijk bij de Minangkabausche Maliers,” _ib._
xliv. (1901) pp. 490 _sq._; M. Joustra, “Het leven, de zeden en
gewoonten der Bataks,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xlvi. (1902) p. 406.


[388] H. Lake and H. J. Kelsall, “The Camphor-tree and Camphor Language
of Johore,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society_, No. 26 (January 1894), p. 40; W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p.
213.


[389] W. H. Furness, _Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters_ (Philadelphia,
1902), p. 169.


[390] E. Aymonier, _Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 269.


[391] E. Aymonier, _Voyage dans le Laos_ (Paris, 1895–97), i. 322.
As to lac and the mode of cultivating it, see _id._ ii. 18 _sq._ The
superstition is less explicitly stated in the same writer’s _Notes sur
le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 110.


[392] A. Thevet, _Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, autrement
nommée Amerique_ (Antwerp, 1558), p. 93; _id._, _Cosmographie
Universelle_ (Paris, 1575), ii. 970 [wrongly numbered 936] _sq._


[393] Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das innere Nord-America_,
ii. 247.


[394] G. B. Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_ (London, 1893), pp. 237,
238.


[395] E. Poeppig, _Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazonenstrome_
(Leipsic, 1835–36), ii. 323.


[396] Meanwhile I may refer the reader to _The Golden Bough_,² ii. 353
_sqq._


[397] H. F. Standing, “Malagasy _fady_,” _Antananarivo Annual and
Madagascar Magazine_, vol. ii. (reprint of the second four numbers,
1881–1884) (Antananarivo, 1896), p. 261.


[398] Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 48.


[399] H. Callaway, _Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the
Zulus_, i. (Natal and London, 1868), pp. 280–282.


[400] Above, p. 116.


[401] Above, p. 117.


[402] E. Aymonier, _Notes sur le Laos_, pp. 25 _sq._; _id._, _Voyage
dans le Laos_ (Paris, 1895–97), i. 62, 63.


[403] Chalmers, quoted by H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and
British North Borneo_, i. 430.


[404] E. Aymonier, “Les Tchames et leurs religions,” _Revue de
l’Histoire des Religions_, xxiv. (1891) p. 278.


[405] Th. Hahn, _Tsuni-ǁGoam_ (London, 1881), p. 77.


[406] A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_ (London, 1901), p. 259.


[407] C. Leemius, _De Lapponibus Finmarchiae_ (Copenhagen, 1767), p.
500.


[408] H. J. Holmberg, “Über die Völker des russischen Amerika,” _Acta
Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv. (1856) p. 392.


[409] _Arctic Papers for the Expedition of 1875_ (published by
the Royal Geographical Society), pp. 261 _sq._; _Report of the
International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska_ (Washington,
1885), p. 39.


[410] F. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin of
the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. part i. (1901) pp. 149,
160.


[411] Roland B. Dixon, “The Northern Maidu,” _Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History_, xvii. part iii. (New York, 1905) p. 193.


[412] P. Labbé, _Un Bagne Russe, l’Île de Sakhaline_ (Paris, 1903), p.
268.


[413] W. Jochelson, “Die Jukagiren im äussersten Nordosten Asiens,”
_Jahresbericht der geograph. Gesellschaft von Bern_, xvii. (1900) p. 14.


[414] _Missions Catholiques_, xiv. (1882) p. 460.


[415] W. H. I. Bleek, _A Brief Account of Bushman Folklore_, p. 19.


[416] P. Reichard, _Deutsch-Ostafrika_ (Leipsic, 1892), p. 427.


[417] H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” _Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 318 _sq._


[418] A. D’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, iii. part i.
p. 226.


[419] I. Petroff, _Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources
of Alaska_, p. 155.


[420] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, ii. 126 _sqq._; as to the sacred
cactus, which the Indians call _hikuli_, see _id._ i. 357 _sqq._


[421] For this information I am indebted to Dr. C. Hose, formerly
Resident Magistrate of the Baram district, Sarawak.


[422] W. H. Furness, _Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters_, p. 169.


[423] J. Chalmers, “Toaripi,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxvii. (1898) p. 327.


[424] J. L. van Hasselt, “Eenige Aanteekeningen aangaande de Bewoners
der N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea, meer bepaaldelijk den Stam der
Noefoereezen,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_,
xxxii. (1889) p. 263; _id._, “Die Papuastämme an der Geelvinkbai,”
_Mitteilungen der geograph. Gesellschaft zu Jena_, ix. (1891) pp. 101
_sq._


[425] H. von Rosenberg, _Der malayische Archipel_ (Leipsic, 1878), pp.
453, 462.


[426] C. M. Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede
Serie, x. (1893) p. 831.


[427] H. Geurtjens, “Le Cérémonial des Voyages aux Îles Keij,”
_Anthropos_, v. (1910) pp. 337, 353. The girls bear the title of _wat
moel_.


[428] J. C. E. Tromp, “De Rambai en Sebroeang Dajaks,” _Tijdschrift
voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxv. 118.


[429] H. Ling Roth, “Low’s Natives of Borneo,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxii. (1893) p. 56.


[430] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 524.


[431] Mrs. Hewitt, “Some Sea-Dayak Tabus,” _Man_, viii. (1908) pp. 186
_sq._


[432] _Indian Antiquary_, xxi. (1892) p. 120.


[433] H. O. Forbes, “On some Tribes of the Island of Timor,” _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884) p. 414.


[434] A. C. Kruyt, “Het koppensnellan der Toradja’s van Midden-Celebes,
en zijne beteekenis,” _Verslagen en Mededeelingen der konink. Akademie
van Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde, IV. Reeks, III. Deel
(Amsterdam, 1899), pp. 158 _sq._


[435] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, verhalen en overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 507.


[436] See above, p. 120.


[437] M. J. van Baarda, _l.c._


[438] C. M. Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede
Serie, x. (1893) p. 805.


[439] De Flacourt, _Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar_ (Paris,
1658), pp. 97 _sq._ A statement of the same sort is made by the Abbé
Rochon, _Voyage to Madagascar and the East Indies_, translated from the
French (London, 1792), pp. 46 _sq._


[440] John Struys, _Voiages and Travels_ (London, 1684), p. 22. Struys
may have copied from De Flacourt.


[441] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua_, p. 341; H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East
Africa,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp.
312, 317.


[442] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 377.


[443] A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p.
226.


[444] H. P. Fitzgerald Marriott, _The Secret Tribal Societies of
West Africa_, p. 17 (reprinted from _Ars quatuor Coronatorum_, the
transactions of a Masonic lodge of London). The lamented Miss Mary H.
Kingsley was so kind as to lend me a copy of this work.


[445] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” _Memoir
of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific
Expedition_, vol. i. No. 4 (April 1900), p. 356.


[446] S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), pp. 129
_sq._


[447] J. R. Swanton, “Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida”
(Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 55 _sq._ (_Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. v.
part i.).


[448] Sir George Scott Robertson, _The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush_
(London, 1896), pp. 335, 621–626.


[449] Antonio Caulin, _Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica
dela Nueva Andalucia de Cumana, Guayana y Vertientes del Rio Orinoco_
(1779), p. 97.


[450] Father Guis, “Les Canaques, ce qu’ils font, ce qu’ils
disent,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxx. (1898) p. 29; A. C. Haddon,
_Head-hunters_, p. 257.


[451] J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 21 _sq._


[452] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_, p. 122.


[453] Aug. Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_
(Vienna, 1878), p. 218, § 36.


[454] A. L. van Hasselt, _Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra_
(Leyden, 1882), p. 323; J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den
Minangkabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 64.


[455] E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i.
(Oxford, 1892) p. 421. Compare Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des
nations civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale_, i. 518 _sq._


[456] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 217.


[457] A. L. van Hasselt, “Nota betreffende de rijstcultuur in de
Residentie Tapanoeli,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xxxvi. (1893) p. 529.


[458] This I learned from Mr. Hardy in conversation. See also his
letter in _Folklore_, viii. (1897) p. 11.


[459] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_, p. 133. Compare F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren
und äusseren Leben der Ehsten_, p. 447.


[460] R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Huzulen,” _Globus_, lxxvi.
(1899) p. 276.


[461] F. Tetzner, “Die Kuren in Ostpreussen,” _Globus_, lxxv. (1899) p.
148.


[462] F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. p. 207, § 362;
_Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, ii. 297, iii.
343.


[463] H. F. Standing, “Malagasy _fady_,” _Antananarivo Annual and
Madagascar Magazine_, vol. ii. (reprint of the second four numbers,
1881–1884) (Antananarivo, 1896), p. 257.


[464] Ch. Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), p. 30.


[465] L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p.
142.


[466] L. F. Sauvé, _op. cit._ pp. 17 _sq._


[467] E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p.
499; A. Heinrich, _Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche unter den Sachsen
Siebenbürgens_ (Hermannstadt, 1880), p. 11.


[468] E. H. Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_
(Strasburg, 1900), pp. 421 _sq._


[469] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und
Gebräuche_, p. 445, § 354; J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche
aus Böhmen und Mähren_, p. 95, § 664; A. Peter, _Volksthümliches
aus österreichisch-Schlesien_, ii. 266; Von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld,
_Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 49; E. Sommer, _Sagen, Märchen und
Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen_, p. 148; O. Knoop, _Volkssagen,
Erzählungen, Aberglauben, Gebräuche und Märchen aus dem östlichen
Hinterpommern_, p. 176; A. Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus
Thüringen_, p. 191, § 13; J. F. L. Woeste, _Volksüberlieferungen in
der Grafschaft Mark_, p. 56, § 24; _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde
des Königreichs Bayern_, ii. 298, iv. 2, pp. 379, 382; A. Heinrich,
_Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche unter den Sachsen Siebenbürgens_, pp.
11 _sq._; W. von Schulenberg, _Wendische Volkssagen und Gebräuche aus
dem Spreewald_, p. 252; J. A. E. Köhler, _Volksbrauch, Aberglauben,
Sagen und andre alte Überlieferungen im Voigtlande_, pp. 368 _sq._;
_Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_ (Chemnitz, 1759), p. 103;
M. Toeppen, _Aberglauben aus Masuren_,² p. 68; A. Wuttke, _Der
deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 396, § 657; U. Jahn, _Die deutsche
Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_, pp. 194 _sq._; R. Wuttke,
_Sächsische Volkskunde_² (Dresden, 1901), p. 370; E. Hoffmann-Krayer,
“Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches
Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) p. 260. According to one account,
in leaping from the table you should hold in your hand a long bag
containing flax seed (Woeste, _l.c._). The dancing or leaping is
often done specially by girls or women (Kuhn und Schwartz, Grohmann,
Witzschel, Heinrich, _ll.cc._). Sometimes the women dance in the
sunlight (_Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_, _l.c._); but in
Voigtland the leap from the table should be made by the housewife naked
and at midnight on Shrove Tuesday (Köhler, _l.c._). On Walpurgis Night
the leap is made over an alder branch stuck at the edge of the flax
field (Sommer, _l.c._).


[470] E. Lemke, _Volksthümliches in Ostpreussen_, pp. 8–12; M. Toeppen,
_l.c._


[471] O. Hartung, “Zur Volkskunde aus Anhalt,” _Zeitschrift des Vereins
für Volkskunde_, vii. (1897) pp. 149 _sq._


[472] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1903), p. 122.


[473] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 248.


[474] J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 67.


[475] Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 291.


[476] Eijūb Abēla, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss abergläubischer Gebräuche in
Syrien,” _Zeitschrift des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins_, vii. (1884)
p. 112, § 202. Compare L’Abbé B. Chémali, “Naissance et premier âge au
Liban,” _Anthropos_, v. (1910) pp. 734, 735.


[477] Quoted by D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_ (St.
Petersburg, 1856), ii. 469.


[478] W. Mannhardt (_Baumkultus_, p. 419) promised in a later
investigation to prove that it was an ancient custom at harvest or in
spring to load or pelt trees and plants, as well as the representatives
of the spirit of vegetation, with stones, in order thereby to express
the weight of fruit which was expected. This promise, so far as I
know, he did not live to fulfil. Compare, however, his _Mythologische
Forschungen_, p. 324.


[479] E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_,
pp. 249 _sq._ The placing of the stone on the tree is described as a
punishment, but this is probably a misunderstanding.


[480] G. Pitrè, _Usi e costumi, credenze et pregiudizi del popolo
siciliano_, iii. (Palermo, 1889) pp. 113 _sq._


[481] _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, ii.
299; T. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Österreich_, p.
315. On the other hand, in some parts of north-west New Guinea a woman
with child may not plant, or the crop would be eaten up by pigs; and
she may not climb a tree in the rice-field, or the crop would fail.
See J. L. van Hasselt, “Enige aanteekeningen aangaande de Bewoners der
N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land-
en Volkenkunde_, xxxii. (1889) p. 264; _id._, “Die Papuastämme an der
Geelvinkbai,” _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_,
ix. (1891) p. 102. Similarly the Galelareese say that a pregnant woman
must not sweep under a shaddock tree, or knock the fruit from the
bough, else it will taste sour instead of sweet. See M. J. van Baarda,
“Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot
de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p.
457.


[482] J. V. Grohman, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_,
p. 143, § 1053.


[483] E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) p.
263.


[484] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonia Folklore_, p. 122.


[485] _Census of India, 1901_, vol. iii. p. 206.


[486] Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 615, line
17 ὑπὲρ καρποῦ Δήμητρι ὗν ἐγκύμονα πρωτοτόκον; compare _id._, No.
616, line 61 _sq._, No. 617, line 3; Ovid, _Fasti_, iv. 633 _sq._;
Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 20; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, iv. 22.


[487] J. Gumilla, _Histoire naturelle, civile et géographique de
l’Orénoque_ (Avignon, 1758), iii. 184.


[488] R. Southey, _History of Brazil_, i.² (London, 1822) p. 253.


[489] F. Blumentritt, “Sitten und Bräuche der Ilocanen,” _Globus_,
xlviii. No. 12, p. 202.


[490] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 489.


[491] Rev. J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p.
38.


[492] B. Guttmann, “Trauer und Begräbnissitten der Wadschagga,”
_Globus_, lxxxix. (1906) p. 200.


[493] J. G. Frazer, “On certain Burial Customs as illustrative of
the Primitive Theory of the Soul,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xv. (1886) pp. 69 _sq._


[494] As to negative magic or taboo, see above, pp. 111 _sqq._


[495] M. J. van Baarda, _op. cit._ p. 488.


[496] M. J. van Baarda, _op. cit._ pp. 496 _sq._


[497] _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, ii. 299.


[498] “Lettre du curé de Santiago Tepehuacan,” _Bulletin de la Société
de Géographie_ (Paris), IIme Série, ii. (1834) pp. 181 _sq._, 183.


[499] E. Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nias_ (Milan, 1890), p. 590.


[500] Damien Grangeon, “Les Cham et leurs superstitions,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xxviii. (1896) p. 83.


[501] J. Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” _Nineteenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1900), pt. i. pp.
425–427; compare _id._, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” _Seventh
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1891), p. 329.


[502] H. Geurtjens, “Le Cérémonial des voyages aux Îles Keij,”
_Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 352.


[503] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezan,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) pp. 466, 468.


[504] M. J. van Baarda, _op. cit._ p. 467.


[505] R. Southey, _History of Brazil_, ii. (London, 1817) p. 37.


[506] H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 505; M. Bloomfield,
_Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, p. 240; W. Caland, _Altindisches
Zauberritual_, p. 37.


[507] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 25 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[508] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
624 _sq._


[509] J. Habbema, “Bijgeloof in de Praenger-Regentschappen,” _Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, li. (1900)
p. 113.


[510] D. Louwerier, “Bijgeloovige gebruiken, die door de Javanen worden
in acht genomen bij het bouwen hunner huizen,” _Mededeelingen van wege
het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlviii. (1904) pp. 380 _sq._


[511] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” _Seventh Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1891), p. 389.


[512] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 552.


[513] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 550.


[514] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 462.


[515] F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_,
p. 146.


[516] J. Knebel, “Amulettes javanaises,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xl. (1898) p. 506.


[517] _North Indian Notes and Queries_, ii. 215, No. 760; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896),
i. 261.


[518] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), p. 22.


[519] R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Rutenen,” _Globus_, lxi.
(1892) p. 282.


[520] B. de Sahagun, _Histoire générale des choses de la
Nouvelle-Espagne_ (Paris, 1880), bk. iv. ch. 31, pp. 274 _sq._; E.
Seler, _Altmexikanische Studien_, ii. (Berlin, 1899) pp. 51 _sq._
(_Veröffentlichungen aus dem königlichen Museum für Völkerkunde_, vi.).


[521] J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_, iii. 278 _sq._
(Bohn’s ed.).


[522] W. Henderson, _Folklore of the Northern Counties of England_, pp.
239 _sqq._; J. W. Wolf, _Niederländische Sagen_ (Leipsic, 1843), pp.
363–365.


[523] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum
Oldenburg_, i. 100 _sq._ § 141; J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und
Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_, p. 106 § 758, p. 205 § 1421; A.
Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² pp. 126 _sq._ § 184; A.
Gittée, _De hand en de vingeren in het volksgeloof_, pp. 31 _sqq._
Compare Tettau und Temme, _Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und
Westpreussens_, p. 266.


[524] Aelian, _Nat. Anim._ i. 38.


[525] F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_,
p. 140. The custom of placing coins on the eyes of a corpse to prevent
them from opening is not uncommon. Its observance in England is
attested by the experienced Mrs. Gamp:—“When Gamp was summonsed to his
long home, and I see him a-lying in Guy’s Hospital with a penny piece
on each eye, and his wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should
have fainted away. But I bore up” (C. Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, ch.
xix.).


[526] G. B. Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_, p. 238.


[527] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, i. 284.


[528] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xi. (1879) p. 43;
_id._, _Mœurs et superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp.
30 _sq._


[529] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 750 _sqq._ But the lines are not free
from ambiguity. See F. A. Paley’s note on the passage.


[530] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 302 _sq._


[531] J. Campbell, _Travels in South Africa, Second Journey_ (London,
1822), ii. 206; Barnabas Shaw, _Memorials of South Africa_ (London,
1840), p. 66.


[532] E. Casalis, _The Basutos_, pp. 271 _sq._


[533] E. Casalis, _op. cit._ p. 272.


[534] Rev. James Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Religions, and
Superstitions of South African Tribes,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 132.


[535] A. Leared, _Morocco and the Moors_ (London, 1876), p. 272.


[536] Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas: die geistige
Cultur der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), p. 27.


[537] M. Merker, _Rechtsverhältnisse und Sitten der Wadschagga_ (Gotha,
1902), p. 21 (_Petermanns Mitteilungen_, Ergänzungsheft, No. 138).


[538] F. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin of
the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. pt. i. (1901) p. 160.


[539] H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 505.


[540] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 484.


[541] H. Geurtjens, “Le Cérémonial des voyages aux Iles Keij,”
_Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 352.


[542] H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_ (Neuchâtel, 1898), pp. 472 _sq._


[543] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 244 _sq._


[544] _Journal of American Folk-lore_, xvii. (1904) p. 293, referring
to Hesketh Pritchard, _Through the Heart of Patagonia_ (London, 1902).


[545] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 25 (separate reprint from _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[546] B. A. Hely, “Notes on Totemism, etc., among the Western Tribes,”
_British New Guinea: Annual Report for 1894–95_, p. 56.


[547] H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_ (Neuchâtel, 1898), p. 472.


[548] A. Jaussen, _Coutumes arabes au pays de Moab_ (Paris, 1908), p.
29.


[549] E. Poeppig, _Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazonenstrome_,
ii. 323.


[550] A. Thevet, _Cosmographie universelle_ (Paris, 1575), ii. 946
(980).


[551] A. Jaussen, “Coutumes arabes,” _Revue Biblique_, April 1903, p.
245; _id._, _Coutumes arabes au pays de Moab_, p. 36.


[552] F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_,
p. 147.


[553] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 545
_sq._


[554] _Ibid._ pp. 494 _sq._


[555] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
344.


[556] Aelian, _Nat. Anim._ i. 42, 43, and 48.


[557] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, ii. 234.


[558] C. Lumholtz, _op. cit._ i. 290.


[559] J. Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” _Nineteenth Annual Report of
the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1900), part i. pp. 262,
284, 285, 306, 308.


[560] _Id._, _ib._ p. 262.


[561] _Id._, _ib._ p. 285.


[562] _Id._, _ib._ p. 266.


[563] _Id._, _ib._ p. 309.


[564] _Id._, _ib._ p. 309.


[565] J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), pp.
159 _sq._


[566] J. Mooney, _op. cit._ p. 308.


[567] Scholiast on Plato, _Theaetetus_, p. 160 A.


[568] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 483.


[569] M. J. van Baarda, _op. cit._ p. 534.


[570] E. Chavannes, _Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux_
(St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 134.


[571] Aelian, _Nat. anim._ i. 38.


[572] A. Jaussen, _Coutumes arabes au pays de Moab_, p. 35.


[573] J. Dos Santos, _Eastern Ethiopia_, book i. ch. 20 (G. McCall
Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. 224).


[574] One of these shells is exhibited in the Anthropological Museum at
Berlin, with a label explaining its use. I do not know to what species
it belongs. It appeared to me to be of a sort which may often be seen
on mantelpieces in England.


[575] M. J. van Baarda, _op. cit._ p. 468.


[576] The king was Iphiclus; the wise man was Melampus. See
Apollodorus, i. 9. 12; Eustathius on Homer, _Od._ xi. 292; Schol. on
Theocritus, iii. 43. The way in which the king’s impotence was caused
by the knife is clearly indicated by the scholiast, on Theocritus:
συνέβη ἐπενεγκεῖν αὐτὴν [scil. τὴν μάχαιραν] τοῖς μορίοις τοῦ παιδός.
In this scholium we must correct ἐκτέμνοντι . . . δένδρον into
ἐκτέμνοντι . . . ζῷα. Eustathius (_l.c._) quotes the scholium in this
latter form. The animals were rams, according to Apollodorus.


[577] A. C. Kruijt, “Het ijzer in Midden-Celebes,” _Bijdragen tot de
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, liii. (1901) pp.
157 _sq._, 159.


[578] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, ii. (Leyden, 1907) p. 173.


[579] _G_ri_hya-Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, part ii. p. 146.


[580] _G_ri_hya-Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, part i. pp. 168,
282 _sq._, part ii. p. 188 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xxix. and
xxx.). Compare Sonnerat, _Voyage aux Indes Orientales_ (Paris, 1782),
ii. 81; E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras,
1906), p. 1. So among the Kookies of Northern Cachar in India the young
couple at marriage place each a foot on a large stone in the middle
of the village. See Lieut. R. Stewart, “Notes on Northern Cachar,”
_Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, xxiv. (1855) pp. 620 _sq._
In the old ruined church of Balquhidder in Perthshire there is an
ancient gravestone on which people used to stand barefoot at marriages
and baptisms. See _The Folk-lore Journal_, vi. (1888) p. 271.


[581] Father Abinal, “Astrologie Malgache,” _Missions Catholiques_, xi.
(1879) p. 482.


[582] _The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus_,
translated by O. Elton (London, 1894), p. 16. The original runs thus:
_Lecturi regem veteres affixis humo saxis insistere suffragiaque
promere consueverant, subjectorum lapidum firmitate facti constantiam
ominaturi_ (_Historia Danica_, lib. i. p. 22, ed. P. E. Müller).


[583] Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 7 and 55; Plutarch, _Solon_,
25; Pollux, viii. 86.


[584] Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 657.


[585] Martin, _op. cit._ p. 646.


[586] Martin, _op. cit._ pp. 627 _sq._


[587] W. Munzinger, _Sitten und Recht der Bogos_ (Winterthur, 1859),
pp. 33 _sq._ For an Indian example of swearing on a stone see J. Eliot,
“Observations on the Inhabitants of the Garrow Hills,” _Asiatick
Researches_, iii. 30 _sq._ (8vo ed.). On the custom see further my
article, “Folk-lore in the Old Testament,” in _Anthropological Essays
presented to E. B. Tylor_ (Oxford, 1907), pp. 131 _sqq._


[588] Pausanias, iii. 22. 1; compare _id._ ii. 31. 4.


[589] Ptolemaeus, _Nova Historia_, in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p. 153,
ed. I. Bekker; _id._ in _Mythographi Graeci_, ed. A. Westermann, p. 198.


[590] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
253 _sq._


[591] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 472.


[592] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), pp. 15, 16, 25


[593] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xii. (1880) pp. 273,
287, xxv. (1893) pp. 104–106, 116–118; _id._, _Mœurs et Superstitions
des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp. 217, 218, 222, 292–304.
Compare Glaumont, “Usages, mœurs et coutumes des Néo-Calédoniens,”
_Revue d’Ethnographie_, vii. (1889) pp. 114 _sq._ (whose account of the
stones is borrowed from Father Lambert).


[594] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 181–185.


[595] W. Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_ (Cambridge, 1901), i.
330 _sq._; _id._, “The Origin of Jewellery,” _Report of the British
Association for 1903_ (meeting at Southport), pp. 815 _sq._


[596] _Orphica: Lithica_, 230 _sqq._, ed. G. Hermann. Pliny mentions
(_Nat. Hist._ xxxvii. 192) a white tree-stone (“_dendritis alba_”)
which, if buried under a tree that was being felled, would prevent the
woodman’s axe from being blunted.


[597] _Orphica: Lithica_, 189 _sqq._; compare Pliny, _Nat. Hist._
xxxvii. 162.


[598] W. Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, i. 330.


[599] J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 158.


[600] K. Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855),
p. 92.


[601] _Orphica: Lithica_, 335 _sqq._ This was perhaps the
“dragon-stone” which was supposed to confer extraordinary sharpness
of vision on its owner. See Ptolemaeus Hephaestionis, _Nov. Hist._
v. p. 150, in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, ed. I. Bekker, p. 192 of A.
Westermann’s _Mythographi Graeci_.


[602] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxvii. 124.


[603] _Orphica: Lithica_, 320 _sq._


[604] J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 158. On the magic of
precious stones see also E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique
du Nord_, pp. 82 _sqq._


[605] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 361 _sqq._, 369
_sqq._


[606] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, pp. 131
_sq._


[607] _The G_ri_hya-Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, part i. pp.
43, 285 _sq._, part ii. pp. 47 _sq._, 193 _sqq._ (_Sacred Books of the
East_, vols. xxix. and xxx.). In the last passage the address to the
star is fuller and more explicit. A part of it runs thus:—“He who knows
thee (the polar star) as the firm, immovable Brahman with its children
and with its grandchildren, with such a man children and grandchildren
will firmly dwell, servants and pupils, garments and woollen blankets,
bronze and gold, wives and kings, food, safety, long life, glory,
renown, splendour, strength, holy lustre, and the enjoyment of food.
May all these things firmly and immovably dwell with me!”


[608] P. Sébillot, _Légendes, croyances et superstitions de la mer_
(Paris, 1886), i. 136.


[609] P. Sébillot, _op. cit._ i. 135.


[610] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 499.


[611] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ix. 42.


[612] _Ibid_. ii. 220.


[613] Philostratus, _Vit. Apollon._ v. 2.


[614] P. Sébillot, _Légendes, croyances et superstitions de la mer_, i.
132.


[615] P. Sébillot, _op. cit._ i. 129–132; M. E. James in _Folklore_,
ix. (1898) p. 189.


[616] Dickens, _David Copperfield_, chap. xxx.


[617] W. Henderson, _Folklore of the Northern Counties of England_
(London, 1879), p. 58.


[618] _Henry V._ Act ii. Scene 3.


[619] Rev. C. Harrison, “Religion and Family among the Haidas,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxi. (1892) pp. 17 sq.


[620] C. Martin, “Über die Eingeborenen von Chiloe,” _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, ix. (1877) p. 179.


[621] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 465.


[622] J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, i. 60–63.
Among the hairpins provided for a woman’s burial is almost always one
which is adorned with small silver figures of a stag, a tortoise, a
peach, and a crane. These being emblems of longevity, it is supposed
that the pin which is decorated with them will absorb some of their
life-giving power and communicate it to the woman in whose hair it is
ultimately to be fastened. See De Groot, _op. cit._ i. 55–57.


[623] J. J. M. de Groot, _op. cit._ iii. 977.


[624] J. J. M. de Groot, _op. cit._ iii. 1043 _sq._


[625] _Mission Pavie, Indo-Chine, 1879–1895, Géographie et voyages_,
i. (Paris, 1901) pp. 35–37. The kind of optical illusion which this
mock execution was intended to expiate is probably caused by a mist or
exhalation rising from damp ground.


[626] N. Adriani en A. C. Kruijt, “Van Posso naar Parigi,
Sigi en Lindoe,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xlii. (1898) p. 524.


[627] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” _Seventh Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1891), p. 352; _id._ in
_Nineteenth Annual Report, etc._, part i. (Washington, 1900) p. 295.


[628] _Relations des Jésuites_, 1642, pp. 86 _sq._ (Canadian reprint).


[629] W. Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 454 _sqq._; Father Abinal,
“Astrologie Malgache,” _Missions Catholiques_, xi. (1879) pp. 432–434,
481–483. Compare J. B. Piolet, _Madagascar et les Hovas_ (Paris, 1895),
pp. 72 _sq._


[630] The principles of contagious magic are lucidly stated and
copiously illustrated by Mr. E. S. Hartland in the second volume of his
_Legend of Perseus_ (London, 1895).


[631] Meantime I may refer the reader to _The Golden Bough_, Second
Edition, i. 367 _sqq._


[632] R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jähre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907),
pp. 118 _sq._


[633] As to the diffusion of this custom in Australia see above, p. 97.


[634] See pp. 97 _sqq._


[635] F. Bonney, “On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River
Darling, New South Wales,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xiii. (1884) p. 128. For the practice of some Victorian tribes see
above, p. 98.


[636] A. W. Howitt, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xiii. (1884) pp. 456 _sq._; _id._, _Native Tribes of South-East
Australia_, p. 561.


[637] A. W. Howitt, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xvi.
(1887) p. 55, xx. (1891) p. 81; _id._, _Native Tribes of South-East
Australia_, pp. 561 _sq._


[638] A. W. Howitt, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xx.
(1891) pp. 80 _sq._; _id._, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_,
pp. 655 _sq._


[639] Father Porte, “Les Reminiscences d’un missionnaire du
Basutoland,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxviii. (1896) p. 312.


[640] Charlotte Latham, “West Sussex Superstitions lingering in 1868,”
_Folklore Record_, i. (1878) p. 44.


[641] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 330, § 526;
F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 307; E. Krause,
in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv. (1883) p. 79; J. Vonbun,
_Volkssagen aus Vorarlberg_, p. 67; J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur
deutschen Mythologie_, i. p. 208, §§ 37, 39; G. Lammert, _Volksmedizin
und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern_, p. 128; H. Prahn, “Glaube
und Brauch in der Mark Brandenburg,” _Zeitschrift des Vereins für
Volkskunde_, i. (1891) p. 193; H. Raff, “Aberglaube in Bayern,” _ibid._
viii. (1898) p. 400; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick,
1896), p. 213. Compare J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus
Böhmen und Mähren_, p. 169, § 1197.


[642] F. S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 546.


[643] S. Weissenberg, “Kinderfreud und -leid bei den südrussischen
Juden,” _Globus_, lxxxiii. (1903) p. 317.


[644] W. Wyatt Gill, _Jottings from the Pacific_, pp. 222 _sq._ On
the use of roof-thatch in superstitious ceremonies see W. Caland,
_Altindisches Zauberritual_, pp. 82 n.² 182 _sq._ In the present case
the virtue of the thatch clearly depends on its harbouring rats. Some
Dravidian tribes forbid a menstruous woman to touch the house-thatch
(W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_,
Westminster, 1896, i. 269).


[645] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua_, p. 176.


[646] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 75.


[647] C. M. Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede
Serie, x. (1893) p. 822.


[648] F. Blumentritt, “Sitten und Bräuche der Ilocanen,” _Globus_,
xlviii. No. 12, p. 200.


[649] B. de Sahagun, _Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle
Espagne_, pp. 316 _sq._


[650] E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p.
510, § 415.


[651] J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und
Mähren_, p. 111, § 822.


[652] A. A. Perera, “Glimpses of Cinghalese Social Life,” _Indian
Antiquary_, xxxii. (1903) p. 435.


[653] J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und
Mähren_, pp. 55 at top, p. 111, § 825. Mr. A. P. Goudy kindly
translated the Czech words for me.


[654] E. Krause, “Abergläubische Kuren und sonstiger Aberglaube in
Berlin,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv. (1883) p. 84.


[655] J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 39.


[656] J. Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” _Nineteenth Annual Report of
the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1900), part i. p. 266.


[657] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1903), p. 20.


[658] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” _Memoir
of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific
Expedition_, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) p. 308.


[659] J. V. Grohmann, _op. cit._ p. 111, § 823; A. Wuttke, _Der
deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 330, § 527.


[660] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
593.


[661] Rasmussen, _Additamenta ad historiam Arabum ante Islamismum_, p.
64.


[662] L’Abbé B. Chémali, “Naissance et premier âge au Liban,”
_Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 745.


[663] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 68.


[664] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants_²
(London, 1870), p. 184.


[665] Elsdon Best, quoted by W. H. Goldie, “Maori Medical Lore,”
_Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute_, xxxvii.
(1904) pp. 94 _sq._


[666] George Bennett, _Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir
Coast, Singapore and China_ (London, 1834), i. 128, note*. As to
_fenua_ or _whenua_ in the sense of “placenta” and “land,” see E.
Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_ (Wellington, N.Z.,
1891), pp. 620 _sq._


[667] E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central
Australia_, ii. 323.


[668] G. F. Moore, _Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common
Use amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia_, p. 9 (published
along with the author’s _Diary of Ten Years’ Eventful Life of an Early
Settler in Western Australia_, London, 1884, but paged separately).


[669] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 467.


[670] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
607.


[671] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 608. The writers add that the
child has no special connexion with the tree in after years. We may
suspect that such a connexion did exist in former times.


[672] W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography_, Bulletin No. 5
(Brisbane, 1903), p. 18. As to the mode of determining where the soul
of the child has dwelt since its last incarnation, see above, pp. 99
_sq._


[673] K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den
Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, pp. 92; M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, p. 165.


[674] The Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to me dated May 29, 1901.


[675] Dr. Hahl, “Mittheilungen über Sitten und rechtliche Verhältnisse
auf Ponape,” _Ethnologisches Notizblatt_, ii. (Berlin, 1901) p. 10.


[676] R. Parkinson, “Beiträge zur Ethnologie der Gilbertinsulaner,”
_Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) p. 35. In these
islands the children of well-to-do parents are always adopted by other
people as soon as they are weaned. See _ib._ p. 33.


[677] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 461.


[678] C. M. Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede
Serie, x. (1893) pp. 816 _sq._ Compare J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik-en
kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 236.


[679] J. G. F. Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 354.


[680] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 303.


[681] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 208.


[682] Riedel, _op. cit._ pp. 23, 135, 236, 328, 391, 417, 449, 468.


[683] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 135.


[684] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 391.


[685] Van Schmidt, “Aanteekeningen nopens de zeden, gewoonten en
gebruiken, etc., der bevolking van de eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe,
Noessa Laut,” etc., _Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië_, Batavia, 1843,
dl. ii. pp. 523–526. The customs and beliefs on this subject in the
adjoining island of Amboyna seem to be identical. See J. G. F. Riedel,
_op. cit._ pp. 73 _sq._ According to Riedel, if the pot with the
afterbirth does not sink in the water, it is a sign that the wife has
been unfaithful.


[686] Riedel, _op. cit._ p. 326.


[687] N. Adriani and A. C. Kruijt, “Van Posso naar Parigi,
Sigi en Lindoe,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xlii. (1898) pp. 434 _sq._ In Parigi after a
birth the _kindspek_ (?) is wrapt in a leaf and hung in a tree at some
distance from the house. For the people think that if it were burned,
the child would die (_ibid._ p. 434).


[688] N. Adriani and A. C. Kruijt, “Van Posso naar Mori,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederl. Zendelinggenootschap_, xliv. (1900)
pp. 161 _sq._


[689] A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de
Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” _ibid._ p. 218.


[690] _Id., ib._ p. 236.


[691] B. F. Matthes, _Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes_
(The Hague, 1875), pp. 57–60.


[692] G. Heijmering, “Zeden en gewoonten op het eiland Timor,”
_Tijdschrift voor Neêrland’s Indië_, 1845, pp. 279 _sq._


[693] J. H. Letteboer, “Eenige aanteekeningen omtrent de gebruiken bij
zwangerschap en geboorte onder de Savuneezen,” _Mededeelingen van wege
het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlvi. (1902) p. 47.


[694] G. Heijmering, “Zeden en gewoonten op het eiland Rottie,”
_Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië_, 1843, dl. ii. pp. 637 _sq._


[695] J. G. F. Riedel, _The Island of Flores_, p. 7 (reprinted from the
_Revue Coloniale Internationale_).


[696] Julius Jacobs, _Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs_ (Batavia, 1883),
p. 9.


[697] C. F. Winter, “Instellingen, gewoonten en gebruiken der Javanen
te Soerakarta,” _Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië_, 1843, dl. i. pp.
695 _sq._; P. J. Veth, _Java_, i. (Haarlem, 1875) pp. 639 _sq._; C.
Poensen, “Iets over de kleeding der Javanen,” _Mededeelingen van wege
het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xx. (1876) p. 281.


[698] D. Louwerier, “Bijgeloovige gebruiken, die door de Javanen worden
in acht genomen bij de verzorging en opvoeding bunner kinderen,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlix.
(1905) pp. 254 _sq._


[699] P. J. Veth, _Java_, i. 231.


[700] H. Ris, “De onderafdeeling klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan en
hare Bevolking met uitzondering van de Oeloes,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlvi. (1896) p. 504.


[701] A. L. Heyting, “Beschrijving der onderafdeeling Groot Mandeling
en Batang-Natal,” _Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, xiv. (1897), p. 292.


[702] J. C. van Eerde, “Een huwelijk bij de Minangkabausche Maliers,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) p.
493.


[703] A. L. van Hasselt, _Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra_
(Leyden, 1882), p. 267.


[704] M. Joustra, “Het leven, de zeden en gewoonten der Bataks,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlvi.
(1902) pp. 407 _sq._ The transferable soul is in Batta _tendi_, in
Malay _sumangat_. Mr. Joustra thinks that the placenta is, in the
opinion of the Battas, the original seat of this soul.


[705] J. H. Neumann, “De _tĕndi_ in verband met Si Dajang,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_,
xlviii. (1904) p. 102.


[706] A. H. F. J. Nusselein, “Beschrijving van het landschap Pasir,”
_Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_,
lviii. (1905) pp. 537 _sq._


[707] E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 370.


[708] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_ (London, 1907), pp. 124 _sq._


[709] N. Annandale, “Customs of the Malayo-Siamese,” _Fasciculi
Malayenses_, Anthropology, part ii. (a) (May 1904) p. 5.


[710] J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, iv. (Leyden,
1901) pp. 396 _sq._


[711] H. von Siebold, _Ethnologische Studien über die Aino_ (Berlin,
1881), p. 32.


[712] Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost Afrikas: die materielle
Cultur der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1893), p. 192.


[713] J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
pp. 33, 45, 46, 63, 76; _id._ “Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda,”
_Man_, vii. (1907) pp. 164 _sq._ In the former of these two accounts
Mr. Roscoe speaks of the placenta, not the navel-string, as the “twin”
(_mulongo_).


[714] Garcilasso de la Vega, _Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, bk. ii.
ch. 24, vol. i. p. 186, Markham’s translation.


[715] B. de Sahagun, _Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle
Espagne_, p. 310; compare pp. 240, 439, 440 (Jourdanet and Simeon’s
translation).


[716] _Relations des Jésuites_, 1639, p. 44 (Canadian reprint).


[717] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” pp. 304
_sq._ (_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup
North Pacific Expedition_, vol. i. part iv.).


[718] Fr. Boas in _Eleventh Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 5 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1896_).


[719] J. Mooney, “The Indian Navel Cord,” _Journal of American
Folk-lore_, xvii. (1904) p. 197.


[720] _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iv. 2,
p. 346.


[721] E. Krause, “Abergläubische Kuren und sonstiger Aberglaube in
Berlin und nächster Umgebung,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv. (1883)
p. 84.


[722] F. Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), ii. 16.


[723] R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Rutenen in der Bukowina und
Galizien,” _Globus_, lxi. (1892) p. 282.


[724] A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 379
_sq._


[725] J. C. Atkinson, in _County Folklore_, ii. (London, 1901) p. 68.


[726] A. _Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² § 305, p. 203; H.
Ploss, _Das Kind_,² i. 12 _sqq._


[727] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ ii. 728, note 1. As to the East
Indian belief see above, pp. 187 _sq._


[728] M. Bartels, “Islandischer Brauch und Volksglaube in Bezug auf die
Nachkommenschaft,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxxii. (1900) pp. 70
_sq._


[729] Aelius Lampridius, _Antoninus Diadumenus_, 4; J. Grimm, _loc.
cit._; H. Ploss, _Das Kind_,² i. pp. 13, 14.


[730] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 135.


[731] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ ii. 728 _sq._, iii. 266 _sq._;
M. Bartels, _op. cit._ p. 70. Grimm speaks as if it were only the caul
which became a _fylgia_. I follow Dr. Bartels.


[732] Meantime I may refer to _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition,
iii. 350 _sqq._ For other superstitions concerning the afterbirth and
navel-string see H. Ploss, _Das Kind_,² i. 15 _sqq._, ii. 198 _sq._
The connexion of these parts of the body with the idea of the external
soul has already been indicated by Mr. E. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_,
London, 1902, p. 119).


[733] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxviii. 36.


[734] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 310.


[735] Fr. Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of
the Kwakiutl Indians,” _Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895_,
p. 440.


[736] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 25 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[737] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 667.


[738] Francis Bacon, _Natural History_, cent. x. § 998. Compare J.
Brand _Popular Antiquities_, iii. 305, quoting Werenfels. In Dryden’s
play _The Tempest_ (Act v. Scene 1) Ariel directs Prospero to anoint
the sword which wounded Hippolito and to wrap it up close from the air.
See Dryden’s _Works_, ed. Scott, vol. iii. p. 191 (first edition).


[739] W. W. Groome, “Suffolk Leechcraft,” _Folklore_, vi. (1895) p.
126. Compare _County Folklore: Suffolk_, edited by Lady E. C. Gurdon,
pp. 25 _sq._ A like belief and practice occur in Sussex (C. Latham,
“West Sussex Superstitions,” _Folklore Record_, i. 43 _sq._). See
further E. S. Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_, ii. 169–172.


[740] “Death from Lockjaw at Norwich,” _The Peoples Weekly Journal for
Norfolk_, July 19, 1902, p. 8.


[741] F. N. Webb, in _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) p. 337.


[742] C. Partridge, _Cross River Natives_ (London, 1905), p. 295.


[743] F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 305, compare
277.


[744] H. Pröhle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p. 82.


[745] J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. p. 225, § 282.


[746] Bavaria, _Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iv.
1, p. 223. A further recommendation is to stroke the wound or the
instrument with a twig of an ash-tree and then keep the twig in a dark
place.


[747] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 250.


[748] F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 302; W. Kolbe,
_Hessische Volks- Sitten und Gebräuche im Lichte der heidnischen
Vorzeit_ (Marburg, 1888), p. 87.


[749] M. J. Erdweg, “Die Bewohner der Insel Tumleo, Berlinhafen,
Deutsch-Neu-Guinea,” _Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft
in Wien_, xxxii. (1902) p. 287.


[750] M. J. Erdweg, _loc. cit._


[751] B. Hagen, _Unter den Papua’s_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), p. 269.


[752] A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine Men,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xvi. (1887) pp. 28 _sq._; _id._, _Native
Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 363–365.


[753] B. T. Somerville, “Notes on some Islands of the New Hebrides,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxiii. (1894) p. 19.


[754] Theocritus, _Id._ ii. 53 _sq._ Similarly the witch in Virgil
(_Eclog._ viii. 92 _sqq._) buries under her threshold certain personal
relics (_exuviae_) which her lover had left behind.


[755] Tettau und Temme, _Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und
Westpreussens_ (Berlin, 1837), pp. 283 _sq._ For more evidence of the
same sort see E. S. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, ii. 86 _sqq._


[756] E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_,
pp. 245 _sq._; A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen_,
ii. 192; _id._, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers_,² pp. 200 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Die Götterwelt der deutschen und nordischen Völker_, i.
203 note. Compare Montanus, _Die deutsche Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und
deutscher Volksglaube_, p. 117.


[757] Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 250; A. W. Howitt,
“On Australian Medicine Men,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xvi. (1887) pp. 26 _sq._; _id._, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_, pp. 366 _sq._ According to one account a cross
should be made in the footprint with a piece of quartz, and round
the footprint thus marked the bones of kangaroos should be stuck in
the ground. See R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 476
_sq._ These and many of the following examples were cited by me in
_Folklore_, i. (1890) pp. 157 _sqq._ For more instances of the same
sort see E. S. Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_, ii. (London, 1895)
78–83.


[758] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 541.


[759] _Id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 340 _sq._


[760] R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907),
p. 605.


[761] Elsdon Best, “Spiritual Concepts of the Maori,” _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, ix. (1900) p. 196.


[762] Basil C. Thomson, _Savage Island_ (London, 1902), p. 97.


[763] M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 512.


[764] L. Hearn, _Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan_ (London, 1894), ii. 604.


[765] F. Mason, “On Dwellings, Works of Art, Laws, etc., of the
Karens,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, xxxvii. (1868)
part ii. p. 149.


[766] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), ii. 280.


[767] _Id._, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh_, ii. 221.


[768] M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, p. 295; W. Caland,
_Altindisches Zauberritual_, pp. 162 _sq._


[769] A. Hillebrandt, _Vedische Opfer und Zauber_ (Strasburg, 1897), p.
173.


[770] Josaphat Hahn, “Die Ovaherero,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für
Erdkunde zu Berlin_, iv. (1869) p. 503.


[771] H. Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_, pp. 313 _sq._


[772] A. B. Ellis, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 94.


[773] J. Teit, “The Shuswap” (Leyden and New York, 1909) p. 613
(_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North
Pacific Expedition_, vol. ii. part vii.).


[774] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, p. 59.


[775] K. Bartsch, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg_, ii.
329 _sq._, §§ 1597, 1598, 1601^a.


[776] J. L. M. Noguès, _Les Mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en
Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), pp. 169 _sq._; C. de Mensignac, _Recherches
ethnographiques sur la salive et le crachat_ (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 45
note.


[777] _County Folklore: Suffolk_, edited by Lady E. C. Gurdon, p. 201.


[778] Josaphat Hahn, _loc. cit._; K. Bartsch, _op. cit._ ii. 330,
334, §§ 1599, 1611^{abc}, compare p. 332, § 1607; R. Andree,
_Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche_, Neue Folge (Leipsic,
1889), pp. 8, 11.


[779] K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_,
p. 558.


[780] J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und
Mähren_, p. 200, § 1402.


[781] Tettau and Temme, _Die Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und
Westpreussens_, p. 267; A. Bezzenberger, _Litauische Forschungen_
(Göttingen, 1882), p. 69.


[782] K. Bartsch, _op. cit._ ii. 330, § 1599.


[783] Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) p. 79.


[784] F. S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 165.


[785] Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, i. p. 40, ed. P. E. Müller
(pp. 28 _sq._, O. Elton’s English translation).


[786] Aelian, _De natura animalium_, i. 36.


[787] _Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum_, ed. F. G. A. Mullach, i. 510.


[788] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,² p. 127, § 186.


[789] J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 54.


[790] Theophilus Hahn, _Tsuni-Goam_ (London, 1881), pp. 84 _sq._


[791] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” p. 371 (_The
Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. i. part iv.).


[792] Peter Jones, _History of the Ojebway Indians_, p. 154.


[793] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 389.


[794] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_, pp. 121 _sq._


[795] J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_ (London, 1901), p.
516.


[796] H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_, part iii. pp.
345 _sq._


[797] A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine Men,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xvi. (1887) pp. 26 _sq._; _id._, _Native
Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 366.


[798] R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 475.


[799] A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_ (London, 1901), p. 202.


[800] M. J. Erdweg, “Die Bewohner der Insel Tumleo, Berlinhafen,
Deutsch-Neu-Guinea,” _Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft
in Wien_, xxxii. (1902) p. 287.


[801] K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der Neuen
Dettelsauer Mission_, Heft iii. (Barmen, 1898) p. 10.


[802] Jamblichus, _Adhortatio ad philosophiam_, 21; Plutarch, _Quaest.
conviv._ viii. 7; Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ v. 5, p. 661, ed.
Potter. Compare Diogenes Laertius, _Vit. philos._ viii. 1. 17; Suidas,
_s.v._ “Pythagoras.”


[803] For detailed proof of this I may refer to my article, “Some
popular Superstitions of the Ancients,” _Folklore_, i. (1890) pp. 147
_sqq._


[804] E. Casalis, _The Basutos_, p. 273.


[805] J. Richardson, _Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara_ (London,
1848), ii. 65.


[806] Jamblichus, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria, Diogenes Laertius,
Suidas, _ll.cc._


[807] É. Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances superstitieuses
des Cambodgiens,” _Cochinchine Française: excursions et
reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), p. 163.


CHAPTER IV—Magic and Religion


[808] Malay magic in particular is deeply tinctured with a belief in
spirits, to whom the magician appeals by kindly words and small gifts
of food, drink, and even money. See R. J. Wilkinson, _Malay Beliefs_
(London and Leyden, 1906), pp. 67 _sqq._ Here, therefore, religion is
encroaching on magic, as it might naturally be expected to do in a race
so comparatively advanced as the Malays.


[809] “_Religio est, quae superioris cujusdam naturae, quam divinam
vocant, curam caerimoniamque adfert_,” Cicero, _De inventione_, ii. 161.


[810] James ii. 17.


[811] “Piety is not a religion, though it is the soul of all religions.
A man has not a religion simply by having pious inclinations, any more
than he has a country simply by having philanthropy. A man has not a
country until he is a citizen in a state, until he undertakes to follow
and uphold certain laws, to obey certain magistrates, and to adopt
certain ways of living and acting. Religion is neither a theology nor a
theosophy; it is more than all this; it is a discipline, a law, a yoke,
an indissoluble engagement” (Joubert, quoted by Matthew Arnold, _Essays
in Criticism_, First Series, London, 1898, p. 288).


[812] Micah vi. 8.


[813] James i. 27.


[814] The opposition of principle between magic and religion is well
brought out by Sir A. C. Lyall in his _Asiatic Studies_, First Series
(London, 1899), i. 99 _sqq._ It is also insisted on by Mr. F. B. Jevons
in his _Introduction to the History of Religion_ (London, 1896). The
distinction is clearly apprehended and sharply maintained by Professor
H. Oldenberg in his notable book _Die Religion des Veda_ (Berlin,
1894); see especially pp. 58 _sq._, 311 _sqq._, 476 _sqq._ Lord Avebury
has courteously pointed out to me that the fundamental difference
between magic and religion was dwelt on by him many years ago. See his
_Origin of Civilisation_ (London, 1870), pp. 116, 164 _sq._, and the
Preface to the sixth edition of that work (London, 1902), p. vi. I am
glad to find myself in agreement with Lord Avebury on this subject, and
only regret that in preparing my second edition I was unaware that the
view here taken has the support of his high authority. When I wrote
this book originally I failed to realise the extent of the opposition
between magic and religion, because I had not formed a clear general
conception of the nature of religion, and was disposed to class magic
loosely under it.


[815] A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_ (Münster i. W.,
1890), pp. 142–145, 148; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de
l’Orient classique: les origines_ (Paris, 1895), pp. 212 _sq._


[816] Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, x. 11, quoting Porphyry.


[817] J. A. Dubois, _Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de
l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), ii. 60 _sqq._


[818] Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_ (London,
1883), pp. 201 _sq._


[819] To prevent misconception I would ask the reader to observe that
the earlier stage here spoken of, in which magic is confused with
religion, is not, in my opinion, the earliest of all, having been
preceded by a still earlier stage in which magic existed alone. See
below, pp. 233 _sqq._ On my view, the evolution of thought on this
subject has passed through three stages: first, a stage in which magic
existed without religion; second, a stage in which religion, having
arisen, co-operated, and was to some extent confused, with magic; and
third, a stage in which, the radical difference of principle between
the two having been recognised, their relation was that of open
hostility.


[820] See above, pp. 72, 77 _sq._, 130, 163 _sq._


[821] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 191 _sq._ The word
_mana_ is Polynesian as well as Melanesian. In the Maori language it
means “authority,” especially “supernatural power,” “divine authority,”
“having qualities which ordinary persons or things do not possess.”
See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_ (Wellington,
N.Z., 1891), p. 203. Compare R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand
and its Inhabitants_,² p. 184, “the _mana_, virtue of the god.”


[822] H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 59.


[823] H. Oldenberg, _op. cit._ p. 477. For particular examples of the
blending of magical with religious ritual in ancient India see pp. 311
_sqq._, 369 _sq._, 476 _sqq._, 522 _sq._ of the same work.


[824] S. Lévi, _La Doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brâhmaṇas_ (Paris,
1898), p. 129.


[825] M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, pp. xlv. _sq._
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xlii.).


[826] W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_, p. ix.


[827] O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_
(Strasburg, 1901), pp. 637 _sq._ In ancient Arabia the _kâhin_
(etymologically equivalent to the Hebrew _kôhen_, “priest”) seems to
have been rather a soothsayer than a priest. See J. Wellhausen, _Reste
arabischen Heidentums_² (Berlin, 1897), pp. 134, 143. The confusion of
magic with religion, of spell with prayer, may also be detected in the
incantations employed by Toda sorcerers at the present day. See W. H.
R. Rivers, _The Todas_, pp. 272 _sq._: “The formulae of magic and of
the dairy ritual are of the same nature, though the differentiation
between the sorcerer and the priest who use them is even clearer than
that between the sorcerer and the medicine-man. It is probable that
the names of the gods with the characteristic formulae of the prayer
are later additions to the magical incantation; that at some time the
sorcerer has added the names of the most important of his deities to
the spells and charms which at one time were thought to be sufficient
for his purpose.”


[828] G. Maspero, _Études de mythologie et d’archéologie égyptienne_
(Paris, 1893), i. 106.


[829] A. Erman, _Ägypten und ägyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 471.


[830] A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_ (Münster i. W.,
1890), p. 154.


[831] A. Wiedemann, “Ein altägyptischer Weltschöpfungsmythus,” _Am
Urquell_, N.F. ii. (1898) pp. 95 _sq._


[832] J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883–1887), ii, 78. In Beauce and Perche it was especially
conflagrations caused by lightning which the priest was supposed to
extinguish by the recitation of certain secret formulas. There was a
regular expression for this procedure, namely, “barring the fire.” See
F. Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_, i. 216.


[833] Amélie Bosquet, _La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse_ (Paris
and Rouen, 1845), p. 308.


[834] See above, p. 225.


[835] L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_ (Paris,
1896), i. 455 _sq._, iii. 217 _sq._, 222 _sqq._ Compare _id._,
_Reminiscences populaires de la Provence_ (Paris, 1885), pp. 288
_sqq._; D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_ (Paris, 1854),
pp. 31 _sqq._


[836] J. F. Bladé, _Quatorze superstitions populaires de la Gascogne_
(Agen, 1883), pp. 16 _sq._


[837] For the evidence see my _Totemism and Exogamy_, vol. i. pp. 141
_sqq._


[838] The suggestion has been made by Prof. H. Oldenberg (_Die Religion
des Veda_, p. 59), who seems, however, to regard a belief in spirits as
part of the raw material of magic. If the view which I have put forward
tentatively is correct, faith in magic is probably older than a belief
in spirits. The same view as to the priority of magic to religion, and
apparently also as to the absence of spirits from primitive magic, was
held by Hegel. It was not until long after the discussion in the text
had been written that I became aware that my conclusions had been to a
large extent anticipated by the German philosopher. See Appendix at the
end of this volume.


[839] After a visit to the ruined Greek temples of Paestum, whose
beauty and splendour impressed him all the more by contrast with the
savagery of the surrounding peasantry, Renan wrote: “_J’ai tremblé
pour la civilisation, en la voyant si limitée, assise sur une faible
assiette, reposant sur si peu d’individus dans le pays même où elle
est regnante_.” See E. Renan et M. Berthelot, _Correspondance_ (Paris,
1898), pp. 75 _sq._


[840] See above, pp. 68 sq.; “The Witch-burning at Clonmel,”
_Folklore_, vi. (1895) pp. 373–384; F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und
religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, pp. 144 _sqq._


[841] A. Erman, _Ägypten und ägyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 471.


[842] C. Fossey, _La Magie Assyrienne_ (Paris, 1902), pp. 123, 125.


[843] C. Fossey, _op. cit._ pp. 137–139. For the incident of the
magical disappearance and reappearance of the garment, see P. Jensen,
_Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen_ (Berlin, 1900), p. 23; R. F.
Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_ (New York, 1901), p. 291.


[844] H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp. 66–68, 514–517.


[845] Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder, Mythus und Sage_ (Strasburg, 1902), pp.
177–203. Compare J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ ii. 1024–1026.


[846] G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i. 24
_sqq._


CHAPTER V—The Magical Control of the Weather


[847] See above, pp. 214 _sq._


[848] W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_, p. 342, note.
The heathen Swedes appear to have mimicked thunder, perhaps as a
rain-charm, by means of large bronze hammers, which they called Thor’s
hammers. See Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, lib. xiii. p. 630,
ed. P. E. Müller; Olaus Magnus, _Historia_, iii. 8.


[849] K. v. Bruchhausen, in _Globus_, lxxvi. (1899) p. 253. There seem
to be two villages in Wallachia that bear the name of Ploska. The
reference may be to one of them.


[850] C. F. H. Campen, “De Godsdienstbegrippen der Halmaherasche
Alfoeren,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_,
xxvii. (1882) p. 447.


[851] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua_, p. 114.


[852] G. A. J. Hazen, “Kleine bijdragen tot de ethnografie en folklore
van Java,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_,
xlvi. (1903) p. 298.


[853] R. Parkinson, _Im Bismarck Archipel_, p. 143. Compare Joachim
Graf Pfeil, _Studien und Beobachtungen aus der Südsee_ (Brunswick,
1899), pp. 139 _sq._


[854] J. Owen Dorsey, “Omaha Sociology,” _Third Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1884), p. 347. Compare Charlevoix,
_Voyage dans l’Amérique septentrionale_, ii. 187.


[855] _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_, Nouvelle Edition, vii. 29 _sq._


[856] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ (London, 1903), i. 180, 330.


[857] J. Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_ (London, 1893), p. 10.


[858] J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie occidentale_, ii.
180.


[859] M. Merker, _Rechtsverhältnisse und Sitten der Wadschagga_ (Gotha,
1902), p. 34 (_Petermanns Mitteilungen_, Ergänzungsheft. No. 138).


[860] Fr. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_ (Berlin,
1894), p. 588.


[861] R. Sutherland Rattray, Some _Folk-lore Stories and Songs in
Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 118 _sq._


[862] E. Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, p. 583.


[863] W. Weston, in _The Geographical Journal_, vii. (1896) p. 143;
_id._, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxvi. (1897) p.
30; _id._, _Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps_, p.
161. The ceremony is not purely magical, for it is intended to attract
the attention of the powerful spirit who has a small shrine on the top
of the mountain.


[864] J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_ (London, 1901),
p. 333. Some of the ancient processions with ships may perhaps have
been rain-charms. See J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ i. 213–220;
Pausanias, i. 29. 1, with my note.


[865] Tournier, _Notice sur le Laos Français_ (Hanoi, 1900), p. 80.
In the temple of the Syrian goddess at Hierapolis on the Euphrates
there was a chasm into which water was poured twice a year by people
who assembled for the purpose from the whole of Syria and Arabia. See
Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 12 sq. The ceremony was perhaps a rain-charm.
Compare Pausanias, i. 18. 7, with my notes.


[866] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
313 _sq._


[867] A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine-Men,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xvi. (1887) p. 35; _id._, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_, p. 398.


[868] R. Salvado, _Mémoires historiques sur l’Australie_ (Paris, 1854),
p. 262.


[869] W. Stanbridge, “On the Aborigines of Victoria,” _Transactions of
the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S., i. (1861) p. 300. This use
of fire to make rain is peculiar. By analogy we should expect it rather
to be resorted to as a mode of stopping rain. See below.


[870] P. B. Noskow j, _Maqrizii de valle Hadhramaut libellus arabice
editus et illustratus_ (Bonn, 1866), pp. 25 _sq._


[871] T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 308.


[872] Rascher, “Die Sulka,” _Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) p.
225; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, pp. 196 _sq._


[873] _Indian Antiquary_, xxiv. (1895) p. 359.


[874] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 398.


[875] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
315.


[876] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” p. 345
(_Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North
Pacific Expedition_, vol. i. part iv.).


[877] J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_, p. 333.


[878] A. C. Kruijt, “Regen lokken en regen verdrijven bij de Toradja’s
van Midden Celebes,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) p. 2.


[879] J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), p.
276.


[880] E. M. Gordon, _Indian Folk Tales_ (London, 1908), p. 20; _id._ in
_Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, New Series,
i. (1905) p. 183.


[881] W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central
Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 167.


[882] W. E. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 168; _id._, _North Queensland
Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5_ (Brisbane, 1903), p. 10.


[883] S. Gason, “The Dieyerie Tribe,” _Native Tribes of South
Australia_, pp. 276 _sqq._; A. W. Howitt, “The Dieri and other
Kindred Tribes of Central Australia,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xx. (1891) pp. 91 _sq._; _id._, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_, pp. 394–396. As to the Mura-muras, see A. W.
Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 475 _sqq._, 779
_sqq._


[884] A. W. Howitt, “The Dieri and other Kindred Tribes of Central
Australia,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xx. (1891) pp.
92 _sq._; _id._, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 396, 744.


[885] A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 396
_sq._


[886] J. Kreemer, “Regenmaken, Oedjoeng, Tooverij onder de Javanen,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xxx.
(1886) p. 113.


[887] Coulbeaux, “Au pays de Menelik: à travers l’Abyssinie,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xxx. (1898) p. 455.


[888] 1 Kings xviii. 28. From the whole tenour of the narrative it
appears that the real contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal
was as to which of them should make rain in a time of drought. The
prophets of Baal wrought magic by cutting themselves with knives;
Elijah wrought magic by pouring water on the altar. Both ceremonies
alike were rain-charms. Compare my note on the passage in _Passages
of the Bible chosen for their Literary Beauty and Interest_, Second
Edition (London, 1909), pp. 476 _sq._


[889] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
294–296, 630 _sq._


[890] F. J. Gillen, in _Report of the Work of the Horn Scientific
Expedition to Central Australia_, part iv., Anthropology (London and
Melbourne, 1896), pp. 177–179; Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of
Central Australia_, pp. 189–193.


[891] As to the connexion of the plover with rain in Central Australia,
see above, p. 259. It is curious that the same association has procured
for the bird its name in English, French (_pluvier_, from the Latin
_pluvia_), and German (_Regenpfeifer_). Ornithologists are not agreed
as to the reason for this association in the popular mind. See Alfred
Newton, _Dictionary of Birds_ (London, 1893–1896), pp. 730 _sq._


[892] A. C. Haddon, “The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres
Straits,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) p.
401; _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. 350.


[893] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 108.


[894] Fr. Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 51 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1889_).


[895] Fr. Boas, _loc. cit._; _id._ in _Sixth Report On the
North-Western Tribes of Canada_, pp. 58, 62 (separate reprint from
the _Report of the British Association for 1890_); _id._ in _Eleventh
Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p. 5 (separate reprint
from the _Report of the British Association for 1896_).


[896] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, pp. 39 _sq._ (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[897] _British Central Africa Gazette_, No. 86 (vol. v. no. 6), 30th
April 1898, p. 3.


[898] Fr. Boas, _loc. cit._


[899] _Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt_
(Middletown, 1820), pp. 173 _sq._ (p. 198, Edinburgh, 1824).


[900] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” pp. 310 sq.
(_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North
Pacific Expedition_, vol. i. part iv.). The Lillooet Indians of British
Columbia also believed that twins were the real offspring of grizzly
bears. Many of them said that twins were grizzly bears in human form,
and that when a twin died his soul went back to the grizzly bears and
became one of them. See J. Teit, “The Lillooet Indians,” (Leyden and
New York, 1906), p. 263 (_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural
History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. ii. part v.).


[901] Father Baudin, “Le Fétichisme ou la religion des Nègres de la
Guinée,” _Missions Catholiques_, xvi. (1884) p. 250.


[902] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 204, 206.


[903] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 92 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_). The instrument by which the twins make fine
weather appears to be a bull-roarer. Compare J. Teit, “The Shuswap”
(Leyden and New York, 1909), pp. 586 _sq._ (_Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol.
ii. part vii.): “Twins were believed to be endowed with powers over the
elements, especially over rain and snow. If a twin bathed in a lake or
stream, it would rain.”


[904] Mark iii. 17. If James and John had been twins, we might have
suspected that their name of Boanerges had its origin in a superstition
like that of the Peruvian Indians. Was it in the character of “sons of
thunder” that the brothers proposed to call down fire from heaven on a
Samaritan village (Luke ix. 54)?


[905] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), pp. 16 _sq._, 32, 33, 119, 130, 132.


[906] H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_ (Neuchâtel, 1898), pp. 412, 416
_sqq._ The reason for calling twins “Children of the Sky” is obscure.
Are they supposed in some mysterious way to stand for the sun and moon?


[907] Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 47.


[908] P. Reichard, “Die Wanjamuesi,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft
für Erdkunde zu Berlin_, xxiv. (1889), pp. 256 _sq._ Another African
superstition as to twins may here be mentioned. On the Slave Coast when
a woman has brought forth stillborn twins, she has a statue made with
two faces and sets it up in a corner of her house. There she offers it
fowls, bananas, and palm-oil in order to obtain the accomplishment of
her wishes, and especially a knowledge of the future. See _Missions
Catholiques_, vii. (1875) p. 592. This suggests that elsewhere
two-faced images, like those of Janus, may have been intended to
represent twins.


[909] M. N. Venketswami, “Superstitions among Hindus in the Central
Provinces,” _Indian Antiquary_, xxviii. (1899) p. 111.


[910] _The Grihya-Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, part ii.
(Oxford, 1892) pp. 72 _sq._ (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxx.); H.
Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp. 420 _sq._


[911] G. G. Batten, _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_ (Singapore,
1894), pp. 68 _sq._


[912] A. C. Kruijt, “Regen lokken en regen verdrijven bij de Toradja’s
van Midden Celebes,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) pp. 8–10.


[913] Rev. W. O’Ferrall, “Native Stories from Santa Cruz and Reef
Islands,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiv. (1904), p.
225.


[914] Lucy M. J. Garnett, _The Women of Turkey and their Folklore: The
Christian Women_, pp. 123 _sq._


[915] W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 329 _sqq._; J. Grimm, _Deutsche
Mythologie_,⁴ i. 493 _sq._; W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian
People_, pp. 227 _sqq._; W. Schmidt, _Das Jahr und seine Tage in
Meinung und Brauch der Romänen Siebenbürgens_, p. 17; E. Gerard, _The
Land beyond the Forest_, ii. 13; _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 520.


[916] _The Graphic_, September 9, 1905, p. 324; Dr. Emil Fischer,
“Paparuda und Scaloian,” _Globus_, xciii. (1908) pp. 14 _sq._


[917] W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 329.


[918] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 118
_sq._


[919] W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 228; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 329 _sq._


[920] See above, pp. 260 _sq._ This perpetual turning or whirling
movement is required of the actors in other European ceremonies of a
superstitious character. See below, vol. ii. pp. 74, 80, 81, 87. I am
far from feeling sure that the explanation of it suggested in the text
is the true one. But I do not remember to have met with any other.


[921] Father H. S. Moore, in _The Cowley Evangelist_, May 1908, pp. 111
_sq._


[922] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 93
_sq._


[923] J. Rendel Harris, MS. notes of folklore collected in the East.


[924] Rendel Harris, _op. cit._


[925] S. I. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 114.


[926] A. Jaussen, _Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab_ (Paris, 1908),
pp. 326, 328.


[927] J. Polek, “Regenzauber in Osteuropa,” _Zeitschrift des Vereins
für Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) p. 85. For the bathing of the priest
compare W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 331, note 2.


[928] W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 331.


[929] R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Rutenen in der Bukowina und
Galizien,” _Globus_, lxi. (1892) p. 281.


[930] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 93.


[931] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, p. 584.


[932] J. G. F. Riedel, “De Minahasa in 1825,” _Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xviii. 524.


[933] A. C. Kruijt, “Regen lokken en regen verdrijven bij de Toradja’s
van Midden Celebes,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) pp. 1 _sq._


[934] M. Joustra, “De Zending onder de Karo-Batak’s,” _Mededeelingen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xli. (1897) p. 158.


[935] _North Indian Notes and Queries_, iii. p. 134, § 285.


[936] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), i. 73 _sq._


[937] J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 93.


[938] Sarat Chandra Mitra, “On some Ceremonies for producing Rain,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, iii. (1893) pp. 25,
27; _id._, in _North Indian Notes and Queries_, v. p. 136, § 373.


[939] _Panjab Notes and Queries_, i. p. 102, § 791.


[940] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), i. 74 _sq._


[941] Sarat Chandra Mitra, “On Vestiges of Moon-worship in Behar and
Bengal,” _Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, ii. 598
_sq._


[942] _Panjab Notes and Queries_, ii. p. 42, § 256; W. Crooke, _Popular
Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), i. 16
_sq._; Sarat Chandra Mitra, in _Journal of the Anthropological Society
of Bombay_, ii. 597 _sq._; _id._, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society_, N.S. xxix. (1897) p. 482.


[943] W. W. Hunter, _Orissa_ (London, 1872), ii. 140 _sq._; W. Crooke,
_op. cit._ i. 17.


[944] W. Logan, _Malabar_ (Madras, 1887), i. 161 _sq._; E. Thurston,
_Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, vii. 287; L. K. Anantha Krishna
Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_, i. (Madras, 1909) p. 238.


[945] R. F. Kaindl, _Die Huzulen_ (Vienna, 1894), p. 63; _id._,
“Viehzucht und Viehzauber in den Ostkarpaten,” _Globus_, lxix. (1896)
p. 386.


[946] A. Cabaton, _Nouvelles Recherches sur les Chams_ (Paris, 1901),
p. 48.


[947] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_, pp. 90 _sq._


[948] E. Krause, “Abergläubische Kuren und sonstiger Aberglaube in
Berlin und nächster Umgebung,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv. (1883)
p. 87.


[949] Theophrastus, _Historia plantarum_, vii. 3. 3, ix. 8. 8;
Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ vii. 2. 3; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xix. 120.


[950] Palladius, _De re rustica_, iv. 9; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xix. 120.


[951] Theophrastus, _Historia plantarum_ ix. 8. 8.


[952] Lactantius, _Divin. Institut._ i. 21; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_,
ii. 5. 11. 8; Philostratus, _Imagines_, ii. 24; Conon, in Photius,
_Bibliotheca_, p. 132, ed. Bekker. Lactantius speaks of the sacrifice
of a pair of oxen, Philostratus of the sacrifice of a single ox.


[953] “Die Pschawen und Chewsurier im Kaukasus,” _Zeitschrift für
allgemeine Erdkunde_, N.F. ii. (1857) p. 75.


[954] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 93.


[955] J. Reinegg, _Beschreibung des Kaukasus_, ii. (Hildesheim and St.
Petersburg, 1797), p. 114. Among the Abchases of the Western Caucasus
girls make rain by driving an ass into a river, placing a puppet
dressed as a woman on a raft, and letting the raft float down stream.
See N. von Seidlitz, “Die Abchasen,” _Globus_, lxvi. (1894) pp. 75 _sq._


[956] W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 553; E. Gerard, _The Land beyond
the Forest_, ii. 40.


[957] _Panjab Notes and Queries_, iii. pp. 41, 115, §§ 173, 513.


[958] _North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 210, § 1161.


[959] Sarat Chandra Mitra, “On the Har Paraurī, or the Behari Women’s
Ceremony for producing Rain,” _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of
Great Britain and Ireland_, N.S. xxix. (1897) pp. 471–484; _id._, in
_Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, iv. No. 7 (1898),
pp. 384–388.


[960] Sarat Chandra Mitra, “On some Ceremonies for producing Rain,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, iii. 25. On these
Indian rain-charms compare W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of
Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), i. 68 _sqq._ Mr. E. S. Hartland
suggests that such customs furnish the key to the legend of Lady
Godiva (_Folklore_, i. (1890) pp. 223 _sqq._). Some of the features
of the ceremonies, though not the ploughing, reappear in a rain-charm
practised by the Rajbansis of Bengal. The women make two images of
Hudum Deo out of mud or cow-dung, and carry them away into the fields
by night. There they strip themselves naked, and dance round the images
singing obscene songs. See (Sir) H. H. Risley, _The Tribes and Castes
of Bengal: Ethnographic Glossary_ (Calcutta, 1891–92), i. 498. Again,
in time of drought the Kapu women of Southern India mould a small
figure of a naked human being to represent Jokumara, the rain-god. This
they place in a mock palanquin and go about for several days from door
to door, singing indecent songs and collecting alms. Then they abandon
the figure in a field, where the Malas find it and go about with it in
their turn for three or four days, singing ribald songs and collecting
alms. See E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iii. 244
_sq._ We have seen (pp. 267 _sq._) that lewd songs form part of an
African rain-charm. The link between ribaldry and rain is not obvious
to the European mind.


[961] T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) pp. 302 _sq._


[962] B. Houghton, in _Indian Antiquary_, xxv. (1896) p. 112.


[963] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ (London, 1903), i. 330.


[964] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 345 _sq._


[965] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xxv. (1893) p. 116;
_id._, _Mœurs et superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp.
297 _sq._


[966] W. R. S. Ralston, _The Songs of the Russian People_, pp. 425
_sq._; P. v. Stenin, “Ueber den Geisterglauben in Russland,” _Globus_,
lvii. (1890) p. 285.


[967] Aristophanes, _Clouds_, 373.


[968] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_, p. 93.


[969] J. Rendel Harris, MS. notes.


[970] R. H. Elliot, _Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore_
(London, 1871), i. 76 _sq._


[971] A. C. Kruijt, “Regen lokken en regen verdrijving bij de Toradja’s
van Central Celebes,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) p. 6, citing v. Baarda.


[972] Mela, _Chorographia_, iii. 106.


[973] A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ pp. 3 _sq._


[974] Above, p. 268.


[975] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 115.


[976] Missionar P. H. Brincker, “Beobachlungen über die Deisidämonie
der Eingeborenen Deutsch-Südwest-Afrikas,” _Globus_, lviii. (1890) p.
323; _id._, in _Mitteilungen des Seminars für orientalische Sprachen zu
Berlin_, iii. (1900) Dritte Abteilung, p. 89.


[977] A. Caulin, _Historia coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela
Nueva Andalucia, Provincias de Cumaña, Guayana y Vertientes del Rio
Orinoco_, p. 92.


[978] J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, iii. 918
_sqq._


[979] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
314 _sq._


[980] Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 311.


[981] G. B. Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_, p. 262.


[982] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians,” p. 374 (_Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. i.
part iv.).


[983] E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, part i.
(Washington, 1899) p. 446.


[984] J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_ (London, 1901), p.
334.


[985] (Sir) J. G. Scott, _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan
States_, part ii. vol. ii. (Rangoon, 1901) p. 280.


[986] T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 308.


[987] H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 507.


[988] Fr. A. Jaussen, “Coutumes arabes,” _Revue Biblique_, April
1903, p. 248. Elsewhere the same writer describes this ceremony as
a mode of putting a stop to cholera. See his _Coutumes des Arabes
au pays de Moab_ (Paris, 1908), p. 362. To pass between the pieces
of a sacrificial victim is a form of oath (Genesis xv. 9 _sqq._;
Jeremiah xxxiv. 18; Dictys Cretensis, _Bell. Trojan._ i. 15; R.
Moffat, _Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa_, p. 278) or
of purification (Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 111; Apollodorus,
_Bibliotheca_, iii. 13. 7; Livy, xl. 6; E. Casalis, _The Basutos_, p.
256; S. Krascheninnikow, _Beschreibung des Landes Kamtschatka_, pp. 277
_sq._). Compare my note on Pausanias, iii. 20. 9.


[989] B. F. Matthes, “Over de _âdá’s_ of gewoonten der Makassaren en
Boegineezen,” _Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Derde Reeks, ii. (Amsterdam,
1885) p. 169.


[990] G. A. J. Hazeu, “Kleine bijdragen tot de ethnografie en folklore
van Java,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_,
xlvi. (1903) p. 298.


[991] A. Hillebrandt, _Vedische Opfer und Zauber_ (Strasburg, 1897), p.
120.


[992] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, p. 583.


[993] Acosta, _History of the Indies_, bk. v. ch. xxviii. (vol. ii. p.
376, Hakluyt Society).


[994] J. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_ (London,
1857), pp. 212 _sqq._


[995] O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p.
188.


[996] H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” _Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 325.


[997] L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 154.


[998] A. L. van Hasselt, _Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra_, pp.
320 _sq._; J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 93.


[999] E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 88.


[1000] _Folklore Journal, edited by the Working Committee of the South
African Folklore Society_, i. (1879) p. 34.


[1001] J. S. G. Gramberg, “Eene maand in de binnenlanden van Timor,”
_Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en
Wetenschappen_, xxxvi. p. 209; H. Zondervan, “Timor en de Timoreezen,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_. Tweede
Serie, v. (1888) Afdeeling, meer uitgebreide artikelen, pp. 402 _sq._


[1002] C. Wiese, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Zulu im Norden des
Zambesi, namentlich der Angoni,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxxii.
(1900) p. 198.


[1003] W. Weston, _Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese
Alps_ (London, 1896), pp. 162 _sq._; _id._, in _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxvi. (1897) p. 30; _id._, in _The
Geographical Journal_, vii. (1896) pp. 143 _sq._


[1004] A. Caulin, _Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela
Nueva Andalucia, Provincias de Cumaña, Guayana y Vertientes del Rio
Orinoco_, p. 96; _Colombia, being a geographical, etc., account of
the country_, i. 642 _sq._; A. Bastian, _Die Culturländer des alten
Amerika_, ii. 216.


[1005] D. Forbes, “On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru,” _Journal
of the Ethnological Society of London_, ii. 237, note. On the supposed
relation of the frog or toad to water in America, see further E. J.
Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i. 420 _sq._, 425
_sqq._ He observes that “throughout the New World, from Florida to
Chile, the worship of the frog or toad, as the offspring of water and
the symbol of the water-spirit, accompanied the cultivation of maize”
(p. 425). A species of water toad is called by the Araucanians of Chili
_genco_, “which signifies lord of the water, as they believe that it
watches over the preservation and contributes to the salubrity of the
waters” (J. I. Molina, _Geographical, Natural, and Civil History of
Chili_, London, 1809, i. 179).


[1006] Mary E. B. Howitt, _Folklore and Legends of some Victorian
Tribes_ (in manuscript). The story is told in an abridged form by Dr.
A. W. Howitt (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xviii. (1889)
pp. 54 _sq._).


[1007] Above, p. 255.


[1008] J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” _Memoirs
of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific
Expedition_, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) p. 346; A. Kuhn, _Sagen,
Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen_, ii. p. 80, § 244; E. Gerard, _The
Land beyond the Forest_, ii. 13.


[1009] M. N. Venketswami, “Superstitions among Hindus in the Central
Provinces,” _Indian Antiquary_, xxviii. (1899) p. 111. Compare E.
Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 387.


[1010] _North Indian Notes and Queries_, iii. p. 134, § 285; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896),
i. 73.


[1011] _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxxii., part 3,
Anthropology (Calcutta, 1904), p. 39.


[1012] E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iii. 245.


[1013] E. Thurston, _op. cit._ iv. 387.


[1014] M. Bloomfield, “On the ‘Frog-hymn,’ Rig Veda, vii. 103,”
_Journal of the American Oriental Society_, xvii. (1896) pp. 173–179.


[1015] A. L. Waddell, “Frog-Worship among the Newars,” _The Indian
Antiquary_, xxii. (1893) pp. 292–294. The title Bhûmînâtha, “Lord or
Protector of the Soil,” is specially reserved for the frog. The title
Paremêsvara is given to all the Newar divinities.


[1016] _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th edition, _s.v._ “Frog,” ix. 796.
For an instance of a frog thus caught in a drought and made to disgorge
its hoard of water, see E. Aymonier, _Voyage dans le Laos_ (Paris,
1895–1897), ii. 284 _sq._


[1017] J. Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of
South African Tribes,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix.
(1890) p. 295.


[1018] H. von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der
Zigenner_ (Münster i. W., 1891), pp. 64 _sq._


[1019] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), i. 76.


[1020] W. Crooke, _op. cit._ i. 74.


[1021] W. Weston, _Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps_
(London, 1896), p. 162.


[1022] L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Les Peuplades de la Sénégambie_
(Paris, 1879), p. 291.


[1023] R. Lange, “Bitten um Regen in Japan,” _Zeitschrift des Vereins
für Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) pp. 334 _sq._ Compare W. G. Aston,
_Shinto_ (London, 1905), p. 153. However, the throwing of the dragon
into the waterfall may be a homoeopathic charm rather than a punishment.


[1024] H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, i. 520.


[1025] Huc, _L’Empire chinois_⁴ (Paris, 1862), i. 241.


[1026] Mgr Rizzolati, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvi.
(1844) p. 350; Mgr Retord, _ib._ xxviii. (1856) p. 102. In Tonquin also
a mandarin has been known to whip an image of Buddha for not sending
rain. See _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi_, iv.
(1830) p. 330.


[1027] Huc, _L’Empire chinois_,⁴ i. 241 _sq._


[1028] _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_, Nouvelle Édition, xviii. 210.


[1029] J. Bertrand, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xxii.
(1850) pp. 351–355; W. W. Rockhill, _The Land of the Lamas_ (London,
1891), p. 311.


[1030] Rev. E. Z. Simmons, “Idols and Spirits,” _Chinese Recorder and
Missionary Journal_, xix. (1888) p. 502.


[1031] Mgr Bruguière, in _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de
la Foi_, v. (1831), p. 131.


[1032] Brien, “Aperçu sur la province de Battambang,” _Cochinchine
Française: excursions et reconnaissances_, No. 25 (Saigon, 1886), pp. 6
_sq._


[1033] G. Vuillier, “La Sicile, impressions du présent et du passé,”
_Tour du monde_, lxvii. (1894) pp. 54 _sq._ Compare G. Pitrè, _Usi e
costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano_, iii. (Palermo,
1889) pp. 142–144. As to St. Francis of Paola, who died in 1507 and was
canonised by Leo X. in 1519, see P. Ribadeneira, _Flos Sanctorum, cioè
Vite de’ Santi_ (Venice, 1763), i. 252 _sq._; Th. Trede, _Das Heidentum
in der römischen Kirche_, iii. 45–47; G. Pitrè, _Feste patronali in
Sicilia_ (Turin and Palermo, 1900), pp. 49 _sqq._ He was sent for by
Louis XI. of France, and his fame as a worker of miracles is still
spread over all the south of Italy. With the entertainments given
in honour of St. Francis of Paola to wheedle rain out of him we may
compare the shadow-plays or puppet-shows given by the Javanese and the
comedies played by the Chinese for the same purpose. See T. S. Raffles,
_History of Java_ (London, 1817), i. 477; G. A. J. Hazen, “Kleine
bijdragen tot de ethnografie en de folklore van Java,” _Tijdschrift
voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xlvi. (1903) pp. 299 _sq._;
Huc, _L’Empire chinois_⁴ (Paris, 1862), i. 241.


[1034] J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_ (Calcutta, 1880), p.
95.


[1035] Albîrûnî, _The Chronology of Ancient Nations_, translated and
edited by C. E. Sachau (London, 1879), p. 235. This and the following
passage were pointed out to me by my late friend, W. Robertson Smith.


[1036] Albîrûnî, _loc. cit._


[1037] Gervasius von Tilbury, _Otia Imperialia_, ed. F. Liebrecht, pp.
41 _sq._


[1038] Giraldus Cambrensis, _Topography of Ireland_, ch. 7. Compare W.
Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_, p. 341 note.


[1039] J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 79.


[1040] L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_, i. 473.


[1041] Le R. P. Cadière, “Croyances et dictons populaires de la Vallée
du Nguôn-son, Province de Quang-binh (Annam),” _Bulletin de l’École
Française d’Extrême-Orient_, i. (Hanoi, 1901) pp. 204 _sq._


[1042] C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, ii. 194.


[1043] H. Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, part. iv.
(1870), pp. 407 _sq._


[1044] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, pp. 117 _sq._


[1045] E. Reclus, _Nouvelle Géographie Universelle_, xii. 100.


[1046] _North Indian Notes and Queries_, iii. p. 135, § 285; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896),
i. 77.


[1047] A. C. Kruijt, “Regen lokken en regen verdrijven bij de Toradja’s
van Midden Celebes,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xliv. (1901) p. 2.


[1048] Rasmussen, _Additamenta ad historiam Arabum ante Islamismum_,
pp. 67 _sq._; I. Goldziher, _Muhammedanische Studien_ (Halle a. S.,
1888–1890), i. 34 _sq._


[1049] J. Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_, p. 157 (first
edition).


[1050] J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie occidentale_,
ii. 180.


[1051] H. Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l’ancien Cundinamarca_ (Paris,
n.d.), p. 42.


[1052] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 145.


[1053] A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 362. For
other uses of quartz-crystal in ceremonies for the making of rain, see
above, pp. 254, 255.


[1054] A. L. P. Cameron, _loc. cit._ Compare E. M. Curr, _The
Australian Race_, ii. 377.


[1055] E. Clement, “Ethnographical Notes on the Western Australian
Aborigines,” _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, xvi. (1904) pp.
5 _sq._


[1056] Rascher, “Die Sulka,” _Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904)
p. 225. Compare R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, p. 196.


[1057] T. C. Hodson, “The _genna_ amongst the Tribes of Assam,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxvi. (1906) p. 96.


[1058] W. G. Aston, _Shinto_ (London, 1905), p. 330.


[1059] Fr. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_ (Berlin,
1894), p. 654.


[1060] _Indian Notes and Queries_, iv. p. 218, § 776; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896),
i. 75 _sq._


[1061] J. Rendel Harris, MS. notes.


[1062] W. R. Paton, in _Folklore_, xii. (1901) p. 216.


[1063] G. Timkowski, _Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia
to China_ (London, 1827), i. 402 _sq._


[1064] C. H. Cottrell, _Recollections of Siberia_ (London, 1842), p.
140.


[1065] W. Radloff, _Aus Sibirien_ (Leipsic, 1884), ii. 179 _sq._


[1066] _The American Antiquarian_, viii. 339. Vivid descriptions of
the scenery and climate of Arizona and New Mexico will be found in
Captain J. G. Bourke’s _On the Border with Crook_ (New York, 1891);
see, for example, pp. 1 _sq._, 12 _sq._, 23 _sq._, 30 _sq._, 34 _sq._,
41 _sqq._, 185, 190 _sq._ See also C. Mindeleff, in _Seventeenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, part 2 (Washington, 1898),
pp. 477–481.


[1067] M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_, p. 94.


[1068] J. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 184; J. Grimm, _Deutsche
Mythologie_,⁴ i. 494; L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et
survivances_, iii. 190 _sq._ Compare A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et
traditions des provinces de France_, p. 216; San Marte, _Die Arthur
Sage_, pp. 105 _sq._, 153 _sqq._


[1069] J. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, pp. 185 _sq._, quoting an earlier
authority.


[1070] J. Rhys, _op. cit._ p. 187. The same thing is done at the
fountain of Sainte Anne, near Gevezé, in Brittany. See P. Sébillot,
_Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, i. 72.


[1071] G. Herve, “Quelques superstitions de Morvan,” _Bulletins de la
Société d’Anthropologie de Paris_, 4me série, iii. (1892) p. 530.


[1072] Bérenger-Féraud and de Mortillet, in _Bulletins de la Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris_, 4me série, ii. (1891) pp. 306, 310 _sq._; L.
J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_, i. 427.


[1073] Le Brun, _Historie critique des pratiques superstitieuses_
(Amsterdam, 1733), i. 245 _sq._; L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud,
_Superstitions et survivances_, i. 477. For more examples of such
customs in France see P. Sébillot, _Le Folk-lore de France_, ii.
376–378.


[1074] Lamberti, “Relation de la Colchide ou Mingrélie,” _Voyages au
Nord_, vii. 174 (Amsterdam, 1725).


[1075] H. S. Hallett, _A Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan
States_ (Edinburgh and London, 1890), p. 264.


[1076] Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 594.


[1077] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 201.


[1078] J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 86. As to the cat in
rain-making ceremonies, see above, pp. 289, 291.


[1079] Myron Eels, “The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of
Washington Territory,” _Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for
1887_, p. 674.


[1080] As to such prayers, see Pausanias, ii. 25. 10; Marcus Antoninus,
v. 7; Petronius, 44; Tertullian, _Apolog._ 40, compare 22 and 23; P.
Cauer, _Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 162; H. Collitz und F.
Bechtel, _Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften_, No. 3718; Ch.
Michel, _Recueil d’inscriptions grecques_, No. 1004; O. Luders, _Die
dionysischen Künstler_ (Berlin, 1873), pp. 26 _sq._


[1081] Pausanias, viii. 38. 4.


[1082] See above, p. 248.


[1083] Antigonus, _Histor. mirab._ 15 (_Scriptores rerum mirabilium
Graeci_, ed. A. Westermann, pp. 64 _sq._). Antigonus mentions that the
badge of the city was a representation of the chariot with a couple of
ravens perched on it. This badge appears on existing coins of Crannon,
with the addition of a pitcher resting on the chariot (B. V. Head,
_Historia Numorum_, p. 249). Hence A. Furtwängler conjectured, with
great probability, that a pitcher full of water was placed on the real
chariot when rain was wanted, and that the spilling of the water, as
the chariot shook, was intended to imitate a shower of rain. See A.
Furtwängler, _Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik_, pp. 257–263.


[1084] Above, pp. 248, 251.


[1085] Apollodorus, i. 9. 7; Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 585 _sqq._; Servius on
Virgil, _l.c._


[1086] Festus, _s.vv. aquaelicium_ and _manalem lapidem_, pp. 2,
128, ed. C. O. Müller; Nonius Marcellus, _s.v. trullum_, p. 637, ed.
Quicherat; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ iii. 175; Fulgentius, “Expos.
serm. antiq.” _s.v. manales lapides_, _Mythogr. Lat._ ed. Staveren,
pp. 769 _sq._ It has been suggested that the stone derived its name
and its virtue from the _manes_ or spirits of the dead (E. Hoffmann,
in _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, N.F. l. (1895), pp. 484–486).
Mr. O. Gilbert supposes that the stone was hollow and filled with water
which was poured out in imitation of rain. See O. Gilbert, _Geschichte
und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum_, ii. (Leipsic, 1885) p. 154
note. His suggestion is thus exactly parallel to that of Furtwängler
as to the pitcher at Crannon (above, p. 309 note 6). Compare W. Warde
Fowler, _Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_ (London, 1899),
pp. 232 _sq._


[1087] Nonius Marcellus, _s.v. aquilex_, p. 69, ed. Quicherat. In
favour of taking _aquilex_ as rain-maker is the use of _aquaelicium_ in
the sense of rain-making. Compare K. O. Müller, _Die Etrusker_, ed. W.
Deecke, ii. 318 _sq._


[1088] Diodorus Siculus, v. 55.


[1089] Philochorus, cited by Athenaeus, xiv. 72, p. 656 A.


[1090] Among the Barotse, on the upper Zambesi, “the sorcerers or
witch-doctors go from village to village with remedies which they cook
in great cauldrons to make rain” (A. Bertrand, _The Kingdom of the
Barotsi_, London, 1899, p. 277).


[1091] Phylarchus, cited by Athenaeus, xv. 48, p. 693 E F. If the
conjectural reading τοῖς Ἐμεσηνοῖς were adopted in place of the
manuscript reading τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, we should have to suppose that the
custom was not observed by the Greeks, but by the people of Emesa
in Syria, where there was a famous worship of the sun. But Polemo,
the highest authority in such matters, tells us that the Athenians
offered “sober” sacrifices to the sun and to other deities (Schol. on
Sophocles, _Oed. Colon_, 100); and in a Greek inscription found at
Piraeus we read of offerings to the sun and of three “sober altars,”
by which no doubt are meant altars on which wine was not poured. See
Ch. Michel, _Recueil d’inscriptions grecques_, No. 672; Dittenberger,
_Sylloge inscriptionum Graecorum_,² No. 631; E. S. Roberts,
_Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, ii. No. 133; _Leges Graecorum
sacrae_, ed. J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, ii. No. 18. In the passage of
Athenaeus, accordingly, the reading τοῖς Ἐμεσηνοῖς, which has been
rashly adopted by the latest editor of Athenaeus (G. Kaibel), may be
safely rejected in favour of the manuscript reading.


[1092] Peter Jones, _History of the Ojebway Indians_, p. 84.


[1093] W. Smyth and F. Lowe, _Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para_
(London, 1836), p. 230. An eclipse either of the sun or the moon is
commonly supposed by savages to be caused by a monster who is trying
to devour the luminary, and accordingly they discharge missiles and
raise a clamour in order to drive him away. See E. B. Tylor, _Primitive
Culture_,² i. 328 _sqq._


[1094] J. Gumilla, _Histoire de l’Orénoque_ (Avignon, 1758), iii. 243
_sq._


[1095] S. Krascheninnikow, _Beschreibung des Landes Kamtschatka_
(Lemgo, 1766), p. 217.


[1096] A. G. Morice, “The Western Dénés, their Manners and Customs,”
_Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Toronto_, Third Series, vii.
(1888–89) p. 154.


[1097] A. Moret, _Le Rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte_
(Paris, 1902), pp. 90 _sq._; _id._, _Du caractère religieux de la
royauté pharaonique_ (Paris, 1902), p. 98.


[1098] Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 52. The Esquimaux of Bering Strait
give the name of “the sun’s walking-stick” to the vertical bar in
a parhelion. See E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,”
_Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, part i.
(Washington, 1899) p. 449.


[1099] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xii. (1880) p. 216;
_id._, _Mœurs et superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp.
193 _sq._; Glaumont, “Usages, mœurs et coutumes des Néo-Calédoniens,”
_Revue d’ethnographie_, vii. (1889) p. 116.


[1100] Father Lambert, in _Missions Catholiques_, xxv. (1893) p. 116;
_id._, _Mœurs et superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900), pp.
296 _sq._ The magic formula differs slightly in the two passages; in
the text I have followed the second.


[1101] T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Voyage d’exploration au nord-est de
la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance_ (Paris, 1842), pp. 350 _sq._ For
the kinship with the sacred object (totem) from which the clan takes
its name, see _ibid._ pp. 350, 422, 424. Other people have claimed
kindred with the sun, as the Natchez of North America (_Voyages au
nord_, v. 24) and the Incas of Peru.


[1102] G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,”
_Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii. (1905)
p. 17.


[1103] R. H. Codrington, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
x. (1881) p. 278; _id._, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 184.


[1104] Above, pp. 291 _sq._


[1105] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 346. See above, p. 284.


[1106] P. J. Arriaga, _Extirpacion de la idolatria del Piru_ (Lima,
1621), p. 37.


[1107] A. d’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, iii. (Paris
and Strasburg, 1844) p. 24.


[1108] V. Solomon, “Extracts from Diaries kept in Car Nicobar,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 213.


[1109] _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, translated by J. Eggeling, part i. p. 328
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xii.).


[1110] E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i.
(Oxford, 1892) pp. 520–523; K. Th. Preuss, in _Verhandlungen der
Berliner anthropologischen Gesellschaft_, November 15, 1902, pp. (449)
_sq._, (457) _sq._; _id._, “Die Feuergötter als Ausgangspunkt zum
Verständnis der mexikanischen Religion,” _Mitteilungen der anthropolog.
Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxxiii. (1903) pp. 157 _sq._, 163. A Mexican
legend relates how in the beginning the gods sacrificed themselves by
fire in order to set the sun in motion. See B. de Sahagun, _Histoire
générale des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne_, bk. vii. ch. 2, pp. 478
_sqq._ (French trans. by Jourdanet and Simeon).


[1111] Festus, _s.v._ “October equus,” p. 181, ed. C. O. Müller.


[1112] 2 Kings xxiii. 11. Compare H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³ (Berlin, 1902), pp. 369 _sq._


[1113] Pausanias, iii. 20. 4.


[1114] Xenophon, _Cyropaed._ viii. 3. 24; Philostratus, _Vit. Apollon._
i. 31. 2; Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 385 _sq._; Pausanias, iii. 20. 4. Compare
Xenophon, _Anabasis_, iv. 5. 35; Trogus Pompeius, i. 10. 5.


[1115] Herodotus, i. 216; Strabo, xi. 8. 6. On the sacrifice of
horses see further S. Bochart, _Hierozoicon_, i. coll. 175 _sqq._;
Negelein, in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxxiii. (1901), pp. 62–66.
Many Asiatics held that the sun rode a horse, not a chariot. See
Dittenberger, _Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum_,² No. 754, with note⁴.


[1116] A. Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, iv. 174. The name
of the place is Andahuayllas.


[1117] Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_², i. 250.


[1118] Mr. Fison’s letter is dated August 26, 1898.


[1119] H. R. Schoolcraft, _The American Indians_ (Buffalo, 1851), pp.
97 _sqq._; _id._, _Oneota_ (New York and London, 1845), pp. 75 _sqq._;
W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_, pp. 61 _sq._; G.
Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 200 _sq._


[1120] Fr. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin
of the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. (1901) p. 151.


[1121] G. Zündel, “Land und Volk der Eweer auf der Sclavenküste in
Westafrika,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin_,
xii. (1877) p. 411. We have met with a somewhat similar charm in North
Africa to bring back a runaway slave. See above, p. 152.


[1122] J. Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_ (London, 1887), p. 172.


[1123] Aeneas Sylvius, _Opera_ (Bâle, 1571), p. 418 [wrongly numbered
420]; A. Thevet, _Cosmographie universelle_ (Paris, 1575), ii. 851.


[1124] R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 334; E. M. Curr,
_The Australian Race_, i. 50.


[1125] Fancourt, _History of Yucatan_, p. 118; Brasseur de Bourbourg,
_Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale_,
ii. 51.


[1126] S. L. Cummins, “Sub-tribes of the Bahr-el-Ghazal Dinkas,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiv. (1904) p. 164.


[1127] (_South African_) _Folklore Journal_, vol. i. part i. (Capetown,
1879) p. 34; Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), pp.
147 _sq._; Rev. E. Gottschling, “The Bawenda,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 381.


[1128] E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central
Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 365. The Ovakumbi of Angola place a
stone in the fork of a tree as a memorial at any place where they have
learned something which they wish to remember. See Ch. Wunenberger, “La
Mission et le royaume de Humbé,” _Missions Catholiques_, xx. (1888) p.
270.


[1129] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, iii. 145.


[1130] K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der
Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission in Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, ii. (Barmen, 1898) p.
29; _id._, in B. Hagen’s _Unter den Papua’s_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), p. 287.


[1131] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, pp. 92 _sq._


[1132] G. M. Dawson, “Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia,”
_Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_, ix. (1901, pub. 1902)
section ii. p. 38.


[1133] J. G. Gmelin, _Reise durch Sibirien_ (Göttingen, 1751–52), ii.
510.


[1134] C. H. Cottrell, _Recollections of Siberia_ (London, 1842), p.
140.


[1135] J. Owen Dorsey, “Omaha Sociology,” _Third Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1884), p. 241; _id._, “A Study of
Siouan Cults,” _Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
(Washington, 1894), p. 410.


[1136] G. M. Dawson, “On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte
Islands,” _Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for
1878–1879_, p. 124 B.


[1137] W. Powell, _Wanderings in a Wild Country_ (London, 1883), p. 169.


[1138] O. Dapper, _Description de l’Afrique_ (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 389.


[1139] _Mission scientifique du Cap Horn_, vii. (Paris, 1891) p. 257.


[1140] J. Richardson, _A Dictionary of Persian, Arabic, and English_,
New Edition (London, 1829), pp. liii. _sq._


[1141] _Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, p. 38 (Canadian reprint). On
the other hand, some of the New South Wales aborigines thought that a
wished-for wind would not rise if shell-fish were roasted at night (D.
Collins, _Account of the English Colony in New South Wales_, London,
1804, p. 382).


[1142] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” _Seventh Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1891), pp. 387 _sq._


[1143] _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi_, iv.
(1830) p. 482.


[1144] C. M. Pleyte, “Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei Eilanden,”
_Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede
Serie, x. (1893) p. 827.


[1145] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 200, 201.


[1146] J. Palmer, quoted by R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p.
201, note.


[1147] Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 151.


[1148] B. Hagen, _Unter den Papua’s_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), p. 269.


[1149] W. Monckton, “Some Recollections of New Guinea Customs,”
_Journal of the Polynesian Society_, v. (1896) p. 186.


[1150] J. G. Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 248.


[1151] Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, p. 26 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for 1890_).


[1152] A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_, p. 60; _Reports of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. (Cambridge, 1908)
pp. 201 _sq._


[1153] Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 627; Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming,
_In the Hebrides_, pp. 166 sq.


[1154] W. Fraser, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of
Scotland_, viii. (Edinburgh, 1793) p. 52, note.


[1155] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), pp. 105 _sq._


[1156] A. C. Haddon, “The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres
Straits,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890), pp.
401 sq.; _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904), pp. 351 _sq._


[1157] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. 352.


[1158] Mary E. B. Howitt, _Folklore and Legends of some Victorian
Tribes_ (in manuscript).


[1159] See above, p. 263.


[1160] H. Egede, _Description of Greenland_, second edition (London,
1818), p. 196, note.


[1161] Hesychius and Suidas, _s.v._ ἀνεμοκοῖται; Eustathius, on Homer,
_Od._ x. 22, p. 1645. Compare J. Töpffer, _Attische Genealogie_, p.
112, who conjectures that the Eudanemi or Heudanemi at Athens may also
have claimed the power of lulling the winds.


[1162] Eunapius, _Vitae sophistarum: Aedesius_, p. 463, Didot edition.


[1163] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 294. Compare _Geoponica_, ii. 18.


[1164] Olaus Magnus, _Gentium septentr. hist._ iii. 15.


[1165] Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen
und Gewohnheiten_, pp. 107 _sq._


[1166] Dana, _Two Years before the Mast_, ch. vi.


[1167] J. Scheffer, _Lapponia_ (Frankfort, 1673), p. 144; J. Train,
_Account of the Isle of Man_, ii. 166; Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, _In
the Hebrides_, pp. 254 _sq._; Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_,
iii. 220; Sir W. Scott, _Pirate_, note to ch. vii.; Miss M. Cameron, in
_Folklore_, xiv. (1903) pp. 301 _sq._ Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_,
Act i. Sc. 3, line 11. “But, my loving master, if any wind will not
serve, then I wish I were in Lapland, to buy a good wind of one of the
honest witches, that sell so many winds there and so cheap” (Izaac
Walton, _Compleat Angler_, ch. v.).


[1168] J. G. Lockhart, _Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_, iii.
203 (first edition).


[1169] C. Leemius, _De Lapponibus Finmarchiae, etc., commentatio_
(Copenhagen, 1767), p. 454.


[1170] Homer, _Odyssey_, x. 19 _sqq._ It is said that Perdoytus,
the Lithuanian Aeolus, keeps the winds enclosed in a leathern bag;
when they escape from it he pursues them, beats them, and shuts them
up again. See E. Veckenstedt, _Die Mythen, Sagen und Legenden der
Zamaiten_ (Litauer), i. 153. The statements of this writer, however,
are to be received with caution.


[1171] J. Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_, p. 177.


[1172] Lieut. Herold, in _Mitteilungen aus den deutschen
Schutzgebieten_, v. (1892) pp. 144 _sq._; H. Klose, _Togo unter
deutscher Flagge_ (Berlin, 1899), p. 189.


[1173] Rev. J. Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_ (London, 1893), p. 7.


[1174] Fr. Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” _Sixth Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1888), p. 593.


[1175] _Arctic Papers for the Expedition of 1875_ (Royal Geographical
Society), p. 274.


[1176] J. Murdoch, “Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow
Expedition,” _Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
(Washington, 1892), pp. 432 _sq._


[1177] M. Bloomfield, _Hymns of the Atharva-Veda_, p. 249 (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xlii.); W. Caland, _Altindisches
Zauberritual_, p. 128.


[1178] Father Livinhac, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, liii.
(1881) p. 209.


[1179] J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” _Journal of the Straits Branch
of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 10 (December 1882), pp. 241 _sq._;
H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i.
201; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _In Centraal Borneo_ (Leyden, 1900), ii. 180
_sq._ The people of Samarcand used to beat drums and dance in the
eleventh month to demand cold weather, and they threw water on one
another. See E. Chavannes, _Les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux_ (St.
Petersburg, 1903), p. 135.


[1180] J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 24 _sq._


[1181] P. Sébillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_, pp. 302
_sq._


[1182] Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. 2, p. 54.


[1183] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und
Gebräuche_, p. 454, § 406; Von Alpenburg, _Mythen und Sagen Tirols_,
pp. 262, 365 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Die Götter der deutschen und
nordischen Völker_ (Berlin, 1860), p. 99; _id._, _Antike Wald- und
Feldkulte_, p. 85; Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische
Gebräuche, Weisen und Gewohnheiten_, p. 109; F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube
und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 117. In some parts of Austria
and Germany, when a storm is raging, the people open a window and throw
out a handful of meal, saying to the wind, “There, that’s for you,
stop!” See A. Peter, _Volksthümliches aus österreichisch-Schlesien_,
ii. 259; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,⁴ p. 529; Zingerle, _Sitten
Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes_,² p. 118, § 1046. Similarly
an old Irishwoman has been seen to fling handfuls of grass into a cloud
of dust blown along a road, and she explained her behaviour by saying
that she wished to give something to the fairies who were playing in
the dust (_Folklore_, iv. (1893) p. 352). But these are sacrifices to
appease, not ceremonies to constrain the spirits of the air; thus they
belong to the domain of religion rather than to that of magic. The
ancient Greeks sacrificed to the winds. See P. Stengel, “Die Opfer der
Hellenen an die Winde,” _Hermes_, xvi. (1881) pp. 346–350; and my note
on Pausanias, ii. 12. 1.


[1184] J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 278.


[1185] G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,”
_Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii. (1905)
p. 17.


[1186] F. de Azara, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, ii. 137.


[1187] P. Lozano, _Descripcion chorographica del Gran Chaco_ (Cordova,
1733), p. 71; Charlevoix, _Histoire du Paraguay_, ii. 74; Guevara,
_Historia del Paraguay_, p. 23 (in P. de Angelis’s _Coleccion de obras
y documentos_, etc., ii., Buenos Ayres, 1836); D. de Alvear, _Relacion
geografica e historica de la provincia de Misiones_, p. 14 (P. de
Angelis, _op. cit._ iv.).


[1188] W. A. Henry, “Bijdrage tot de Kennis der Bataklanden,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xvii. 23 _sq._


[1189] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, i. (Leyden, 1904) p. 97.


[1190] R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 457 _sq._; compare
_id._, ii. 270; A. W. Howitt, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xiii. (1884) p. 194, note; Spencer and Gillen, _Northern
Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 632.


[1191] W. Cornwallis Harris, _The Highlands of Ethiopia_ (London,
1844), i. 352. Compare Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nord-ost-Afrikas:
die geistige Cultur der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), p.
28. Even where these columns or whirlwinds of dust are not attacked
they are still regarded with awe. The Ainos believe them to be filled
with demons; hence they will hide behind a tree and spit profusely if
they see one coming (J. Batchelor, _The Ainu and their Folklore_, p.
385). In some parts of India they are supposed to be _bhuts_ going to
bathe in the Ganges (Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, _Settlement Report of the
Panipat, Tahsil, and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal District_, p. 154).
The Chevas and Tumbucas of South Africa fancy them to be the wandering
souls of sorcerers (_Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, vi. (Berlin,
1856) pp. 301 _sq._). The Baganda and the Pawnees believe them to be
ghosts (J. Roscoe in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.
(1902) p. 73; G. B. Grinnell, _Pawnee Hero-Stories and Folk-tales_, p.
357). Californian Indians think that they are happy souls ascending to
the heavenly land (Stephen Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 328).
Once when a great Fijian chief died, a whirlwind swept across the
lagoon. An old man who saw it covered his mouth with his hand and said
in an awestruck whisper, “There goes his spirit!” (Rev. Lorimer Fison,
in a letter to the author, dated August 26, 1898).


[1192] Herodotus, iv. 173; Aulus Gellius, xvi. 11. The Cimbrians are
said to have taken arms against the tide (Strabo, vii. 2. 1).


CHAPTER VI—Magicians as Kings


[1193] The government of the western islanders of Torres Straits is
similar. See A. C. Haddon, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 263 _sq._ So, too, the Bantoc Igorot
of the Philippines have no chiefs and are ruled by councils of old men.
See A. E. Jenks, _The Bantoc Igorot_ (Manila; 1905), pp. 32 _sq._, 167
_sq._


[1194] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
9–15, 154, 159–205; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_,
pp. 20–27, 285–297, 309 _sq._, 316; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_, pp. 320–326.


[1195] A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 303.


[1196] A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 313.


[1197] A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 314.


[1198] A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ pp. 297–299. For more examples of
headmen who are also magicians see _ib._ pp. 301 _sq._, 302, 317.


[1199] Scott Nind, “Description of the Natives of King George’s Sound
(Swan River Colony),” _Journal of the R. Geographical Society_, i.
(1832) p. 41.


[1200] Sir W. MacGregor, _British New Guinea_ (London, 1897), p. 41.


[1201] Le R. P. Guis, “Les Papous,” _Les Missions Catholiques_, xxxvi.
(1904) p. 334.


[1202] J. Chalmers, “Toaripi,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxvii. (1898) p. 334.


[1203] E. Beardmore, “The Natives of Mowat Daudai, New Guinea,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) p. 464.


[1204] C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_
(Cambridge, 1910), pp. 455 _sq._


[1205] M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_ (Berlin, n.d.), p. 334.


[1206] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 46.


[1207] R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 52. As to the _mana_ or
supernatural power of chiefs and others, see _ibid._ pp. 118 _sqq._;
above, pp. 227 _sq._ I have pointed out (p. 111, note 2) that this
supernatural power supplies, as it were, the physical basis of magic.


[1208] Father A. Deniau, “Croyances religieuses et mœurs des indigènes
de l’île Malo (Nouvelles-Hébrides),” _Les Missions Catholiques_,
xxxiii. (1901) p. 347.


[1209] R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 56.


[1210] C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahren unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln_
(Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903), pp. 173 _sq._


[1211] C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of New Guinea_ (Cambridge,
1910), p. 702.


[1212] G. Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), p.
270.


[1213] Rev. G. Brown, _op. cit._ p. 429.


[1214] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 320–322.


[1215] See above, p. 175.


[1216] O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), pp.
187 _sq._


[1217] O. Baumann, _op. cit._ p. 173.


[1218] H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 321.


[1219] Sir Harry Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_ (London, 1902),
ii. 830.


[1220] O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_, p. 164.


[1221] Baron C. C. von der Decken, _Reisen in Ost-Afrika_, ii. (Leipsic
and Heidelberg, 1871) p. 24.


[1222] M. Merker, _Die Masai_ (Berlin, 1904), pp. 18 _sq._ I have
slightly abridged the writer’s account.


[1223] M. Merker, _Die Masai_, p. 21. As to the medicine-men of the
Masai, see further A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), pp.
324–330.


[1224] O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_, p. 164.


[1225] A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_ (Oxford, 1909), pp. 49 _sq._


[1226] Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 851.


[1227] Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 779.


[1228] W. E. R. Cole, “African Rain-making Chiefs, the Gondokoro
District, White Nile,” _Man_, x. (1910) pp. 90–92; Yuzbashi, “Tribes
on the Upper Nile,” _Journal of the African Society_, No. 14 (January,
1905), pp. 228 _sq._; Brun-Rollet, _Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan_ (Paris,
1855), pp. 227 _sq._; F. Spire, “Rain-making in Equatorial Africa,”
_Journal of the African Society_, No. 17 (October, 1905), pp. 15–21.


[1229] Emin Pasha, quoted by Fr. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz
von Afrika_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 778–780.


[1230] F. Spire, “Rain-making in Equatorial Africa,” _Journal of the
African Society_, No. 17 (October, 1905), pp. 16–18, 21.


[1231] G. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_³ (London, 1878), i. 144
_sq._


[1232] E. D. Pruyssenaere, “Reisen und Forschungen im Gebiete des
Weissen und Blauen Nil,” _Petermanns Mittheilungen, Ergänzungsheft_,
No. 50 (Gotha, 1877), pp. 27 _sq._


[1233] Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 555.


[1234] G. Casati, _Ten Years in Equatoria_ (London and New York, 1891),
ii. 57, compare i. 134.


[1235] Ch. Wunenberger, “La Mission et le royaume de Humbé, sur les
bords du Cunène,” _Les Missions Catholiques_, xx. (1888) p. 262.


[1236] E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, “Notes on the Ethnography of the
Ba-Yaka,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxvi. (1906) pp.
48, 51.


[1237] E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, “On the Ethnology of the
South-Western Congo Free State,” _Journal of the R. Anthropological
Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 140.


[1238] O. Lenz, _Skizzen aus Westafrika_ (Berlin, 1878), p. 87.


[1239] A. Mansfeld, _Urwald-Dokumente, Vier Jahre unter den
Crossflussnegern Kameruns_ (Berlin, 1908), p. 161.


[1240] Ch. Partridge, _Cross River Natives_ (London, 1905), pp. 201
_sq._ The care taken of the chief’s cut hair and nails is a precaution
against the magical use that might be made of them by his enemies. See
_The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, i. 375 _sqq._


[1241] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 114. “The
chief collects to himself all medicines of known power; each doctor has
his own special medicine or medicines, and treats some special form
of disease, and the knowledge of such medicines is transmitted as a
portion of the inheritance to the eldest son. When a chief hears that
any doctor has proved successful in treating some case where others
have failed, he calls him and demands the medicine, which is given up
to him. Thus the chief becomes the great medicine-man of his tribe, and
the ultimate reference is to him. If he fail, the case is given up as
incurable” (H. Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, part iv.
pp. 419 _sq._, note). The medicines here referred to are probably for
the most part magical rather than medicinal in our sense of the term.


[1242] Dudley Kidd, _op. cit._ p. 115.


[1243] W. Grant, “Magato and his Tribe,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 267.


[1244] L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 154.


[1245] R. Moffat, _Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa_
(London, 1842), p. 306.


[1246] E. A. Maund, “Zambesia, the new British Possession in Central
South Africa,” _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1890,
p. 651.


[1247] Father C. Croonenberghs, in _Annales de la Propagation de la
Foi_, liii. (1881) pp. 262 _sq._, 267 _sq._


[1248] See above, pp. 344, 345, 346.


[1249] J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie occidentale_
(Paris, 1732), ii. 172–176.


[1250] H. Hecquard, _Reise an der Küste und in das Innere von West
Afrika_ (Leipsic, 1854), p. 78.


[1251] A. Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, i.
354, ii. 230.


[1252] J. Leighton Wilson, _Western Africa_ (London, 1856), pp. 129
_sq._; Miss Mary H. Kingsley, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxix. (1899) p. 62.


[1253] P. Kollmann, _The Victoria Nyanza_ (London, 1899), p. 168.


[1254] Mgr Livinhac, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, lx.
(1888) p. 110.


[1255] D’Unienville, _Statistique de l’Ile Maurice_ (Paris, 1838) iii.
285 _sq._


[1256] A. van Gennep, _Tabou et Totémisme à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1904),
p. 118, quoting Leguével de Lacombe, _Voyage à Madagascar_ (Paris,
1840), i. 229 _sq._ Probably the Antimoirona are identical with the
Antimores.


[1257] Emin Pasha, quoted by Fr. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz
von Afrika_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 779 _sq._


[1258] Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon._ ii. 1248 καὶ Ἡρόδωρος
ξένως περὶ τῶν δεσμῶν τοῦ Προμηθέως ταῦτα. εῖναι γὰρ αὐτὸν Σκυθῶν
βασιλέα φησί· καί μὴ δυνάμενον παρέχειν τοῖς ὑπηκόοις τὰ ἐπιτήδεια,
διὰ τὸν καλούμενον Ἀετὸν ποταμὸν ἐπικλύζειν τὰ πεδία, δεθῆναι ὑπὸ τῶν
Σκυθῶν.


[1259] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5. 14.


[1260] Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 73.


[1261] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 304 _sq._


[1262] A. Pfizmayer, “Nachrichten von den alten Bewohnern des heutigen
Corea,” _Sitzungsberichte der philos.-histor. Classe der kais. Akademie
der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), lvii. (1868) pp. 483 _sq._ It would seem
that the Chinese reported similarly of the Roman emperors. See Hirth,
_China and the Roman Orient_, pp. 41, 44, 52, 58, 70, 78.


[1263] N. B. Dennis, _Folklore of China_ (London and Hongkong, 1876),
p. 125. An account of the _Peking Gazette_, the official publication
of the Chinese government, may be read in _Lettres édifiantes et
curieuses_, Nouvelle Edition, xxi. 95–182.


[1264] Mgr Havard, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, vii.
(1834) pp. 470–473.


[1265] Gio. Filippo de Marini, _Historia et relatione del Tunchino
et del Giappone_ (Rome, 1665), pp. 137 _sq._; _Relation nouvelle et
curieuse des royaumes de Tunquin et de Lao_, traduite de l’Italien du
P. Mariny (_sic_) Romain (Paris, 1666), pp. 258 _sq._


[1266] H. H. Bancroft, _The Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii.
146.


[1267] Geo. Catlin, _Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North
American Indians_⁴ (London, 1844), i. 40 _sq._


[1268] W. L. Hardisty, “The Loucheux Indians,” _Report of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1866_, pp. 312, 316.


[1269] Rev. J. Jetté, “On the Medicine-Men of the Ten’a,” _Journal of
the R. Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 163. By the Ten’a
the writer means the tribe which is variously known as the Tinneh,
Déné, Dindjie, etc., according to the taste and fancy of the speller.


[1270] Roland B. Dixon, “The Northern Maidu,” _Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History_, vol. xvii. part iii. (New York, 1905) p.
267.


[1271] Roland B. Dixon, _op. cit._ pp. 328, 331.


[1272] S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), pp. 372
_sq._


[1273] S. Power, _op. cit._ pp. 380 _sq._


[1274] F. A. Thevet, _Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique,
autrement nommée Amérique_ (Antwerp, 1558), p. 65 [wrongly numbered 67].


[1275] C. F. Phil. v. Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerikas, zumal
Brasiliens_ (Leipsic, 1867), p. 76.


[1276] G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,”
_Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii. (Jena,
1905) pp. 19, 29.


[1277] Sir R. Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch-Guiana_, i. 169 _sq._,
compare _id._ i. 423, ii. 431; (Sir) Everard F. im Thurn, _Among the
Indians of Guiana_ (London, 1883), pp. 211, 223 _sq._, 328, 333 _sq._,
339 _sq._


[1278] W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay
Peninsula_ (London, 1906), ii. 196 _sq._


[1279] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_ (London, 1900), p. 36.


[1280] G. Maan, “Enige mededeelingen omtrent de zeden en gewoonten der
Toerateya ten opzichte van de rijstbouw,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xlvi. (1903) p. 339. The name Toorateya or
“inlander” is only another form of Toradja.


[1281] H. Low, _Sarawak_ (London, 1848), pp. 259 _sq._


[1282] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 59.


[1283] T. J. Newbold, _Political and Statistical Account of the British
Settlements in the Straits of Malacca_, ii. 193; W. W. Skeat, _Malay
Magic_, pp. 23–29.


[1284] G. J. Harrebomée, “Een ornamentenfeest van Gantarang
(Zuid-Celebes),” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xix. (1875) pp. 344–351; G. K. Niemann,
“De Boegineezen en Makassaren,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxviii. (1889) pp. 270 _sq._;
D. F. van Braam Morris, in _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land-
en Volkenkunde_, xxxiv. (1891) pp. 215 _sq._; A. C. Kruijt, “Van
Paloppo naar Posso,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xlii. (1898) pp. 18, 25 _sq._; L. W. C. van den
Berg, “De Mohammedaansche Vorsten in Nederlandsch-Indië,” _Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, liii. (1901)
pp. 72–80.


[1285] A. Moret, _Le Rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte_ (Paris
1902) pp. 94 _sq._


[1286] Sir William MacGregor, “Lagos, Abeokuta, and the Alake,”
_Journal of the African Society_, No. 12 (July, 1904), p. 472.


[1287] E. Perregaux, _Chez les Achanti_ (Neuchatel, 1906), p. 140.


[1288] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 76, 78, compare
pp. 101 _sq._


[1289] A. Bastian, _Völkerstämme am Brahmaputra_ (Berlin, 1883), p. xi.


[1290] Herodotus, iv. 5–7. Compare K. Neumann, _Die Hellenen im
Skythenlande_, i. (Berlin, 1855) pp. 269 _sq._


[1291] Pausanias, ix. 40. 11 _sq._


[1292] Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ed. R. Wagner, p. 185. On public
talismans in antiquity see Ch. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, pp. 278
_sqq._; and my note on Pausanias, viii. 40. 11.


[1293] _The Laws of Manu_, ix. 246 _sq._, translated by G. Bühler, p.
385 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxv.).


[1294] Homer, _Odyssey_, ii. 409, iv. 43, 691, vii. 167, viii. 2,
xviii. 405; _Iliad_, ii. 335, xvii. 464, etc.


[1295] Homer, _Odyssey_, xix. 109–114. The passage was pointed out to
me by my friend Prof. W. Ridgeway. Naturally this view was not shared
by the enlightened Greeks of a later age. See Sophocles, _Oedipus
Tyrannus_, 31 _sqq._; Polybius, Hist. vi. 6 _sq._


[1296] Nicolaus Damascenus, bk. vi. frag. 49, in _Fragmenta
historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. 381, Ἡν γὰρ δὴ κακίστος,
καί ἄλλως βασιλεύοντος αὐτοῦ ηὔχμησεν ἡ γῆ.


[1297] Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 1.


[1298] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5. 14.


[1299] Snorro Starleson, _Chronicle of the Kings of Norway_ (trans. by
S. Laing), saga i. chs. 18, 47. Compare F. Liebrecht, _Zur Volkskunde_
(Heilbronn, 1879), p. 7; J. Scheffer, _Upsalia_ (Upsala, 1666), p. 137.
In 1814 a pestilence broke out among the Chukchees of north-eastern
Siberia, which carried off many of the people and spread its ravages
among the herds of reindeer. The shamans declared that the spirits were
angry and would not stay the plague till the virtuous Kotchène, one of
the most venerated chiefs, had been offered to them in sacrifice. No
one was found hardy enough to raise a sacrilegious hand against him,
and the shamans had to force the chief’s own son to cut his father’s
throat. See De Wrangell, _Le Nord de la Sibérie_ (Paris, 1843), i.
265–267.


[1300] Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, bk. xiv. p. 779, ed. P. E.
Müller.


[1301] P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
i. 56 _sq._; J. O’Donovan, _The Book of Rights_ (Dublin, 1847), p. 8,
note. Compare Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_, i. 492.


[1302] S. Johnson, _Journey to the Western Islands_ (Baltimore, 1815),
p. 115.


[1303] J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), p. 5. As to the banner see also Th. Pennant,
“Second Tour in Scotland,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii.
321 _sq._


[1304] J. G. Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_
(Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 62 _sqq._


[1305] _Memoirs of John Evelyn, Esq._, New Edition (London, 1827), ii.
151 _sq._, under July 6th, 1660. Angel gold were gold coins with the
figure of an angel stamped on them. As to Charles’s triumphal entrance
into London, see Evelyn, _op. cit._ ii. 148 _sq._


[1306] _Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq._, edited by Lord Braybrook,
Second Edition (London, 1828), i. 187, compare _ib._ p. 110, iii. 192.


[1307] T. B. Macaulay, _History of England_, chap. xiv. vol. iii. pp.
478–481 (First Edition, London, 1855).


[1308] J. Boswell, _Life of Samuel Johnson_, Ninth Edition (London,
1822), i. 18 _sq._


[1309] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions connected with the History and
Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ (London, 1844), pp. 117–154; W. G.
Black, _Folk-Medicine_ (London, 1883), pp. 140 _sqq._; W. E. H. Lecky,
_History of England in the Eighteenth Century_ (London, 1892), i.
84–90. Down to the end of the eighteenth century it was believed in
the Highlands of Scotland that some tribes of Macdonalds had the power
of curing a certain disease by their touch and the use of a particular
set of words. Hence the disease, which attacked the chest and lungs,
was called “the Macdonald’s disease.” We are told that the faith of
the people in the touch of a Macdonald was very great. See Rev. Dr.
Th. Bisset, “Parish of Logierait,” in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical
Account of Scotland_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1792) p. 84.


[1310] Baron Roger, “Notice sur le gouvernement, les mœurs et les
superstitions du pays de Walo,” _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_
(Paris), viii. (1827) p. 351.


[1311] W. Mariner, _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands_,
Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 434, note.


[1312] To this subject we shall recur later on. Meantime I may refer
the reader to _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, i. 319 _sqq._, 343;
_Psyche’s Task_, pp. 5 _sqq._


[1313] A Roman name for jaundice was “the royal disease” (_morbus
regius_). See Horace, _Ars poetica_, 453; Celsus, _De medicina_, iii.
24. Can this have been because the malady was believed to be caused
and cured by kings? Did the sight or touch of the king’s red or purple
robe ban the yellow tinge from the skin of the sufferer? As to such
homoeopathic cures of jaundice, see above, pp. 79 _sqq._


[1314] Proyart’s “History of Loango, Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in
Africa,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, xvi. 573.


CHAPTER VII—Incarnate Human Gods


[1315] A reminiscence of this evolution is preserved in the Brahman
theology, according to which the gods were at first mortal and dwelt
on earth with men, but afterwards attained immortality and ascended to
heaven by means of sacrifice. See S. Lévi, _La Doctrine du sacrifice
dans les Brâhmanas_ (Paris, 1898), pp. 37–43, 59–61, 84 _sq._


[1316] See above, pp. 240–242.


[1317] Monier Williams, _Religious Life and Thought in India_, p. 268.
However, as to the son of the carpenter it is said that “his followers
scarcely worshipped him as a god, yet they fully believed in his power
of working miracles.”


[1318] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London,
1832–36), i. 372–5.


[1319] W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_ (London,
1876), p. 35.


[1320] Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author, dated August 26,
1898.


[1321] F. A. Liefrinck, “Bijdrage tot de Kennis van het eiland Bali,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxxiii. (1890)
pp. 260 _sq._


[1322] A. C. Kruijt, “Mijne eerste ervaringen te Poso,” _Mededeelingen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xxxvi. (1892) pp.
399–403.


[1323] _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, part ii. pp. 4, 38, 42, 44, translated by
J. Eggeling (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxvi.).


[1324] _Op. cit._ p. 20.


[1325] _Op. cit._ p. 29.


[1326] _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, part i. p. 4, translated by J. Eggeling
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xii.). On the deification of the
sacrificer in the Brahman ritual see H. Hubert and M. Mauss, “Essai sur
le sacrifice,” _L’Année sociologique_, ii. (1897–1898), pp. 48 _sqq._


[1327] S. Lévi, _La Doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brâhmanas_
(Paris, 1898), pp. 102–108; Hubert and Mauss, _loc. cit._;
_Satapatha-Brâhmana_, trans. by J. Eggeling, part ii. pp. 18–20, 25–35,
73, part v. pp. 23 _sq._ (_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xxvi. and
xliv.).


[1328] See for examples E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_,² ii. 131 _sq._


[1329] Pausanias, ii. 24. 1. In 1902 the site of the temple was
identified by means of inscriptions which mention the oracle. See
_Berliner philologische Wochenschrift_, April 11, 1903, coll. 478 _sq._


[1330] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxviii. 147. Pausanias (vii. 25. 13)
mentions the draught of bull’s blood as an ordeal to test the chastity
of the priestess. Doubtless it was thought to serve both purposes.


[1331] Bishop R. Caldwell, “On Demonolatry in Southern India,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, i. 101 _sq._ For a
description of a similar rite performed at Periepatam in southern India
see _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_, Nouvelle Edition, x. 313 _sq._
In this latter case the performer was a woman, and the animal whose hot
blood she drank was a pig.


[1332] E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 187.


[1333] J. G. F. Riedel, “De Minahasa in 1825,” _Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xviii. 517 _sq._ Compare “De
godsdienst en godsdienst-plegtigheden der Alfoeren in de Menhassa op
het eiland Celebes,” _Tijdschrift van Nederlandsch Indië_, 1849, dl.
ii. p. 395; N. Graafland, _De Minahassa_, i. 122; J. Dumont D’Urville,
_Voyage autour du monde et à la recherche de La Perouse_, v. 443.


[1334] F. J. Mone, _Geschichte des Heidenthums im nördlichen Europa_
(Leipsic and Darmstadt, 1822–23), i. 188.


[1335] J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_ (Calcutta, 1880),
p. 96. For other instances of priests or representatives of the
deity drinking the warm blood of the victim, compare H. A. Oldfield,
_Sketches from Nipal_ (London, 1880), ii. 296 _sq._; _Asiatic
Researches_, iv. pp. 40, 41, 50, 52 (8vo ed.); Paul Soleillet,
_L’Afrique Occidentale_ (Paris, 1877), pp. 123 _sq._ To snuff up the
savour of the sacrifice was similarly supposed to produce inspiration
(Tertullian, _Apologet._ 23).


[1336] C. F. Oldham, “The Nagas,” _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
for 1901_ (London, 1901), pp. 463, 465 _sq._, 467, 470 _sq._ The Takhas
worship the cobra, and Mr. Oldham believes them to be descended from
the Nagas of the _Mahabharata_.


[1337] Maimonides, quoted by D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der
Ssabismus_ (St. Petersburg, 1856), ii. 480 _sq._


[1338] J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_, p. 97.


[1339] Lucian, _Bis accus._ 1; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_, 6;
Plutarch, _De E apud Delphos_, 2; _id._, _De Pythiae oraculis_, 6.


[1340] Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 112.


[1341] Rev. J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p.
42.


[1342] C. Lekkerkerker, “Enkele opmerkingen over sporen van Shamanisme
bij Madoereezen en Javanen,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xlv. (1902) pp. 282–284.


[1343] H. Vambery, _Das Türkenvolk_ (Leipsic, 1885), p. 158.


[1344] Plutarch, _De defect. oracul._ 46, 49, 51. The Greeks themselves
seem commonly to have interpreted the shaking or nodding of the
victim’s head as a token that the animal consented to be sacrificed.
See Plutarch, _Quaest. conviv._ viii. 8. 7; Scholiast on Aristophanes,
_Peace_, 960; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon._ i. 425; and
this explanation has been adopted by modern interpreters. See A.
Willems, _Notes sur la Paix d’Aristophane_ (Brussels, 1899), pp. 30–33;
E. Monseur, in _Bulletin de Folklore_, 1903, pp. 216–229. But this
interpretation can hardly be extended to the case of the Delphic victim
which was expected to shake all over. The theory of possession applies
equally to that and to the other cases, and is therefore preferable.
The theory of consent may have been invented when the older view had
ceased to be held and was forgotten.


[1345] D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_, ii. 37; _Lettres
édifiantes et curieuses_, xvi. 230 _sq._; E. T. Atkinson, _The
Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India_, ii.
(Allahabad, 1884) p. 827; _Panjab Notes and Queries_, iii. p. 171,
§ 721; _North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 3, § 4; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896),
i. 263; _Indian Antiquary_, xxviii. (1899) p. 161; _Journal of the
Anthropological Society of Bombay_, i. 103; S. Mateer, _The Land of
Charity_, p. 216; _id._, _Native Life in Travancore_, p. 94; E. T.
Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iii. 466, 469; Sir A.
C. Lyall, _Asiatic Studies_, First Series (London, 1899), p. 19; J.
Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_, p. 131; P. S. Pallas, _Reisen
in verschiedenen Provinzen des russischen Reiches_, i. 91; H. Vambery,
_Das Türkenvolk_, p. 485; Erman, _Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde
von Russland_, i. 377; “Über die Religion der heidnischen Tscheremissen
im Gouvernement Kasan,” _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, N.F.
iii. (1857) p. 153; _Globus_, lxvii. (1895) p. 366. When the Rao of
Kachh sacrifices a buffalo, water is sprinkled between its horns;
if it shakes its head, it is unsuitable; if it nods its head, it is
sacrificed (_Panjab Notes and Queries_, i. p. 120, § 911). This is
probably a modern misinterpretation of the old custom.


[1346] Sir George Scott Robertson, _The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush_
(London, 1896), p. 423.


[1347] J. Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i. 177 _sq._
The practice in Tonquin is similar, except that there the person
possessed seems only to give oracles. See _Annales de l’Association de
la Propagation de la Foi_, iv. (1830) pp. 331 _sq._


[1348] Pausanias, x. 32, 6. Coins of Magnesia exhibit on the reverse
a man carrying an uprooted tree. See F. B. Baker, in _Numismatic
Chronicle_, Third Series, xii. (1892) pp. 89 _sqq._ Mr. Baker suggests
that the custom may be a relic of ancient tree-worship.


[1349] C. S. Stewart, _A Visit to the South Seas_ (London, 1832),
i. 244 _sq._; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _Îles Marquises ou
Nouka-Hiva_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 226, 240 _sq._ Compare Mathias G * * * ,
_Lettres sur les Îles Marquises_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 44 _sq._ The
general name applied to these human gods was _atuas_, which, “with
scarce a modification, is the term used in all the Polynesian dialects
to designate the ideal beings worshipped as gods, in the system of
polytheism existing among the people. At the Washington Islands, as at
other groups, the atuas, or false gods of the inhabitants, are numerous
and vary in their character and powers. Besides those having dominion
respectively, as is supposed, over the different elements and their
most striking phenomena, there are atuas of the mountain and of the
forest, of the seaside and of the interior, atuas of peace and of war,
of the song and of the dance, and of all the occupations and amusements
of life. It is supposed by them that many of the departed spirits of
men also become atuas: and thus the multiplicity of their gods is such,
that almost every sound in nature, from the roaring of the tempest in
the mountains and the bursting of a thunderbolt in the clouds, to the
sighing of a breeze through the cocoa-nut tops and the chirping of an
insect in the grass or in the thatch of their huts, is interpreted
into the movements of a god” (C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 243 _sq._).
The missionary referred to in the text, who described one of the human
gods from personal observation, was the Rev. Mr. Crooke of the London
Missionary Society, who resided in the island of Tahuata in 1797. On
the deification of living men see Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock),
_Origin of Civilisation_⁴ (London, 1882), pp. 354 _sqq._


[1350] J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux Îles du Grand Océan_ (Paris,
1837), i. 479; W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition
(London, 1832–1836), iii. 94.


[1351] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels in the
South Sea Islands, China, India, etc._ (London, 1831), i. 524; compare
_ibid._ pp. 529 _sq._


[1352] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 529 _sq._


[1353] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_,² iii. 108. The Ethnological
Museum at Berlin possesses a magnificent robe of red and yellow
feathers with a feather helmet, also two very handsome tippets of the
same materials. They were the insignia of the royal family of Hawaii,
and might be worn by no one else.


[1354] J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South
Sea Islands_ (London, 1838), pp. 471 _sq._


[1355] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii. 113 _sq._


[1356] Missionary Chevron, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,
xv. (1843) p. 37. Compare _id._ xiii. (1841) p. 378.


[1357] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 37, 48, 57, 58, 59, 73.


[1358] Hazlewood, in J. E. Erskine’s _Cruise among the Islands of the
Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 246 _sq._ Compare Ch. Wilkes,
_Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, New Edition (New York,
1851), iii. 87; Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_,² i. 219 _sq._;
R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 122. “A great chief [in Fiji]
really believed himself to be a god—_i.e._ a reincarnation of an
ancestor who had grown into a god” (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to
the author, dated August 26, 1898).


[1359] J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei
aus Volks- und Menschenkunde_ (Berlin, 1888), i. 30 _sqq._


[1360] Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, iv. 9; Eusebius, _Praeparatio
Evangelii_, iii. 12; compare Minucius Felix, _Octavius_, 29. The titles
of the nomarchs or provincial governors of Egypt seem to shew that they
were all originally worshipped as gods by their subjects (A. Wiedemann,
_Die Religion der alten Ägypter_, p. 93; _id._ “Menschenvergötterung im
alten Ägypten,” _Am Urquell_, N.F. i. (1897) pp. 290 _sq._).


[1361] Diogenes Laertius, _Vit. Philosoph._ viii. 59–62; _Fragmenta
philosophorum Graecorum_, ed. F. G. A. Mullach, i. pp. 12, 14; H.
Diels, _Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_,² i. (Berlin, 1906), p. 205.
I owe this and the following case of a human god to a lecture on Greek
religion by my friend Professor H. Diels, which I was privileged to
hear at Berlin in December 1902.


[1362] Plutarch, _Demetrius_, 10–13; Athenaeus, vi. 62 _sq._, pp. 253
_sq._ Apparently the giddy young man submitted to deification with a
better grace than his rough old father Antigonus; who, when a poet
called him a god and a child of the sun, bluntly remarked, “That’s not
my valet’s opinion of me.” See Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 24. For more
evidence of the deification of living men among the Greeks see Mr. A.
B. Cook, in _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 299 _sqq._


[1363] Tacitus, _Germania_, 8; _id._, _Histor._ iv. 61; Clement of
Alexandria, _Strom._ i. 15. 72, p. 360, ed. Potter; Caesar, _Bell.
Gall._ i. 50.


[1364] Tacitus, _Germania_, 8; _id._, _Histor._ iv. 61, 65, v. 22.
Compare K. Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, iv. 208 _sqq._


[1365] Strabo, vii. 3, 5, pp. 297 _sq._


[1366] J. Dos Santos, “Eastern Ethiopia,” in G. M’Call Theal’s _Records
of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp. 190 _sq._, 199.


[1367] J. Dos Santos, _op. cit._ p. 295.


[1368] F. S. Arnot, _Garengauze; or, Seven Years’ Pioneer Mission Work
in Central Africa_ (London, N.D., preface, dated March 1889), p. 78.


[1369] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, vi. (1856) pp. 273 _sq._
This is from a German abstract (pp. 257–313, 369–420) of a work, which
embodies the results of a Portuguese expedition conducted by Major
Monteiro in 1831 and 1832. The territory of the Maraves is described as
bounded on the south by the Zambesi and on the east by the Portuguese
possessions. Probably things have changed greatly in the seventy years
which have elapsed since the expedition.


[1370] G. W. H. Knight-Bruce, _Memories of Mashonaland_ (London and New
York, 1895), p. 43; _id._, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society_, 1890, pp. 346 _sq._


[1371] Father Croonenberghs, “La Mission du Zambèze,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xiv. (1882) pp. 452 _sq._


[1372] Ch. L. Norris Newman, _Matabeleland and how we got it_ (London,
1895), pp. 167 _sq._ These particulars were communicated to Captain
Newman by Mr. W. E. Thomas, son of the first missionary to Matabeleland.


[1373] _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, lii. (1880) pp. 443–445.
Compare Father Croonenberghs, “La Mission du Zambèze,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xiv. (1882) p. 452.


[1374] R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,”
_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, xiii. (1885–86) p.
762; C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, _Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan_,
i. 206; J. Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_, pp. 15 _sq._


[1375] V. L. Cameron, _Across Africa_ (London, 1877), ii. 69.


[1376] Mgr. Massaja, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xxx.
(1858) p. 51.


[1377] “The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel,” in Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_, xvi. 330; Proyart, “History of Loango, Kakongo,
and other Kingdoms in Africa,” in Pinkerton, _op. cit._ xvi. 577; O.
Dapper, _Description de l’Afrique_, p. 335.


[1378] Ogilby, _Africa_, p. 615; Dapper, _op. cit._ p. 400.


[1379] J. Adams, _Sketches taken during ten Voyages to Africa_, p. 29;
_id._, _Remarks on the Country extending from Cape Palmas to the River
Congo_ (London, 1823), p. 111. Compare “My Wanderings in Africa,” by an
F.R.G.S. [R. F. Burton], _Fraser’s Magazine_, lxvii. (April 1863) p.
414.


[1380] W. Allen and T. R. H. Thomson, _Narrative of the Expedition
to the River Niger in 1841_ (London, 1848), i. 288. A slight mental
confusion may perhaps be detected in this utterance of the dark-skinned
deity. But such confusion, or rather obscurity, is almost inseparable
from any attempt to define with philosophic precision the profound
mystery of incarnation.


[1381] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 419.


[1382] Rev. J. Sibree, “Curiosities of Words connected with Royalty and
Chieftainship,” _Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine_, No. xi.
(1887) p. 302; _id._ in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xxi. (1892) p. 218.


[1383] Rev. J. Sibree, in _Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar
Magazine_, No. xi. (1887) p. 307; _id._ in _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxi. (1892) p. 225.


[1384] V. Noel, “Île de Madagascar: recherches sur les Sakkalava,”
_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Deuxième Série, xx.
(1843) p. 56.


[1385] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, pp. 23 _sq._


[1386] T. J. Newbold, _Political and Statistical Account of the British
Settlement in the Straits of Malacca_, ii. 193. See above, pp. 362–364.


[1387] W. W. Skeat, _op. cit._ p. 29.


[1388] G. K. N[iemann], “Bijdrage tot de Kennis van den Godsdienst der
Bataks,” _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië_, iii. Serie, iv. (1870)
pp. 289 _sq._; B. Hagen, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Battareligion,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxviii. 537
_sq._; G. A. Wilken, “Het animisme,” _De Indische Gids_, July 1884,
p. 85; _id._, _Handleiding voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_ (Leyden, 1893), pp. 369 _sq._, 612; J. Freiherr von
Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras_ (Würzburg, 1894), pp. 340.


[1389] W. Marsden, _History of Sumatra_ (London, 1811), pp. 376 _sq._


[1390] A. C. Kruijt, “Van Paloppo naar Posso,” _Mededeelingen van wege
het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlii. (1898) p. 22.


[1391] F. Valentyn, _Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën_, iii. 7 _sq._


[1392] J. Boot, “Korte schets der noordkust van Ceram,” _Tijdschrift
van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x.
(1893) pp. 1198 _sq._


[1393] Sangermano, _Description of the Burmese Empire_ (reprinted at
Rangoon, 1885), pp. 63 _sq._


[1394] E. Aymonier, _Le Cambodge_, ii. (Paris, 1901) p. 25.


[1395] E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_ (Westminster, 1898),
pp. 142 _sq._ Similarly, special sets of terms are or have been used
with reference to persons of royal blood in Burma (Forbes, _British
Burma_, pp. 71 _sq._; Shway Yoe, _The Burman_, ii. 118 _sqq._),
Cambodia (Lemire, _Cochinchine française et le royaume de Cambodge_,
p. 447), the Malay Peninsula (W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 35),
Travancore (S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_, p. 129), the
Pelew Islands (K. Semper, _Die Palau-Inseln_, pp. 309 _sq._), Ponape,
one of the Caroline Islands (Dr. Hahl, “Mitteilungen über Sitten und
rechtliche Verhältnisse auf Ponape,” _Ethnologisches Notizblatt_, ii.
Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), p. 5), Samoa (L. Th. Violette, in _Missions
Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 190; J. E. Newell, “Chief’s Language
in Samoa,” _Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of
Orientalists_, London, 1893, ii. 784–799), the Maldives (Fr. Pyrard,
_Voyage to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil_,
Hakluyt Society, i. 226), in some parts of Madagascar (J. Sibree, in
_The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine_, No. xi., Christmas
1887, pp. 310 _sqq._; _id._, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxi. (1892) pp. 215 _sqq._), among the Bawenda of
the Transvaal (Beuster, “Das Volk der Vawenda,” _Zeitschrift der
Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin_, xiv. (1879) p. 238), and among
the Natchez Indians of North America (Du Pratz, _History of Louisiana_,
p. 328). When we remember that special vocabularies of this sort have
been employed with regard to kings or chiefs who are known to have
enjoyed a divine or semi-divine character, as in Tahiti (see above,
p. 388), Fiji (Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_,² i. 37), and
Tonga (W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 79), we shall be inclined to
surmise that the existence of such a practice anywhere is indicative
of a tendency to deify royal personages, who are thus marked off from
their fellows. This would not necessarily apply to a custom of using
a special dialect or particular forms of speech in addressing social
superiors generally, such as prevails in Java (T. S. Raffles, _History
of Java_, i. 310, 366 _sqq._, London, 1817), and Bali (R. Friederich,
“Voorloopig Verslag van het eiland Bali,” _Verhandelingen van het
Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen_, xxii. 4; J.
Jacobs, _Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs_, p. 36).


[1396] A. Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, iv. 383.


[1397] S. I. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_ (Chicago,
1902), p. 102.


[1398] W. E. Marshall, _Travels amongst the Todas_ (London, 1873), pp.
136, 137; cp. pp. 141, 142; F. Metz, _Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry
Hills_, Second Edition (Mangalore, 1864), pp. 19 _sqq._ However, at the
present day, according to Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, the _palol_ or milkman
of the highest class is rather a sacred priest than a god. But there
is a tradition that the gods held the office of milkman, and even now
the human milkman of one particular dairy is believed to be the direct
successor of a god. See W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906),
pp. 448 _sq._


[1399] Monier Williams, _Religious Life and Thought in India_, p. 259.


[1400] _The Laws of Manu_, vii. 8, p. 217, translated by G. Bühler
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxv.).


[1401] _Id._ ix. 317, 319, pp. 398, 399.


[1402] _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, trans. by J. Eggeling, part i. pp. 309
_sq._; compare _id._, part ii. p. 341 (_Sacred Books of the East_,
vols. xii. and xxvi.).


[1403] Monier Williams, _op. cit._ p. 457.


[1404] Monier Williams, _op. cit._ pp. 201 _sq._


[1405] Monier Williams, _op. cit._ pp. 259 _sq._


[1406] I have borrowed the description of this particular deity from
the Rev. Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, who knew him personally (_Contemporary
Review_, June 1899, p. 768). It is melancholy to reflect that in our
less liberal land the divine Swami would probably have been consigned
to the calm seclusion of a gaol or a madhouse. The difference between a
god and a madman or a criminal is often merely a question of latitude
and longitude.

Swami departed this life in August 1899 at the age of about seventy.
It is only fair to his memory to add that the writer who records his
death bears high and honourable testimony to the noble and unselfish
character of the deceased, who is said to have honestly repudiated the
miraculous powers ascribed to him by his followers. He was worshipped
in temples during his life, and other temples have been erected to
him since his death. See Rai Bahadur Lala Baij Nath, B.A., _Hinduism
Ancient and Modern_ (Meerut, 1905), pp. 94 _sq._


[1407] E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, iv. 236, 280.


[1408] E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras,
1906), p. 301.


[1409] Captain Edward Moor, “Account of an Hereditary Living Deity,”
_Asiatic Researches_, vii. (London, 1803) pp. 381–395; Viscount
Valentia, _Voyages and Travels_, ii. 151–159; Ch. Coleman, _Mythology
of the Hindus_ (London, 1832), pp. 106–111; _Gazetteer of the Bombay
Presidency_, xviii. part iii. (Bombay, 1885) pp. 125 _sq._ I have to
thank my friend Mr. W. Crooke for calling my attention to the second
and fourth of these works. To be exact, I should say that I have no
information as to this particular deity later than the account given
of him in the eighteenth volume of the Bombay Gazetteer, published
some twenty-five years ago. But I think we may assume that the same
providential reasons which prolonged the revelation down to the
publication of the Gazetteer have continued it to the present time.


[1410] Monier Williams, _op. cit._ pp. 136 _sq._ A full account of the
doctrines and practices of the sect may be found in the _History of
the Sect of the Maharajas or Vallabhacharyas_, published by Trübner at
London in 1865. My attention was directed to it by my friend Mr. W.
Crooke.


[1411] A. Harnack, _Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte_, i. 321.


[1412] F. C. Conybeare, “The History of Christmas,” _American Journal
of Theology_, iii. (1899) pp. 18 _sq._ Mr. Conybeare kindly lent me a
proof of this article, and the statement in the text is based on it. In
the published article the author has made some changes.


[1413] D. Mackenzie Wallace, _Russia_ (London, Paris, and New York,
N.D.), p. 302. The passage in the text is “a short extract from a
description of the ‘Khlysti’ by one who was initiated into their
mysteries.” As to these Russian Christs see further N. Tsakni, _La
Russie sectaire_ (Paris, N.D.), pp. 63 _sqq._ Amongst the means which
these sectaries take to produce a state of religious exaltation are
wild, whirling dances like those of the dancing Dervishes.


[1414] J. L. Mosheim, _Ecclesiastical History_ (London, 1819), iii. 278
_sqq._


[1415] J. L. Mosheim, _op. cit._ iii. 288 _sq._


[1416] Mgr. Flaget, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, vii.
(1834) p. 84. Mgr. Flaget was bishop of Bardstown, and his letter is
dated May 4, 1833. He says that the events happened in a neighbouring
state about three years before he wrote.


[1417] D. C. J. Ibbetson, _Outlines of Panjab Ethnography_ (Calcutta,
1883), p. 123.


[1418] G. Massaja, _I miei trentacinque anni di missione nell’ alta
Etiopia_ (Rome and Milan, 1888), v. 53 _sq._ Compare Father Leon des
Avanchers, in _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Vme
Série, xvii. (1869) p. 307.


[1419] E. Aymonier, _Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), pp. 141 _sq._;
_id._, _Voyage dans le Laos_, ii. (Paris, 1897) p. 47.


[1420] W. Robinson, _Descriptive Account of Assam_ (London and
Calcutta, 1841), pp. 342 _sq._; _Asiatic Researches_, xv. 146.


[1421] Huc, _Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet_,
i. 279 _sqq._, ed. 12mo. For more details, see L. A. Waddell, _The
Buddhism of Tibet_ (London, 1895), pp. 245 _sqq._ Compare G. Timkowski,
_Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia to China_, i. 23–25;
Abbé Armand David, “Voyage en Mongolie,” _Bulletin de la Société de
Géographie_ (Paris), VIme Série, ix. (1875) pp. 132–134; Mgr Bruguière,
in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, ix. (1836) pp. 296 _sq._;
Father Gabet, _ib._ xx. (1848) pp. 229–231; G. Sandberg, _Tibet and
the Tibetans_ (London, 1906), pp. 128 _sqq._ In the Delta of the Niger
the souls of little negro babies are identified by means of a similar
test. An assortment of small wares that belonged to deceased members of
the family is shewn to the new baby, and the first thing he grabs at
identifies him. “Why, he’s uncle John,” they say; “see! he knows his
own pipe.” Or, “That’s cousin Emma; see! she knows her market calabash”
(Miss M. H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 493).


[1422] Huc, _op. cit._ ii. 279, 347 _sq._; C. Meiners, _Geschichte der
Religionen_, i. 335 _sq._; J. G. Georgi, _Beschreibung aller Nationen
des russischen Reichs_, p. 415; A. Erman, _Travels in Siberia_, ii. 303
_sqq._; _Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Soc._ xxxviii. (1868) pp. 168, 169;
_Proceedings of the Roy. Geogr. Soc._ N.S. vii. (1885) p. 67; Sarat
Chandra Das, _Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet_ (London, 1902), pp.
159 _sq._ The Grand Lama’s palace is called Potala. Views of it from
a photograph and from a drawing are given by Sarat Chandra Das. In
the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, _l.c._, the Lama in
question is called the Lama Gûrû; but the context shows that he is the
great Lama of Lhasa.


[1423] Thevenot, _Relations des divers voyages_, iv. Partie (Paris,
1672), “Voyage à la Chine des PP. I. Grueber et d’Orville,” pp. 1
_sq._, 22.


[1424] E. Pander (professor at the University of Peking), “Das
lamaische Pantheon,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxi. (1889) p.
76; _id._, “Geschichte des Lamaismus,” _Verhandlungen der Berliner
Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte_, 1889, p.
(202).


[1425] Mgr Danicourt, “Rapport sur l’origine, les progrès et la
décadence de la secte des _Tao-sse_, en Chine,” _Annales de la
Propagation de la Foi_, xxx. (1858) pp. 15–20; J. H. Gray, _China_
(London, 1878), i. 103 _sq._; Dr. Merz, “Bericht über seine erste Reise
von Amoy nach Kui-kiang,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu
Berlin_, xxiii. (1888) pp. 413–416.


[1426] Garcilasso de la Vega, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries
of the Yncas_, bk. ii. chs. 8 and 15 (vol. i. pp. 131, 155, Markham’s
translation). This writer tells us that the Peruvian Indians “held
their kings not only to be possessed of royal majesty, but to be gods”
(_ib._ bk. iv. ch. v. vol. i. p. 303, Markham’s Trans.). Mr. E. J.
Payne denies that the Incas believed in their descent from the sun, and
stigmatises as a ridiculous fable the notion that they were worshipped
as gods (_History of the New World called America_, i. 506, 512). I
content myself with reproducing the statements of Garcilasso de la
Vega, who had ample means of ascertaining the truth. His good faith has
been questioned, but, as I believe, on insufficient grounds. See below,
vol. ii. p. 244 note¹.


[1427] Alex. von Humboldt, _Researches concerning the Institutions and
Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America_, ii. 106 _sqq._; H.
Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l’ancien Cundinamarca_, pp. 14 _sq._, 19
_sq._, 40 _sq._; Th. Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iv. 352
_sqq._; J. G. Müller, _Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen_, pp.
430 _sq._; C. F. Ph. v. Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerikas_, p. 455;
A. Bastian, _Die Culturländer des alten Amerika_, ii. 204 _sq._


[1428] See above, p. 356.


[1429] H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii. 146.


[1430] _Manuscrit Ramirez: Histoire de l’origine des Indiens qui
habitent la Nouvelle Espagne_, publié par D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), p.
107; J. de Acosta, _Natural and Moral History of the Indies_, ii. 505,
508 (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880).


[1431] J. J. M. de Groot, _Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in
China_, i. (Amsterdam, 1903), pp. 17 _sq._


[1432] _Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century_:
from recent Dutch visitors to Japan and the German of Dr. Ph. Fr. von
Siebold (London, 1841), pp. 141 _sqq._


[1433] H. Radau, _Early Babylonian History_ (New York and London,
1900), pp. 307–317. Compare C. Brockelmann, “Wesen und Ursprung des
Eponymats in Assyrien,” _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xvi. (1902) p.
394; H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_³ (Berlin, 1903), pp. 379, 639 _sq._


[1434] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6, §§ 5 and 6.


[1435] C. P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, pp. 103
_sq._ On the worship of the kings see also E. Meyer, _Geschichte
des Altertums_,² i. 2. § 219, pp. 142 _sq._; A. Erman, _Ägypten und
ägyptisches Leben im Altertum_, pp. 91 _sqq._; _id._, _Die ägyptische
Religion_ (Berlin, 1905), pp. 39 _sq._; V. von Strauss und Carnen,
_Die altägyptischen Götter und Göttersagen_, pp. 467 _sqq._; A.
Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_, pp. 92 _sq._; _id._,
“Menschenvergötterung im alten Ägypten,” _Am Urquelle_, N.F. i. (1897),
pp. 289 _sqq._; _id._, _Herodots zweites Buch_, pp. 274 _sq._; G.
Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique: les
origines_, pp. 258–267; E. Naville, _La Religion des anciens Égyptiens_
(Paris, 1906), pp. 225 _sqq._ Diodorus Siculus observed (i. 90) that
“the Egyptians seem to worship and honour their kings as very gods.”


[1436] P. le P. Renouf, “The priestly Character of the earliest
Egyptian Civilisation,” _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archaeology_, xii. (1890) p. 355.


[1437] A. Moret, _Du caractère religieux de la royauté pharaonique_
(Paris, 1902), pp. 278 _sq._; compare _ib._ pp. 313.


[1438] A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 306.


[1439] A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 310.


[1440] A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 299.


[1441] A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 233.


[1442] V. von Strauss und Carnen, _op. cit._ p. 470. On the titles of
the Egyptian kings see further A. Moret, _op. cit._ pp. 17–38.


[1443] C. P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, p. 105. Compare
A. Moret, _op. cit._ pp. 71 _sq._, 312.


[1444] In regard to the natives of the western islands of Torres
Straits it has been remarked by Dr. A. C. Haddon that the magicians
or sorcerers “constituted the only professional class among these
democratic islanders” (_Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 321). The same observation could be
applied to many other savage tribes.


[1445] For example, amongst the Todas the medicine-man has been
differentiated from the sorcerer; yet their common origin is indicated
by their both using the same kind of magical formulas or spells to
accomplish their different ends. See Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_,
p. 271: “It seems clear that the Todas have advanced beyond the stage
of human culture in which all misfortunes are produced by magic. They
recognise that some ills are not due to human intervention, but yet
they employ the same kind of means to remove these ills as are employed
to remove those brought about by human agency. The advance of the
Todas is shown most clearly by the differentiation of function between
_pilikòren_ and _utkòren_, between sorcerers and medicine-men, and we
seem to have here a clear indication of the differentiation between
magic and medicine. The two callings are followed by different men, who
are entirely distinct from one another, but both use the same kind of
formula to bring about the effect they desire to produce.”


APPENDIX—Hegel on Magic and Religion


[1446] _Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion_, i. 220 _sqq._
(vol. xi. of the first collected edition of Hegel’s works, Berlin,
1832). The coincidence was also pointed out to me by my friend Dr. J.
M. E. McTaggart.


[1447] Similarly I have pointed out elsewhere (_Totemism and Exogamy_,
i. 169 _sq._) that it is the unstable, apparently irregular,
incalculable element in nature which the magician particularly aims
at controlling, while so far as the course of nature is observed to
be stable, regular, and uniform it lies comparatively outside the
operations of magic. “To put it generally, the practice of magic for
the control of nature will be found on the whole to increase with the
variability and to decrease with the uniformity of nature throughout
the year. Hence the increase will tend to become more and more
conspicuous as we recede from the equator, where the annual changes of
natural conditions are much less marked than elsewhere. This general
rule is no doubt subject to many exceptions which depend on local
varieties of climate. . . . But, on the whole, this department of
magic, if not checked by civilisation or other causes, would naturally
attain its highest vogue in the temperate and polar zones rather than
in the equatorial regions; while, on the other hand, the branch of
magical art which deals directly with mankind, aiming for example at
the cure or infliction of disease, tends for obvious reasons to be
diffused equally over the globe without distinction of latitude or
climate” (_Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 170). The reason why the latter
branch of magic tends to be equally prevalent in all parts of the world
is, of course, that in all parts of the world human nature is equally
unstable, seemingly irregular, and incalculable by comparison with the
stability, regularity, and uniformity of nature.


[1448] I have not found the passage of Captain Parry which Hegel
here quotes, whether from the English original or from a German
translation. I should doubt whether the gallant English explorer would
have spoken of an “empirical mode of existence,” which appears to me
to savour rather of the professor’s lecture-room than of the captain’s
quarter-deck.


[1449] G. W. F. Hegel, _Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion_,
translated by the Rev. E. B. Spiers, B. D., and J. Burdon Sanderson,
i. (London, 1895) pp. 290–298. Further, Hegel observes (p. 300) that
“magic has existed among all peoples and at every period.”

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