Part 6

In other tribes to the north similar ceremonies exist, but they are less elaborate and sometimes of the simplest description. The headman of the white cockatoo totem group and his son spent the whole of one night ‘singing’ the cockatoo. In the Wara tribe on the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria a man of the rain-group goes to a pool, and, taking care that no women or strangers are in sight, bends down over and ‘sings’ the water; then he takes some up in his hands, drinks it, and spits it out in various directions. After that he throws water all over himself, and after scattering some all round he returns quietly to his camp, and rain is supposed to follow (64, 314). There is very little difference between this act and ordinary individual magic, the essential distinction being that the man in this case makes rain by virtue of rain being his totem, it being a function of human male members of the totem group to increase their totem.

When the totemic system falls into decay there seems to be a tendency for the old magical ceremonies which had for their purport the increase of the totem, to be performed by certain families, rather than by groups of men; this appears to be associated with the growth of property in land, so that in time the performance of certain ceremonies is restricted to a single man, who transmits the right to his son, and they alone of the community have this duty. There is nothing to distinguish men with these rights from ordinary sorcerers who practise definite departments of magic.

A very large number of examples of public magical ceremonies, undertaken for the good of the community, have been collected by Dr. Frazer in his Golden Bough; of especial interest are those connected with the production of abundant harvests, and the active participation of women in such customs is very significant. I here give an example recently published by Miss Mary Owen (56, 60). The Corn-planting dance of the Musquakie or Fox Indians takes place in April, though the real corn-planting commences about the 1st of May. It is danced by men only; they trot at sunrise along the east side of a cornfield selected by the shaman, going in single file with their rattles and little tambourines or prayer drums, while a young maiden goes into the field and plants a few grains from a perfect ear handed to her by the Honourable Women (women who have borne sons). If the harvest of the year before was scant the dancers may go entirely round the field. Afterwards there is some eating and drinking, but not an elaborate feast. Formerly the real planting of the field followed the ceremonial, and no food was eaten until the women had finished planting. Another old custom was to have the maid who did the planting given a husband, who went with her into the field. Later a prophet had a revelation that this custom should cease. The day is at the present time a favourite one for weddings.

B. Private Magic.

Individuals frequently practise magic for private ends, of which the objects to be attained may be perfectly legitimate or even praiseworthy, but more frequently recourse is had to magical practices for harmful purposes.

=Folk remedies= for sickness and pains are very frequently of a purely magical character. For example, a common cure for warts is to rub them with a piece of raw meat, which must then be buried; as the meat decays so will the warts disappear: to be effective the meat should be stolen. A woman in Islay was cured of toothache by a man driving a nail into the upper lintel of the kitchen door; he told her to keep it there, and, should it become loose at any time, to tap it a little with a hammer until it had a grip, and he assured her she would be free from toothache. She never again suffered from toothache (49, 158).

Any variety or combination of varieties of sympathetic magic may be employed in the manufacture or practice of =love-charms=; frequently they are fortified by the subtle association of scent. Doubtless certain scents have a direct stimulating effect, but, apart from this, should any scent be definitely worn when young men wish to attract girls, there can be no doubt that the suggestion would tend to act powerfully upon the latter, and that ‘girl-medicine,’ as I have heard it called, would of itself be potent even if other practices were not employed. I was told by a Torres Straits islander that just as a snake that is in one tree can, by swallowing its spittle, make a bird that is in another tree come to it, so if a man chews a certain medicine and a girl sees him swallowing the infusion in his saliva, she understands what the man means and is constrained to go to him (29, v. 328).

Various instances of =nefarious magic= have been given in the preceding pages. A good example came under my own observation. In Torres Straits there is a vine-like plant that loses its leaves at a certain season of the year, and the stem breaks up into joints, which often bear a striking resemblance to some of the long bones of the human skeleton. This circumstance led magicians to employ these sticks to make human beings into similar dried and shrivelled-up objects. The dry segments of the vine were collected and the magician gave the name of some part of the body to each joint: for example, one would be called an ‘arm,’ another a ‘leg,’ and so forth. The magician crouched like a fish-eagle and, imitating the way that a bird tears flesh off bones, threw the segments behind him without looking round. If he left the spot without turning round to look at the sticks the patient would die; but if he did not wish to proceed to this extremity, he turned and looked at the segments, and subsequently he would return and pick them up and place them together and put ‘medicine’ on them, and the patient would recover (29, v. 325).

The following account recently published by Mrs. J. Gunn (26, 98) is so characteristic that I quote it nearly verbatim. In North Australia any one can ‘sing magic,’ even lubras [women], but of course the wise old magic men do it best. It never fails with them, particularly if they ‘sing’ and point one of the special ‘death-bones’ or ‘sacred stones’ of the tribe. Generally a black fellow goes away quite by himself when he is ‘singing magic,’ but very occasionally a few men join together, as they did in the case of ‘Goggle Eye.’ When enough magic has been ‘sung’ into the bone, it is taken away to the camp, and very secretly pointed at the unconscious victim. The magic spirit of the bone runs into the man who is pointed at, and gradually kills him. Of course the man who has been ‘sung’ must be told somehow, or he will not get a fright and die. There are many ways of managing this; one very good way is to put the bone where he will be sure to find it, in his dilly-bag, or near his fire, or through the handle of his spear; but the man who leaves the bone about must, of course, be very careful to destroy his own tracks. ‘Goggle Eye,’ after he had found the bones lying about, knew exactly what was going to happen to him, and of course it did. His throat got very sore, and he grew so thin and weak that he could hardly stand. A man can be cured by magic men charming the ‘bone’ away again; but ‘Goggle Eye’ was old, and, what was worse, he was getting very cross, and too fond of ordering people about, so the black fellows thought it would be the best plan not to cure him, and a few more sneaked away into the bush and ‘sang’ some more bones, and pointed them at him to make quite sure about his dying. Poor old ‘Goggle Eye’ suffered dreadfully; no native would help him except his blood-brother, because they were afraid of the curse coming to them. Some said they would like to help, but that if they made ‘Goggle Eye’s’ fire for him, their own would never burn again. Nobody could even carry his food to him. Soon after, at ‘fowl sing out,’ or cockcrow, he died.

VI. MAGICIANS

Most forms of magic can be performed by anybody provided he knows what to do; but there are specialists in magic, who, by us, are variously termed medicine-men, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, witches, wise women, and the like. Their lore is transmitted orally to their disciples, who may or may not be their own children. Magical powers may be due to the mere accident of birth, as for example in the European belief in the therapeutic gifts of the seventh son of a seventh son. In some cases the sorcerer has to undergo a rigorous training, often being subjected to painful or loathsome ordeals; by these means the weaklings are eliminated, and those who persist have their character and fortitude strengthened, and they gain increased respect from their fellow-men. Further, in Australia and elsewhere, the medicine-man is not always a ‘doctor’; he may be a ‘rain-maker,’ ‘seer,’ or ‘spirit-medium,’ or may practise some special form of magic.

Usually the sorcerers unite together to form a society, which may attain great influence among backward races. According to Leland (43, 10), ‘there is actually in Tuscany a culture or worship of fetishes which are not Catholic, i.e. of strange stones and many curious relics. But there is a great deal of mystery and secrecy observed in all this cult. It has its professors; men, but mostly women, who collect charms and spells, and teach them to one another, and hold meetings; that is, there is a kind of college of witches and wizards, which, for many good reasons, eludes observation.’ The old faith, as it is termed, is pre-Christian, but not actively anti-Christian.

VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAGICAL PRACTICES

The superficial observer is apt to regard the medicine-men or sorcerers as cheats who deliberately humbug their neighbours; but it is probable that most of them really believe themselves to be possessed of occult or supernormal power. Doubtless they do many things for mere effect, in order to enhance the respect they desire to have paid to themselves personally, as well as to put the subjects or spectators into a proper frame of mind; but this is precisely what is deliberately done by the organisers of all ceremonies by all peoples. Doubtless, also, many acts are performed which are intended to impose upon the credulity of others; but this is a device which is not unknown among cultured people, as, for example, the liquefying of the blood of St. Januarius in Naples. There remain, however, a large number of phenomena, which are as mysterious to them as they are to the vast majority of mankind, and many of these are receiving the attention of psychologists of the present day, without their significance being understood. Mr. Podmore (55, 373) is not afraid to say that ‘many of the alleged wonders of witchcraft and of ancient magic in general, when disentangled from the accretions formed round them by popular myth and superstition, present a marked resemblance to some of the facts recorded’ in his book.

The mental equilibrium of many backward peoples is very unstable, although they may not suffer from the same derangements of the nervous system that affect the more highly civilised peoples. To take an example or two of this =nervous instability=, Castren observed long ago that if the Samoyeds were sitting around inside their skin tents in the evening, and some one crept up and struck the tent, half of them were likely to fall into cataleptic fits. Bogoras (5, 42) refers to the well-known Arctic hysteria which is so widespread among the Yukaghir and Lamut women, and to a less extent among the Chukchee, the Russianised, and even the Russian women. This disease develops chiefly in the form of an uncontrollable desire to repeat in a loud voice each word spoken by somebody else, and to imitate every sudden gesture or action. This is the same nervous disorder as the widely spread lâtah of Malaysia, which has been so admirably described by Sir F. A. Swettenham (68, 64).

The far-reaching power of =suggestion= has been perhaps the most potent factor in upholding magical practices, especially when it is =combined with hypnotism=. The hypnotic state, it must be remembered, though ordinarily produced by another, can be self-induced by gazing at an object. There is an overwhelming number of modern instances of bad habits, various diseases, inflammations, local and general pain, insomnia, neurasthenia, psychic paralysis, and psychic hysteria, being cured by suggestion while the patient is in the hypnotic state (31, 607). Conversely pain, inflammations, and other organic changes can be produced through the same means; such is the explanation of the appearance of stigmata on the hands and feet of religious ecstatics, who had induced auto-hypnotism by intently gazing on the Figure on the Cross. The cataleptic and anæsthetic conditions producible by hypnotism are well known all over the world, and have for ages been part of the stock-in-trade of sorcerers, medicine-men, or of certain religious enthusiasts.

=Suggestion alone=, without the aid of hypnotism, can effect wonders, and faith-cures and Christian science are by no means a new thing under the sun, but something very old under new names. Probably every physician has known cases of ‘persons who died because they did not want to live or were at least indifferent; and probably an equal number who materially lengthened their lives by the mere determination not to die’ (67, 612).

‘The psychology of the matter,’ writes Marett (51, 143), ‘is up to a certain point simple enough. Just as the savage is a good actor, throwing himself like a child into his mime, so he is a good spectator, entering into the spirit of another’s acting, herein again resembling the child, who can be frightened into fits by the roar of what he knows to be but a “pretended” lion. Even if the =make-believe= is more or less make-believe to the victim, it is hardly less efficacious; for, dominating, as it tends to do, the field of attention, it racks the emotional system, and, taking advantage of the relative abeyance of intelligent thought and will, sets stirring all manner of deep-lying impulses and automatisms.’

All peoples have prohibitions of certain kinds, and most have a firm belief that should these =tabus= be broken dire consequences will befall the offender. Occasionally the punishment is effected by the social executive, through representatives of secret societies or by other means; but usually it is left in the hands, so to speak, of the outraged spiritual powers, and so strong is this belief that it drees its own weird. For example, Father Merolla (54, xvi. 238) tells of a young Congo negro who, being on a journey, lodged at a friend’s house; the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a wild hen. His host replied ‘No.’ Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and his old friend asked him ‘If he would eat a wild hen,’ to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. ‘Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, “What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?” At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four hours after.’ Armit (2, 459) relates that an Australian died of fright within a fortnight after he had discovered his sick wife had lain upon his blanket. Nowhere is the power of taboo greater than among the Polynesians. And examples of its potency in procuring its own fulfilment in the Heroic Age of Ireland have already been given (p. 29).

No wonder then that belief in the magical powers of sorcerers can cause the same effects. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (64, 537) state that the Australian natives believe that any bone, stick, spear, etc., which has been ‘sung’ is supposed to be endowed with what the natives call Arungquiltha, that is, magical poisonous properties, and any native who believes that he has been struck by, say, a charmed spear, is almost sure to die, whether the wound be slight or severe, unless he be saved by the counter magic of a medicine-man. He simply lies down, refuses food, and pines away. Actual instances are given of men with slight wounds dying in a few days from this belief.

There can be no doubt that magical practices can act by =suggestion= through =fear= and =fascination= upon human victims who are aware of their occurrence, and it is probable that in most cases the victim is made aware of such practices as in the instance given on p. 49. Also there is every reason to believe that all backward peoples, including the sorcerers themselves, believe in the power of magic. Casalis (10, 275) gives an instructive instance in point. A chief of the Basutos once held forth in his presence on the matter of sorcery: he said, ‘Sorcery only exists in the mouths of those who speak of it. It is no more in the power of man to kill his fellow by the mere effect of his will, than it would be to raise him from the dead. This is my opinion. Nevertheless, you sorcerers who hear me speak, use moderation.’

Probably more widely spread than is usually accepted is the belief of some backward peoples, and therefore of their magicians, in a spiritual force that accomplishes their desires; such, for example, as the =mana= of the Melanesians. ‘The Melanesian mind,’ writes Dr. Codrington (12, 118), ‘is entirely possessed by the belief in a supernatural power or influence, called almost universally mana. This is what works to effect everything which is beyond the ordinary power of man, outside the common processes of nature; it is present in the atmosphere of life, attaches itself to persons and to things, and is manifested by results which can only be ascribed to its operation. When one has got it he can use it and direct it, but its force may break forth at some new point; the presence of it is ascertained by proof. A man comes by chance upon a stone which takes his fancy; its shape is singular, it is like something, it is certainly not a common stone, there must be mana in it. So he argues with himself, and he puts it to the proof; he lays it at the root of a tree to the fruit of which it has a certain resemblance, or he buries it in the ground when he plants a garden; an abundant crop on the tree or in the garden shows that he is right, the stone is mana, has that power in it. Having that power, it is a vehicle to convey mana to other stones. In the same way certain forms of words, generally in the form of a song, have power for certain purposes; a charm of words is called mana. But this power, though itself impersonal, is always connected with some person who directs it; all spirits have it, ghosts generally, some men. If a stone is found to have a supernatural power it is because a spirit has associated itself with it. A dead man’s bone has with it mana, because the ghost is with the bone; a man may have so close a connection with a spirit or ghost that he has mana in himself also, and can so direct it as to effect what he desires. All conspicuous success is a proof that a man has mana; his influence depends on the impression made on the people’s mind that he has it.’ If a man has been successful in fighting, it is not through his own qualities, but ‘he has certainly got the mana of some deceased warrior to empower him, conveyed in an amulet of a stone round his neck, or a tuft of leaves in his belt, in a tooth hung upon the finger of his bow hand, or in the form of words with which he brings supernatural assistance to his side.’

The Omaha (19) believe that a man’s own will can act directly on his fellows by singing certain songs; this act is called wazhin-dhedhe, that is ‘directive energy, to send’; the Omaha term ‘signifies to send forth one’s thought and =will power= toward another in order to supplement his strength, and thereby affect his action,’ or, as we should term it, =telepathy=. By an appeal to Wakanda (that is ‘immanent life manifest in all things,’ or the ‘hidden and mysterious power which brings to pass’), in the rite of vision, the man’s powers could be supplemented by the co-operation of the elements and of animals.

The innate spirituality of the savage appears to be largely ignored by students, who usually dub the magic worker as a conscious cheat and humbug, whereas it seems to be more correct to regard him as dealing with material objects mainly as endowed with life (=Animism=; 50, 171), or as the vehicles of spiritual or supernatural power, and by means of such objects or by the shafts of speech he can effectively project his will.

If then, as Mr. Marett points out (51, 150), the occult projectiveness of the magical act is naturally and almost inevitably interpreted as an exertion of will that somehow finds its way to another will and dominates it, the spell or uttered ‘must’ will tend to embody the very life and soul of the affair. Nothing finds its way home to another’s mind more sharply. It is the very type of a spiritual projectile.

In many examples of magical procedure the magician appears to act directly upon nature, and seeks to enforce the action of his will by the power of the spoken word or spell. In other cases he obtains power from energy derived from something outside of himself; for example, the shaman of Siberia may be possessed by a spirit, or the magician may even be possessed by a god. Thus by insensible stages do we arrive at actions that may better be described as religious or theurgic than as magical. Numerous examples of transition stages are given by Mr. W. W. Skeat (63). The god-inspired magician may become an actual deity, for many royal magicians, who are more especially rain-makers, are regarded, as Dr. Frazer has recently pointed out, as incarnate gods in Africa and elsewhere (21). Concurrently with ideas of personification and progressive deification the =spell evolves into prayer=. On the other hand, power may be obtained over deities by practices that are essentially magical, as, for example, by uttering the ineffable name, or by spells and incantations, and these may at the same time be associated with prayer, or the prayer itself may degenerate into a spell.

However it may be with human beings, few culture-folk will admit that sorcerers can effect the ordinary phenomena of nature, and in this respect, at all events, they should soon become discredited. On one occasion in Murray Island, Torres Straits, a native showed me two stones in a recess on the foreshore which were pointed at by men holding certain leaves which were left there. A ‘big wind’ would immediately arise which lasted until the plants were removed. This zogo was employed only in the season of the South-east trade wind. On my asking whether the ceremony was done in the North-west monsoon, my informant said emphatically, ‘Can’t do it in North-west.’ That is, the charm is performed only at that season of the year when the required result is possible—indeed, when it is of normal occurrence (28, 60; 29, vi.) In this, as in other cases, I found that =the impossible was never attempted=. A rain charm would not be made when there was no expectation of rain coming, or a south-east wind be raised during the wrong season. Probably this is the experience of others elsewhere, and thus it is not remarkable if the desired result frequently follows the performance of the charming.

A =loophole is generally provided in case of failure=. Either some irregularity or mistake occurred in the performance of the charm, or another sorcerer was performing contrary magic which proved of greater potency.