Magic and Fetishism

Part 1

RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN

MAGIC AND FETISHISM

RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Foolscap 8vo. Price 1s. net per volume.

ANIMISM.

By EDWARD CLODD, Author of The Story of Creation.

PANTHEISM.

By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON, Author of The Religion of the Universe.

THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA.

By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.

By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, Author of Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion.

ISLAM.

By Professor T. W. ARNOLD, Assistant Librarian at the India Office, Author of The Preaching of Islam.

MAGIC AND FETISHISM.

By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cambridge University.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.

THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum.

BUDDHISM. 2 vols.

By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal Asiatic Society.

HINDUISM.

By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS., British Museum.

SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.

By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

CELTIC RELIGION.

By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College, Aberystwyth.

Part 2

THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of The Mythology of the British Islands.

JUDAISM.

By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge University, Author of Jewish Life in the Middle Ages.

PRIMITIVE OR NICENE CHRISTIANITY.

By JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, LL.D., Joint Editor of the Encyclopædia Biblica.

SHINTOISM.

MEDIAEVAL CHRISTIANITY.

ZOROASTRIANISM.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ITALY.

Other Volumes to follow.

MAGIC AND FETISHISM

By ALFRED C. HADDON, Sc.D., F.R.S. UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN ETHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE

LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 16 JAMES STREET HAYMARKET 1906

Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

PREFATORY NOTE

It is by no means easy to do justice to such a large, comprehensive, and at the same time vague subject as magic in the small compass of a Primer, and part of even that small space had to be devoted to another subject. For sins of omission I must claim this excuse; for sins of commission I claim the indulgence of the reader.

A. C. H.

CONTENTS

MAGIC

I. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

A. Contagious Magic.

Hair, nail-pairings, etc. (3), scalp-lock (4), saliva (5), luck-ball (5), footprints (6), clothes (7), rag bushes and pin-wells (8), personal ‘ornaments’ (9), food (10), cannibalism (10), sympathetic relations between persons (11), couvade (13).

B. Homœopathic Magic.

Plants (15), rain-making (16), wind-making (18), increase of plants (18), and of animals (19), luring animals to be caught (19), human effigies to injure or kill people (20).

II. MAGICAL POWER OF NAMES AND WORDS.

Objection to names being mentioned of people, fairies, and animals (22), names of power (24), satire (26), geis (27), tabu (28).

III. TALISMANS AND AMULETS.

Part 3

Stones and metals (30), colour (31), bones, teeth, claws, etc. (32), lucky pig (33), amulets against the evil eye (33), luck-bone (39).

IV. DIVINATION—(40).

V. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MAGIC.

A. Public Magic.

Australian intichiuma totem ceremonies (41), corn-planting dance of the Musquakie (45).

B. Private Magic.

Folk-remedies (46), love-charms (47), nefarious magic (48).

VI. MAGICIANS.

Training of sorcerers and societies of magicians (51).

VII. PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGICAL PRACTICES.

Nervous instability (53), suggestion (53), make-believe (55), tabu (55), mana (58), projective will-power or telepathy (60), from spell to prayer (61), the impossible not undertaken (62), loopholes in case of failure (63).

FETISHISM

I. DEFINITION.

1. Etymological (66), 2. Historical (66), 3. Dogmatic (67).

II. ESSENTIAL CHARACTERS OF FETISHISM.

May be any object (72), a symbolic charm with sympathetic properties (74), a sign or token representing an ideal notion or being (76), habitation of a spiritual being (77), vehicle for communication of a spirit (79), instrument by which spirit acts (80), possesses personality and will (83), may act by own will or by foreign spirit (84), spirit and material object can be dissociated (87), worshipped, sacrificed to, talked with (89), petted and ill-treated (90).

III. FETISHISM AS A FORM OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP—(91).

MAGIC

I. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

As knowledge increases, mankind learns more and more about the world and the processes of nature, but even at the present day the vast majority of white men possess only a rudimentary amount of this knowledge; indeed, most so-called educated people have very vague ideas concerning the physical universe in which they live. Such being the case, it is not surprising that primitive peoples have very confused notions concerning these matters, and, as the result of false inductions concerning the causes of phenomena, they seek to accomplish ends by means that we recognise as inadequate. ‘It is plain,’ as Dr. Jevons points out (36, 33), ‘that as long as man is turned loose as it were amongst these innumerable possible causes with nothing to guide his choice, the chances against his making the right selection are considerable.’ Further, ‘no progress could be made in science until man had distinguished, at any rate roughly, possible from absolutely impossible effects (or causes), and had learned to dismiss from consideration the impossible. It might be expected that experience would suffice of itself to teach man this essential distinction, but the vast majority of the human race have not yet learned from experience that like does not necessarily produce like: four-fifths of mankind, probably, believe in sympathetic magic.’

The instances of sympathetic magic as Dr. Hirn points out (32, 278) are naturally divided into two main classes which, broadly speaking, correspond to the two types of association, contiguity and similarity, and as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether a given associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given superstition is to be assigned. We will start from the facts that are simpler and easier to explain.

A. Contagious Magic.

1. Sympathetic Magic based on a material connection between things (32, 279) has been aptly termed by Dr. Frazer (21, 77) =Contagious Magic=. All over the world we meet with examples of the belief that objects which were once related to one another retain their connection though they may be separated, and whatever may happen to one part or object the other part or object is similarly affected; thus, by acting upon a part of a given whole we may influence the whole as well as all its other parts.

This belief explains why a magician, wishing to influence or act upon some particular individual, desires to obtain some portion of his body or something actually connected with him. A few hairs from the beard, a lock of hair, some nail-parings, a drop of blood from the nose which has fallen to the ground, and which has not been rendered impalpable by effacing it with the foot, are used by Basuto sorcerers (10, 277), and indeed by workers of magic everywhere. A few of the examples collected by Mr. Hartland (30, ii. 66) will suffice to demonstrate the universality of this belief. In some parts of England a girl forsaken by her lover is advised to get a lock of his hair and boil it; whilst it is simmering in the pot he will have no rest. In certain parts of Germany and Transylvania the clippings of the hair or nails, as well as broken pieces of the teeth, are buried beneath the elder tree which grows in the courtyard, or are burnt, or carefully hidden, for fear of witches. Patagonians burn the hairs brushed out from their heads, and all the parings of their nails for they believe that spells may be wrought upon them by any one who can obtain a piece of either.

The potency of the hair is shown in the beliefs about the long narrow beaded band which is used to tie up the hair of a Musquakie woman (56, 96, 7). This, though a talisman when first worn, becomes something infinitely more sacred and precious, being transfused with the essence of her soul; any one gaining possession of it has her for an abject slave if he keeps it, and kills her if he destroys it. A woman will go from a man she loves to a man she hates if he has contrived to possess himself of her hair-string; and a man will forsake wife and children for a witch who has touched his lips with her hair-string. The hair-string is made for a girl by her mother or grandmother and decorated with ‘luck’ patterns; it is also prayed over by the maker and a shaman. The scalp-lock ornament worn by the Musquakie men is kept with great care as it helps to protect the soul. As the tearing out of the scalp-lock makes the soul at its root the slave of the one obtaining it, so the possession of its ornament and shield, which has absorbed some of its essence, gives the possessor the ability to send the rightful owner brain fever and madness (56, 106).

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