Chapter V: Part 5

Before passing away from the subject we may turn to a different type of shaman. Among the Veddas the shaman is in effect the priest. The spirits to whom offerings are made are those of the dead. It is the shaman who makes the offering, and performs the invocation; and he is in return possessed by them. But here the novice is chosen and trained by one who already exercises the profession. He does not become possessed in his capacity as novice. Possession only takes place at the public ceremonies; it is temporary; and it may affect others besides the shaman. The position of shaman is practically hereditary, for the novice trained is usually the shaman’s son, or his sister’s son, that is to say, his actual or potential son-in-law. The Veddas are on a level of civilization as low as the Arunta. Though they do not practise rites of such senseless and revolting cruelty, in their natural condition and apart from external influence they live entirely by hunting and the collection of honey; they build no huts, but take advantage of caves and rock-shelters; their pottery is of the roughest description; {113} and the iron arrowheads, axes and other implements which they possess are obtained by barter from the Sinhalese, for they do not exercise the art of smithying. The lowest and wildest of them, however, know nothing of hostile magic. Even protective magic is hardly practised; and the charms they make use of appear to be derived from the neighbouring Sinhalese. It is true they have traditions that it used to be customary to seek strength and confidence to avenge insults by chewing a small dried piece of the liver of a man who had been killed for the purpose. This is an application of a well-known magical principle.[113.1] But, so far as our information goes, it is a solitary case. If therefore the Vedda shaman is not initiated by the spirits, it is not because the Veddas have not yet passed out of the age of magic. If there be an age of magic in which religion is unknown, for aught that appears they have not yet passed into it. At all events they cannot be said to confirm the generalization that magic precedes religion; for magical practices once adopted persist with remarkable tenacity into the highest planes of culture.

There is, finally, an example of a functionary occupying an ambiguous position as priest or magician, at which we may glance for a moment. The Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, before the arrival of strangers in modern times, were, like the Arunta, living in the Stone Age. They had no agriculture; their food was supplied by the chase, or the search for insects, roots, and honey. They had indeed learned to build huts; and they had the use of fire, but they were ignorant how to produce it. They are divided into local tribes, ruled by elected chiefs with very limited power. The chiefs acquire such authority as they have by their skill in hunting and fishing {114} and their reputation for generosity and hospitality; and it is on these qualifications that social status mainly depends. Social and political organization is therefore, as well as religion, in a somewhat rudimentary stage. Nor is magic more advanced than religion. The only persons who exercise any magical or religious functions are called by the title of _oko-paiad_, or Dreamer. Such a man obtains his position by relating an extraordinary dream foreshadowing some future event, which afterwards happens. Since these practitioners are credited with the power of communicating in dreams with the spirits, it may be presumed that the initial dream is in the nature of a “call” by them. The _oko-paiad_ does not seem to be subject to possession by the spirits; but he is believed to have powers of second sight and a mysterious influence over the fortunes and lives of his neighbours. He is therefore the constant recipient of presents, which are in effect bribes for his favour. Our information concerning his proceedings is of the scantiest description. It does not extend to any active attempt at magical interference with the fate or the actions of others. Perhaps we may conclude that any interference he may be held to exercise is confined to his intercourse in dreams with the spirits. However this may be, his only recorded overt acts are on the occurrence of an epidemic, when “he brandishes a burning log, and bids the evil spirit keep at a distance.” Sometimes as a further precaution he plants stakes in front of each hut, and smears them in stripes with black beeswax, the smell of which, being peculiarly offensive to the demon, ensures his speedy departure.[114.1] If any inference can be drawn from this account it hardly seems to favour the priority of the evolution of magic over religion; for the _oko-paiad_, {115} if not initiated by the spirits, is essentially one who is in communication with them, and who exercises his powers not merely against individuals (of which there is no direct evidence), but in favour of them and of the community.

The conclusion is that there is no solid and convincing proof of the development of magic prior to religion. If the Mincopies, the Veddas, and the tribes of Central Australia fail us, whither shall we turn for evidence?

Yet there is a consideration generally applicable to savage life that must not be overlooked here. Vague, uncertain, and contradictory as the savage may be in his beliefs, sluggish as his mind may be in regard to matters of speculation,--in matters of practical importance, the provision of food and shelter, the protection of his women and children, and the defence of his little community against aggression by human foes or the wild beasts, he is bound to be on the alert and to act. His wits are therefore sharpened for action. Action is natural to him; thought which has no immediate objective in action is strange. The energies remaining when the body is satisfied with food, when shelter is assured, and hostilities against his fellow-man or the lower animals are for the moment forgotten, must be expended in other kinds of action. Bodily recreation--play--satisfies this craving for movement and excitement, while at the same time it fulfils the useful purpose (albeit unconsciously to him) of keeping his faculties, bodily and mental, ready and supple, and of training them still further for more directly practical ends. This form of activity, organized into dances and games, easily begets ritual. The Hottentots danced all night at full moon with extravagant gestures, saluting the moon and invoking her for cattle-fodder and milk.[115.1] The Wichita of {116} North America played every year in the spring a game of shinny, which represented, there can be little doubt, the contest of winter and spring.[116.1] In such cases as these, and they are legion, a recreation has been indulged in at a period appropriate for it--the dance in the clear, cool night, the game under the mild returning warmth and stimulating influences of the early spring. Because it thus naturally recurs at definite times it comes to be regarded as proper, even necessary: it develops into a rite. To a similar game played by the Omaha was attached, in the phrase of the writers who describe it, “a cosmic significance.”[116.2] The impulse to movement, to exertion, liberates emotion; the emotion is in turn intensified by its collective expression; and this intensification would lead to the conviction that the expression has somehow or other in itself an influence on external nature, just as it would have in human relations. The exact mechanism by which it acted probably would not trouble the savage at an early stage. Later, it would be fitted into the framework of his ideas. The Hottentot rite came to be addressed to the moon. The Wichita rite seems to have been thought to assist directly in conquest of the evil power of winter and the renewal of life.

But we may go further back still. I have referred to the make-believe that is a relief to overcharged feelings. Emotional stress is felt at times by everybody, be he savage or civilized. It causes a reaction, more or less powerful in proportion to the magnitude of the cause or the excitability of the person who undergoes it. It is expressed in acts sometimes of the wildest extravagance, sometimes rhythmic and partially controlled. These acts are spontaneous, automatic. Recurrence of the emotional stress would tend to be accompanied by repetition of the {117} acts in which the reaction had been previously expressed. If the recurrence were sufficiently frequent, the form of the reaction would become a habit to be repeated on similar occasions, even where the stress was less vivid or almost absent. It can hardly be doubted that many rites owe their existence to such reactions. The Pawnees, like the Wichita, a tribe belonging to the Caddoan stock of North America, summoned with song and dance and other elaborate rites the buffaloes which were the mainstay of their existence. Everything depended--sustenance, provision of clothing and tents and all other necessaries, hence the very continuance of the tribal life--on the buffaloes. Their movements about the great central plains of the continent were mysterious. The true causes were unknown; the course was not predicable with certainty. Accordingly, the period of expectation while the people were awaiting the advent of the herd was one of great emotional tension. It was relieved by a series of acts, originally automatic, or quasi-automatic, which would gradually assume more and more definitely the calling and enticement of the expected herd. This form of reaction to the particular stress would become habitual. It would end as a solemn rite, which was believed to have a powerful influence in bringing the animals and effecting a satisfactory capture. The _orenda_ of the performers, expressed in the manner consecrated by tradition, would then be held to exercise a compelling power.[117.1]

To such an origin must be ascribed the rehearsal of a battle that takes place in many savage tribes before {118} the warriors go forth on a raid, and the dances and other ceremonies accomplished by women left at home when their husbands are absent fighting or hunting. More obviously must it be held responsible for a variety of other performances, of which the common spell in this country and on the continent of Europe, to recover an article stolen or the waning affections of a lover, is a type. The love-lorn maiden takes some object, frequently a shoulder-bone of lamb, and sticks a knife or a pin into it, saying:

“’Tis not this bone I mean to stick, But my lover’s heart I mean to prick, Wishing him neither rest nor sleep Till he comes with me to speak.”

Of spells like this the preparation of an effigy, and the assaults upon it representing acts done to the person for whom the effigy stands, are an elaboration. The overcharged emotion first of all finds a vent in an attack upon any convenient object. Then from various causes a special object is singled out as the appropriate vehicle of the performer’s wrath, hatred or jealousy, the act gradually becomes more solemn and deliberate, and a formal rite is evolved.

It should hardly be necessary to say that it is not claimed that the foregoing paragraphs explain the genesis of all rites. But that many do thus originate accords with all we know of human nature. In any case a rite was not instituted because men were previously convinced of its efficacy. The primitive savage may have been a man of preternatural stupidity; but even he would not have been equal to putting the cart before the horse in that fashion. The rite must have been an established habit before a conscious meaning filtered into it. Interpretation would be a gradual process. If the rite were shared {119} by the social group, and by expansion or accretion attained sufficient importance, the interpretation might take the form of a myth. The myth in turn would contribute to the stability of the rite, by means of the sacred character it would affix to it, or the reminiscence of an ancient experience it would be supposed to embody.

Thus ritual, religious or magical, is evolved long before belief has become definite and cogent. It may emerge from what I may style the mere surface of human nature, from necessities mainly physical, from direct nervous reaction. It may, on the other hand, have roots in the social relations of mankind. The savage naturally, habitually--I might almost say instinctively--applies the forms of social life to his relations with his non-human surroundings. Presumably, as we have seen, primitive man in his rough way did likewise.

But this affords no argument for holding that magic preceded religion. Rites are not necessarily magical because they are not addressed to defined personalities. They may be yet inchoate. Not until reflection has begun to clarify in some degree man’s relation to his environment (a slow and tedious process, slowest and most tedious of all in the early stages) can we reckon them satisfactorily under the one head or the other. If I am right in contending that magic and religion flow from a common source, rites may remain for generations in an indecisive condition which is neither, but may crystallize in either shape according to the specific occasion, the environment, or the dominant mental and institutional tendency of the social group. Such a transformation will be gradual and piecemeal, and in large part, if not entirely, unconscious. Many things done “for luck,” even in the higher civilizations, are {120} still in this indeterminate state. The intellectual atmosphere is unfavourable; their development is arrested, probably for ever. I suspect that an accurate appreciation of the Intichiuma rites practised by the Arunta and their neighbours would show that they too are not finally to be assigned to either category.

The part played by society in the generation of religion demands some further observations. From whatever type of anthropoid ape man has been evolved, it is safe to believe that he has from the first lived in communities. But for this he could have made no progress, if even he could have existed as man. The condition of the solitary apes is incapable of improvement. It is incredible that if rudimentary human beings had lived like them in a group consisting at the utmost of a male, female, and still dependent young, they would ever have emerged into humanity, or that if they had emerged they would have been able to hold their own against the foes that surrounded them. The lowest human beings are never found solitary. If they wander on the food-quest, or are driven away from higher and more powerful societies, they do not fail to come together at certain times to enjoy the companionship of their fellows, to exchange experiences, to plan hunts or raids, to perform rites in common and partake of common pleasures. This implies organization. In fact, such communities, when they meet and live the communal life, are not found to be a mere incoherent congeries of individuals. They are true societies, organized, some more, some less closely, on a definite plan, in which every individual has his place. The Australian natives have evolved social institutions of proverbial complexity. The Bushmen of South Africa, persecuted and broken by intrusive races, have left us on the walls of the caverns they haunted representations {121} marvellous in their skill of ceremonies apparently totemic. And if this interpretation of the drawings be doubtful, such remains as have been preserved of their traditions afford evidence of an organization by no means contemptible. The Seri of the Californian Gulf, perhaps on a still lower plane of civilization, and certainly leading their life in more miserable surroundings, are divided into clans and furnished with a social hierarchy built up on a reverence for women almost chivalrous in its type.[121.1]

The existence everywhere of organized societies implies the paramount influence of the community over the individual. Nor is that influence only a matter of implication. Abundant evidence is found of the control wielded by society over the actions and the very thoughts of its members. The individual is nothing: the group is everything. As Professor Durkheim remarks, every society exercises power over its members, power physical and above all moral. It keeps them in a sensation of perpetual dependence. It is distinct from the individuals who compose it, and consequently its interests are distinct from theirs. But as it cannot attain its ends except through and by means of the individual, it makes an imperious claim on his assistance, exacting it even to the sacrifice of his inclinations and interests. Thus at every moment we are obliged to submit to rules of conduct and of thought which we have neither made nor wished to make, and which may even be contrary to our most fundamental instincts.[121.2]

In these days and among civilized societies, when individualism is so strongly developed in thought and action, we are apt to forget to what an extent religion is an expression of the social organization. An eminent {122} Oxford professor, not long ago deceased, used to say that religion was a social secretion. That may be an excellent way to phrase the relations between society and religion in modern Europe. It is a very incomplete account of them as they exist on the Australian steppe or in the forests of Brazil. In the lower culture religion is much more than a social secretion: it is one aspect of the social organization, inseparable from the rest. The organization cannot be understood without it--nay, it cannot exist apart from it. In these societies every member has his position and takes his share in religious rites. Whatever his place in the social scale, he is on the same level of knowledge, he shares in the same beliefs, with his fellows. The mental atmosphere of each is charged with the same electric fluid, which communicates itself to all alike. Especially on the occasions of reunion its action is intensified, frequently resulting in excitement, in vehement exaltation, translated into the wildest and most extravagant actions. But these reunions are not merely social, they are religious festivals. For religion pervades every thought and deed both of the individual and of the community. It binds the members together as no other force could do. The power of society over the individual is the power of religion. For religion is not as yet distinguished from politics, from law, from medicine, or from other forms of social activity that in our stage of culture have long vindicated their freedom.

Religion has therefore grown up with society. Its form has changed with the changing forms of society. It cannot be said to be generated by society, inasmuch as it is coeval with it. The very mould in which a society in the lower stages of culture is cast is religious. Church and State are of necessity coterminous, equivalent, {123} one. But this evolution must of necessity have taken time. The inchoate society of half-human beings would have had a correspondingly vague and inchoate religion. As intelligence grew, the bonds of the horde would gather strength, what we may call public opinion would become more and more definite with the gradual acquisition of speech, until at last man emerged in something like a regularly ordered community. It is difficult for us to imagine the steps of this long process, by which, with society, what we call religion was evolved. I have tried in an earlier chapter to sketch the external conditions that would have impressed humanity in its dawn. These external conditions would have driven the individual more and more in upon the group, and thus would have materially contributed to the conscious formation of common interests founded upon the common need of material help, of sympathy, and of relief from anxiety and terror, whether of actual or imagined danger. The formation of common interests must have been accompanied by the increasing subordination of the individual to the group. In the extension of the authority of the group over the individual it is that M. Durkheim finds the origin of the idea of the impersonal force which the Omaha call _wakonda_. The idea, as I have shown, lies at the root of the religious conceptions of peoples in more than one vast cultural area. That such authority of the group, necessarily impersonal as it is, would operate to strengthen the concept of a general impersonal force, when once that concept had been formed, there can be no question. To ascribe to it the origin of the concept, however, seems to me an unwarranted inference. It is more probable that the conflict of the Personal and the Impersonal should arise in the awakening mind as the result of its outlook upon {124} the world. The whole environment does not present a personal aspect at once. As personalities grow into relative definiteness one after another, there remains behind them the Unknown, full of vague possibilities, impersonal, but the source of personalities, which are for ever looming forth as the attention is concentrated on successive objects. Since it is the source of personalities, it is the source of power, mysterious and far-reaching, everywhere enveloping the beholder. It is true this power, in order to become effectual, must clothe itself with personal attributes. That, however, is not because it is formed on experience of the authority of the group acting by individuals, but because personalization is the inevitable tendency of the mind.

Professor Durkheim’s theory of religion is exhibited in detail only in one type. He speaks of “the aptitude of society to erect itself into a god or to create gods”;[124.1] but he illustrates his thesis only in the case of totemism, which he takes as an example of the religion of the least advanced people hitherto thoroughly examined. He is careful to say that the question whether totemism has been more or less widespread is of secondary importance; it is at all events the most primitive and the simplest religion it is possible to reach.[124.2] But his whole argument, if it prove anything, goes to show the universality of totemism. For the idea of the soul, according to the data of ethnography, appears to him to have been coeval with humanity, and that not merely in germ but in all its essential characters; and the soul is nothing else than the totemic principle incarnated in each individual, a portion of the collective soul of the group, that is to say of the totem, individualized.[124.3] Now totemism is certainly a very archaic form of religion. That it was universal {125} is, however, very far from being demonstrated. It may well be that many branches of the human race have outgrown it, and that its traces have been obliterated. But among peoples very low down in culture there are many where it is unknown, or at least unrecognizable. It is more than possible, could we ascertain the facts, that Bushman society was organized on the basis of totemism. But there are other tribes no higher than Bushmen and Australian Blackfellows where we fail to discern it. The Veddas of Ceylon are indeed divided into clans with female descent. Yet no totem has emerged after the most careful enquiries. Their religion is essentially a cult of the dead, based on fear. The dead man is addressed as “Lord! New Driver-away of Vaeddas!” Sacrifices are offered and eaten as an act of communion with the deceased. In addition to the dead of the local group, “certain long-dead Veddas who may be regarded as legendary heroes” are invoked, of whom the most important are Kande Yaka, an ancient hunter whose assistance is implored for good hunting, and his brother Bilindi Yaka, a sort of pale double of himself. But they are not known among all the Vedda communities, though Kande is regarded by some as Lord or leader of the dead. There are also other spirits, who appear to be of foreign origin and superimposed upon the original cult of the dead, and are perhaps on their way to become nature-spirits.[125.1] The religion of the Andaman Islanders “consists of fear of the evil spirits of the wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them.” There is besides an anthropomorphic being, Puluga, who is said to be “the cause of all things.” He receives no active worship, though acts thought to be displeasing to him are avoided “for fear of damage to {126} the products of the jungle.” There is some evidence that he is the north-east wind; and Sir R. C. Temple is of opinion that he is “fundamentally, with some definiteness, identifiable with the storm, mixed up with ancestral chiefs.” He acts by his daughters, the Morowin, who are his messengers; but he seems to content himself with pointing out to the evil spirits offenders against himself, without actually taking steps against them.[126.1] Totemism is nowhere hinted at by the enquirers who have busied themselves with this childlike, and on the whole harmless, but somewhat capricious people.

Still very low in the scale of civilization, though somewhat higher than these, are the tribes of the interior forests of Brazil. They people their environment with imaginary beings more or less hostile. The object of their ceremonies appears to be to conciliate the favour of these gentry, or to hold them at arm’s length. When once the death-rites are completed little account is taken of the departed. So much we may gather from the reports of two German expeditions, written by distinguished scientific men who led the expeditions. Although they penetrated different parts of the country, there was a general resemblance between the civilization of the Indians met with by both explorers. A French anthropologist has remarked that English and German observers do not interest themselves to the same degree, or in the same way, in the social life of peoples in the lower culture; for whereas the German explorers by preference describe, and that with praiseworthy minuteness, the nature of the country and the material civilization of the people, the English, on the other hand, interest themselves more in the intellectual products, the traditions and beliefs. In other words, he said, the German is {127} more of an ethnographer, the Englishman more of a student of folklore and psychologist. There is perhaps a measure of truth in this remark. It may go far to explain why more distinct and definite accounts have not been given either by Professor Karl von den Steinen or Dr Theodor Koch-Grünberg of the religions of the aboriginal tribes of Brazil. In any case, we miss much that we should have expected to find in their reports on the religious beliefs and ceremonies of these tribes. Among the omissions is that of any mention of totemism--an institution which concerns organization and government as much as religion. What renders the omission significant in the case of Professor von den Steinen, and not merely the result of want of interest in the subject, is that he has taken pains to ascertain and record the attitude of the natives towards the lower animals. He makes it clear that they draw no strict line of demarcation between man and brute. Nay, he goes the length of saying that we must think the boundary completely away. Human beings are indebted to the lower animals for the most important elements of their culture, many of which they have acquired from them by force or guile. More than that, the Bororó claim to be actually _araras_ (a kind of bird with brilliant red plumage); their neighbours the Trumai are believed to be water-animals; a certain cannibal tribe is descended from the jaguar; and so forth. These beliefs are not totemic, for they concern not clans but whole tribes.[127.1] Apparently, therefore, there is no totemism among the wild forest-tribes investigated.

If the concept of the soul (which, it is needless to say, all these peoples possess) were coeval with humanity, and if it were only the totemic principle individualized, then totemism must have been coeval with humanity, and it {128} must have been universal. If so, it is at least curious that the Veddas, the Andaman Islanders, and the forest-tribes of Brazil--all of them on the horizon of civilization on which totemism is found--should display no traces of it. If the concept of impersonal force, the substratum of religious and magical beliefs, be derived from the authority of society over the individual, and not merely strengthened and developed by it, it is odd that religious and magical beliefs should, so low down in culture, have issued in such widely divergent forms. The worship of the dead, the conciliation of hostile nature-spirits, the fear of an anthropomorphic being of enormous power, are all explicable as the result of the action of external conditions on human mentality and emotions. They are not explicable as the direct product of the authority of the group over the individual. And if totemism had originally held sway over the Veddas, the Mincopies and the Brazilian tribes, it is not easy to conceive how it could have evolved in directions so diverse,--and that without leaving any authentic witness to its past. It is quite another thing if the action of the group had been rather to combine and consolidate, to intensify and to organize the sensations and emotions awakened in its members by external nature, to give them a measure of definiteness in the process, and to habituate the individual to certain modes of reaction to the sensations, and to certain forms of expression of the beliefs engendered by the emotions thus awakened.

IV. Divergence

In the foregoing pages I have attempted to trace Magic and Religion to a common root. We have found them inextricably intertwined very low down in culture; {129} we have seen the difficulty of distinguishing them by way of scientific definition, and have been forced back upon ordinary usage. Both alike are concerned with the supernatural and the uncanny; but the one deals with it by compulsion, by the direct exertion of human _orenda_ upon the objects sought to be constrained, the other by the indirect method of appeal to mightier powers than human to exercise their _orenda_ upon those objects, in order to obtain the result desired. And I have contended that the opposition of Magic and Religion, on which writers of authority like Professor Frazer and the late Sir Alfred Lyall have so much insisted, is so far from being essential that it is a result of their concurrent development and of the general advance of civilization, and is even yet imperfectly accomplished. The argument seems to require some further illustrations.

First, let me observe that the definition of magic here adopted does by no means coincide with that of Professor Frazer, though, like his, it rests upon the method of compulsion as the distinguishing characteristic. That, however, is not because of any faith by primeval man in the invariable order of nature or in the inevitable sequence of cause and effect. The compulsion of magic, as I understand it, is wielded by, and dependent upon, the personal _orenda_ of the magician, either directly or through the medium of the powerful and uncanny beings whom he succeeds in bringing into play.

The idea of a god in our minds is associated with a reverential attitude that is very far from being universally adopted. In a later essay we shall see that threats of bodily injury, even (in the legends) actual hand-to-hand combats, and (in fact) chastisement of the material representatives of divinity, are often regarded as quite appropriate measures to be taken in dealing with beings {130} who are ordinarily the objects of worship. I have already referred to the constraining power attributed to sacrifice and other rites in some of the more advanced religions. Where ritual has undergone a long term of development, where it has been subjected for many ages to continuous thought, and to elaboration in order to provide for new needs or against unforeseen contingencies, there it is apt to acquire a proportionate value of its own, independent of the merits of the performer. The sacrifice which is a gift to the gods imperiously demands its looked-for repayment, and will not be denied. The penance, whether it be in the nature of a sacrifice or a spell, carries with it, like the Hindu rite of _dharna_, an implied curse if not responded to. In either case the deity to whom it is directed has no choice but to comply.

The constraining influence may take a variety of forms, and is by no means confined to one plane of civilization, or to one cultural area. Sometimes it is expressed in knots to which is widely attributed what we call magical power. In Morocco, where civilization has rather deteriorated than progressed for many ages, the cult of the dead is largely prevalent. Professor Westermarck records that a Berber servant of his told him that once when in prison he invoked a certain great female saint whose tomb was in a neighbouring district, and tied his turban, saying: “I am tying thee, Lälla Rah’ma Yusf, and I am not going to open the knot till thou hast helped me.” And a person in distress will sometimes go to her grave and knot the leaves of some palmetto growing in its vicinity, with the words: “I tied thee here, O saint, and I shall not release thee unless thou releasest me from the toils in which I am at present.”[130.1]

This perhaps also is, as Professor Westermarck suggests, {131} a conditional curse. Now a curse, like other magical proceedings before referred to, is primarily a relief of overcharged feelings. Uttered with all the strength of those feelings by an aggrieved or baffled adversary, it evokes even in our breasts to-day shuddering and horror. Much more then in days when the man’s _orenda_ was deemed to go out in speech with immediate result upon the object to which he directed it. When gods came to be adopted and worshipped, strength was added to the curse by invocation of the god. The god’s name added to the curse was an addition of the god himself. For the name is a part, and an important part, of the god, and cannot be used without effect. The god is bound to respond to it, and to act in accordance with the votary’s demand. For this reason the real names of gods were kept secret. Mystery thus attached to the name of the God of the Hebrews: hence the express prohibition to “take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Almost all over the world this belief in efficacy of the uttered name as a means of compulsion is responsible not merely for taboos on the names of gods, and of men living or dead, but also for the form and potency of magical formulæ. If you know the name of a spirit and utter it, or sometimes even threaten to utter it, you compel the owner’s attention to your wants. Or you may pretend to be some great personage, such as (wherever the Mohammedan tradition has penetrated) King Solomon or the angel Gabriel; and in that name you may issue your commands. Or, as among Christians, you call for the obedience of a spirit in the great name of God or the Lord Jesus Christ. In India to repeat the divine name aloud, or even by way of meditation, “is the most usual way of acquiring religious merit.… So much importance is given to this mode of meditation that Tulsidas in {132} his _Ramayan_ lays down that the name of Rama is greater than Rama himself.” In other words, its utterance compels him. “It is said of a certain Hindu who had notoriously lived a life of impiety that he obtained salvation by calling on his deathbed for his son by his name, which happened to be Nârâyan.”[132.1] The name Nârâyan is sacred. It was originally a title of Brahmâ, but is now usually applied to Vishnu, and is that under which he was first worshipped.[132.2]

The curse, if curse it were, involved in the rite practised by Professor Westermarck’s servant was not of the kind dependent on the utterance of a name. It was rather of that in which the curse is conveyed by a sign or figure deriving its power from the _orenda_ of the magician himself. I have already referred to one species of such curses intended for the protection of property by marking it as taboo to the owner.[132.3] In this form they are chiefly used by the Malayo-Polynesian and Melanesian peoples and on the eastern side of Central Africa, though they have their analogues elsewhere.[132.4] The leaden tablets of _defixiones_ employed by the ancient Greeks, of which numerous examples are known, show a similar practice founded on similar ideas. The tablet is inscribed with the name of the person intended to be injured, and it is then “defixed,” or bound, with a nail. The ceremony was doubtless accompanied by some words expressive of the intention. Indeed the expression of the intention was in course of time recorded on the tablet. A further stage in development was reached when the gods were invoked, {133} beginning with Hermes and Ge, and going on to other chthonic divinities. Later, apparently towards the end of the third century B.C., the custom began of devoting to various gods lost property and the thief who had stolen it. Such tablets affixed to the walls of temples doubtless served the purpose of our advertisements for the recovery of lost or stolen property. The difference is that, whereas we offer material rewards, the Greeks invoked the help of the gods and threatened the thief or receiver with supernatural vengeance.[133.1] The use of _defixiones_ spread into Italy, and has lasted into quite modern times, or, it may be truer to say, was revived under the influence of learned men who at the close of the Middle Ages became imbued with the astrology and magic of earlier days. One of these learned men, Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, who attained high judicial office under the Emperor Charles the Fifth, but afterwards got into trouble for his occult studies, wrote a book on Occult Philosophy, which was translated into English in the middle of the seventeenth century. At that time the study of magic was falling into disrepute. Agrippa’s book was left to charlatans who preyed upon the ignorant. Some of the results have been found up and down the country in the form of leaden tablets inscribed with curses, mystical numbers and signs, names of the spirits invoked to make the curses effectual and of the victims against whom the curses were intended to operate.[133.2] In these modern cases {134} the powers appealed to are no longer beings recognized by the dominant religion. They are relics of religions passed away, or figments of the pedantic imagination. Magic, in short, has for purposes of private vengeance been ousted from religion and has set up for itself.

At any rate the Moroccan rite involves a threat; and a threat is near akin to a curse. Much may be done with gods, as with men, by means of a little judicious bluff. A certain Malay robber kept six tame spirits, to whom he made an offering from time to time. When he did so he called them by name, bidding them: “Come here! Eat my offering! Take you care that my body is not affected, that the flow of my blood is not stayed! Likewise with the bodies of my wife and children. (If not) I’ll turn the earth and the sky the wrong way round!” He was fully convinced of the power of these spirits and apparently of the value of his terrible threat, though, as Mr Annandale, who reports the case, points out, the spirits had been unable to save him from being convicted and imprisoned for his crimes.[134.1]

In ancient Egypt magic was practised in connection with religion from prehistoric times. Magic and religion “were two products of one and the same _Weltanschauung_, not disparate either in their methods or in their psychological basis. Nor were they differently estimated from the ethical point of view: magic was deemed permissible, so long as it was turned to no evil purpose. It follows that the classification of Egyptian superstitious practices as (_a_) religious, (_b_) magical, must be a purely external mode of classification: the distinction between religion {135} and magic in Egypt has not, and cannot be made to have, any deeper significance.”[135.1] The scholar from whom I quote these words, so far from exaggerating the close relationship between magic and religion, may be said to understate it. Magic was an integral part of religion. The priests of the gods were magicians. Magic was employed in the ritual of worship. It enabled the great god Ra to overcome the serpent Apep.[135.2] Magical ceremonies performed by the priests over the mummy, or over a statuette representing the deceased, were the means by which his success in passing the necessary tests and his lasting happiness after death were secured. The means employed were those universally known to magic: amulets, waxen and other figures, pictures, spells and words of power, the knowledge of names, rites imitating the results desired, and so forth. Concerning the dead we are told: “Few were those who remained for ever with the Sun, and they were not necessarily the great ones of the earth, nor yet the very good, but those who possessed the most minute information as to the next world, and who were best versed in magic. Thus the whole doctrine is based on a belief in the power of magic.”[135.3] “In the next world a correct knowledge of magic words and formulas was absolutely essential. There no door would open to him who knew not its name; no demon would allow the passage of the dead who did not call upon him correctly, nor would any god come to his help unless invoked by the right name; no food could be had so long as the exactly prescribed prayers were not uttered with the true intonations. But the dead who {136} knew these formulas, and who knew how to speak them correctly at the proper moment, who was _maâ kherû_ (right-speaking), might rest assured of immortality and of eternal blessedness.”[136.1] This led of course to the multiplication of spells, to the elaboration of ritual, during the long ages of Egyptian history, until at last they must have become extremely burdensome.

Moreover, sorcery was not only expended by man in the service of the gods and of the dead: it was used by the gods themselves. “Only by means of conjurations could Ra himself pass through” the divisions between the twelve hourly spaces of the night.[136.2] By the power of his name Neb-er-tcher or Khepera, often identified with certain aspects of Ra, the Sun, evolved himself and created the world.[136.3] The secret name of Ra was a word of might. Isis set herself with all her arts to learn it, that she might possess the world in heaven and upon earth as Ra did (that is, become a goddess); and when she had extorted it from the august divinity, she turned the weapon without hesitation upon himself.[136.4] By examples like these men were authorized to have recourse to magic in their own secular concerns, their loves and hates, their sickness, their social and business relations, their private enterprizes, their competitions and resentments. Kings consulted the soothsayers on public affairs; they employed magical processes to vanquish their enemies; {137} with the aid of soothsayers and magicians they governed their realm. It was only when sorcery was directed against the king’s life, when it aimed at the overthrow of his power, or the injury or death of others, that it was reckoned a crime, or even reprehended on moral grounds.

Nor did the magician hesitate to compel even the gods to perform his wishes, and to threaten them, like the Malay robber, with dire disaster to themselves and the universe as a punishment of their obstinacy. In one papyrus preserved to us, for example, a woman in labour declares herself to be Isis and summons the gods to her help. If they refuse to come, “Then shall ye be destroyed, ye nine gods; the heaven shall no longer exist, the earth shall no longer exist, the five days over and above the year shall cease to be, offerings shall no longer be made to the gods, the lords of Heliopolis. The firmament of the south shall fail, and disaster shall break forth from the sky of the north. Lamentations shall resound from the graves, the midday sun shall no longer shine, the Nile shall not bestow its waters of inundation at the appointed time.”[137.1] Such bombastic menaces as these continued to be part of the practitioner’s stock-in-trade in the Roman Empire to the downfall of paganism.

Among the ancient Greeks in Plato’s time there were soothsayers and medicine-men who professed to have power over the gods, so that they could compel them to do their bidding, even though it were to injure another person.[137.2] I am not aware whether any of their spells have been preserved.[137.3]

{138}

Cases like these display the religion of the community applied to the private advantage of the individual. More interesting is the authority which Mr Hodson attributes to the _khullakpa_, or village priest, of the Naga tribes of Manipur. The khullakpa is to be distinguished from the _maiba_, or medicine-man, who is doctor and magician in one. The maiba is called in to deal with individual cases; the khullakpa plays the leading part when a village _genna_ is held. It is he who offers the sacrifices and performs the rites. The term _genna_ means forbidden. A genna extending to the whole village excludes strangers from entering, and prohibits the inhabitants from going out and from doing any work while the genna lasts; it may also prescribe fasting, continence, and other observances. In short, “the ordinary routine of life is profoundly modified, if not broken off altogether.” A genna may be either periodical, as for the sake of the crops or the hunting; or it may be occasional, as at a death, or against epidemic sickness, or at an earthquake or eclipse. A sacrifice is invariably a part of the ritual. The khullakpa “acts,” says Mr Hodson, “whenever a rite is performed which requires the whole force of the community behind it, and this force finds its operation through him. These village gennas seem in many cases to be inspired by the belief that man, _the man_, the {139} khullakpa, when fortified by the whole strength and will of the village, is able to control and constrain forces which are beyond his control if unaided.”[139.1] If this inference, made by an acute observer, be correct, it is a remarkable example of the corporate strength of the society applied by means of religious rites to the coercion of the gods and other supernatural beings.

Not a little significant of the intimate relations of religion and magic is the fact that many peoples have expressly ascribed the authorship and practice of magic to their gods. In New South Wales the figure of Baiame, the idealized headman just developing into a god, is modelled upon that of a magician. He is described by one of the tribes in so many words as “mightiest and most famous of _Wirreenun_,” or magicians.[139.2] The Arawâk of British Guiana tell of a similar personage in a semi-deified position, named Arawânili or Orowâma, to whom the mysteries of sorcery were revealed by an _orehu_. The orehu is a sort of mermaid who is an important figure in the mythology of these Indians. She haunts the rivers, a capricious, mischievous, not always malicious and cruel, but sometimes benevolent figure. In one of her kindlier moments she met Arawânili brooding over the condition to which men were reduced by the evil doings of the _yauhahu_, downright malignant beings, the authors of sickness and death. To combat their depredations she gave him the sorcerer’s rattle and instructed him how to use it. “He followed her directions and thus became the founder of that system which has since prevailed among all the Indian tribes.” According to Arawâk belief Arawânili did not die like other men, but “went up,” that is to say, disappeared or departed in the manner of other American {140} culture-heroes. We have no evidence, however, that he is actually worshipped.[140.1]

The coast-dwellers of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Pomerania, whose effective belief is in spirits, both _manes_ and spirits non-human in origin, presuppose in their witchcraft the existence of these spirits. Sickness and other ills are caused by evil-disposed spirits, and are combated by magic. But this magic is due to the superior might of well-disposed spirits. It is they who reveal the spells by which human ailments may be vanquished and human desires gratified. Among these spirits are especially to be named the Inal, a spirit with wings like a bird’s and face like an owl’s, inhabiting a great _giao_-tree (_Ficus prolixa_), and the Kaya, a gigantic python with human face, worshipped by certain of the natives as ancestor. From the ascription to spirits of all spells made use of by the sorcerers, Father Meier, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the native beliefs, infers that the belief in spirits preceded witchcraft.[140.2] Whether the inference be right or wrong, there can be no doubt of the fact that this belief and witchcraft are now inseparable.

Among the Lushai-Kuki of Assam, Pathian the creator, a quasi-supreme and benevolent being, was acquainted with, but is not definitely stated to have been the author of, witchcraft. It was taught by his daughter, as a ransom for her life, to Vahrika, who had caught her stealing water from his private supply. Vahrika is described as “something like” Pathian--a purely mythological figure. He in turn taught it all to others.[140.3] In Japan, Jimmu {141} Tennō, the deified legendary founder of the empire, is said to have first taught the use of magical formulæ; while the gods Ohonamochi and Sukunabikona are credited with the invention of medicine and magic.[141.1] The ancient Egyptians held Thoth, the god of writing and guardian of law, “to have written the most sacred books and formulas with his own hand, and therein to have set down his knowledge of magic, in which art Isis was his only rival. His pre-eminence in magic naturally led to his becoming the god of medicine, for magic was fully as important to the medical practitioners of the Nile Valley as knowledge of remedies.”[141.2] In other words, medicine was not yet separated from magic, the physician was a sorcerer, who may have been versed in simples, but whose practice was essentially mysterious and derived its effect rather from what we call supernatural than natural modes of action. Hence to recognize Thoth as god of medicine was equivalent to recognizing him as god of magic, a character peculiarly suitable to a god of letters.