 Section 7 of The Golden Bale by James Fraser, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recorded by Leon Harvey. The Golden Bale, Part 1, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, Volume 1. Chapter 3, Sub Chapter 3, Contagious Magic. Contagious Magic, Working by Contact, Not Resemblance. Thus far, we have been considering chiefly that branch of sympathetic magic, which may be called homeopathic or imitative. Its leading principle, as we have seen, is that like producers 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-outwards, even when quite persevered from each other, and such a sympathetic relation that whatever is done to the one must similarly affect the other. Thus, the logical basis of Contagious Magic, like that of homeopathic magic, is a mistaken association of ideas. Its physical basis, if we may speak of such a thing, like the physical basis of homeopathic magic, is a material medium of some sort, which, like the ether of modern physics, is assumed to unite this and objects and may convey impressions from one to the other. Magical sympathy between a man and the severed portions of his person, such as his hair or nails. The most familiar example of Contagious Magic is a 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 worldwide. Instances of it in regard to hair or nails will be noticed later on in this work. Beneficial effect of this superstition in causing the removal of refuse. While like other superstitions, it has had its absurd mischief consequences. It has nevertheless indirectly done much good by venting 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 are all 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 penance, that is, as a medium for a papayt or charm consisting of an incantation or murmuring of a certain format, together with the blowing into the air of some burnt lime, which is held in the hand. Your need highly therefore will be said that the native removes all such objects as well as you can. That's the cleanliness which is usual in these houses and consists in sweeping the floor carefully every day, which remains based on a desire for cleanliness and neatness in themselves, by purely on the effort to pull out of the way anything that might serve an ill-wisher as a charm. I will now illustrate the principles of Contagious Magic by examples beginning with its application to various parts of the human body. Contagious Magic of the 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 never had to submit before he could enjoy the rights and privileges of a full grown man. The reason of this practice is obscure. A conjecture on this subject has been hazard above. All that concerns us here is the evidence of a belief that a sympathetic relation continued to exist between the lead and his teeth after the lead had been extracted from his gums. This agrees some of the tribes about the River Darling in New South Wales. The extracted tooth was placed under the biocupatory near a river or waterhole. If the bar 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 in the mouth. Among the Maureen and other tribes in 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 around the community. When it came back to the lead's father and finally to the lead himself, 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 believe, put the owner of the tooth in great danger. The late Dr. Hewitt 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. He declared that if he did so the magic of the crystals would pass under the teeth and so injure the boys. Nearly a year after Dr. Hewitt's return from the ceremony, he was visited by one of the principal men of the Maureen tribe who had travelled some 250 miles from his home to fetch back the teeth. The man explained that he had been 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 wrapped up and concealed. In the dirty tribe of South Australia the teeth knocked out of initiation were brought 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 joked the tooth through his hand to some little distance. After that he buried them about 80 inches underground. The joking movement was meant to show 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. The ceremony is interesting as a renaissance of an attempt to break the sympathetically between a man and a separate part of himself by rendering the part insensitive. Contagious magic of teeth in Africa, Europe, America, etc. The bassootos are careful to conceal their extracted teeth, least they 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. In Sussex, some 40 years ago, a maidservant remonstrated strongly against the throwing away of children's cast teeth, affirming that should they be found ignored by any animal, the child's new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth for the animal that had bitten the old one. In proof of this, she named old master Simmons, who had a very large pig's tooth in his upper jaw, a personal defect that he always avirred was caused by his mother who threw away one of his cast teeth by accident into the Hulk's trough. A similar belief has led to practices intended on the principles of homeopathic magic to replace old teeth by new and better ones, teeth of mice and rats. 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, though 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 maximum 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 the child's milk tooth, which, as 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'll give you my bone tooth. After that, your other teeth will remain good. German children say, mouse, mouse, come out and bring me 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. 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. 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 or a tooth of bone. Right away from Europe, at Rada Tonga in the Pacific, when a child's tooth was extracted, the following prayer used to be recited, be a rat, little rat, who 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 from evoking the rats on these occasions was that that rat's teeth were the strongest known to the natives. In the Seranglo and Gorong, a couple of days goes between New Guinea and Saliv's, 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. In Ambonia, the custom is the same, and the form of words is, take this tooth thrown on the roof as the mouse's share, give me a better one instead. In the Cay Islands, in the south-west of New Guinea, when a child begins to get his second teeth he is listed up to the top of the roof in order that he may, though deposited, as an offering to the rats, the tooth which has fallen out. At the same time, someone cries loud, oh rats, here you have his tooth, give him a golden one instead. Among the Irokhans 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 a dragon away. In ancient Mexico, when a child was getting his 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. A different and more barbarous application of the same principle is the Swabian superstition that when a child has teeth in, you should bite off the head of the living mouse and hang the head when the child is left by a string taking care of that to make no knot in the string then the child will teeth easily. In Bohemia, the treatment prescribed is similar though they recommend that you use a red thread and to string three heads of mice on it instead of one. Contagious magic of teeth, teeth of squirrels, foxes, beavers, etc. But it's not always a mouse or a rat that brings the child a new and stronger tooth apparently a strong toothed animal was of the purpose thus when his or her tooth drops out a single ease will throw it on the roof saying squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty tooth 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 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 Similarly, in order to help a child to cut its teeth the aborigines of Victoria fasten to its wrist the front tooth of a kangaroo which the child used as a coral to grump its comes with Again, the beaver can gnaw through the highest 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 at which he throws a tooth on the roof of the house In Macedonia, a child carefully keeps for a time his first drawn tooth and then throws it on the roof with the following invocation to the crow Oh dear crow, here is a tooth of bone take it and give me a tooth of iron instead I may be able to chew beans and to crunch dry biscuits We can now understand a custom of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia which the writer records it is unable to explain When a child lost its teeth the mother used to take each one out as it fell out and to hide it in a piece of raw venison which he gave to a dog to eat The animals swallowed the venison and the tooth with it 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 the offspring from toothache The intention is perhaps to strengthen the weak teeth of the child by the strong teeth of the grown woman In the Mungo 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 bite has been performed on a man his pounded tooth must be eaten in a piece of meat by his mother-in-law Teeth thrown towards the son 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 son saying after that his teeth were sure to grow straight and close and strong The son, says, gave the lad from his own nursery ground a tooth like a hailstone, white and polished Thus the reason for throwing the old teeth towards the son would seem to have been a notion that the son 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 towards the son saying take the arse's tooth or give me a deer's tooth The son arms say justingly that the child's tooth has been carried off by a moose 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 In the light of the preceding examples we make in Jukja that the grandfather here invoked is not so much the soul of a dead ancestor as a mouse or a rat Contagious magic of navel string and after birth among the mares and the abrigeanese of Australia Other parts which are commonly believed to remain in a sympathetic union with the body after the physical connection has been severed are the navel string and the after birth including the placenta So intimate indeed is the union conceived to be that the fortunes of the individual for good or evil or threat life were often supposed to be bound up with one or other of these portions of his person His navel string or after birth is preserved and properly treated he will be prosperous whereas if it be injured or lost he will suffer accordingly Thus among the mares when the navel string is 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 grew as it grew was a tohu or a sign of life for the child In the upper Wakanatane valley in the north island of New Zealand there is a famous Hinawa tree to which the mares 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 Again among the mares the placenta is named Fennel which word signifies land is applied by the natives to the placenta for they are supposing it to be the residence of the child On being discharged it is immediately buried with great care as they have the superstitious idea that the priests who have offended will procure it and by preying over it occasion the death of both mother and child by preying them to death to use their own expression Again some of the natives of South Australia regarded the placenta as sacred and carefully put it away out of reach of the dogs 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 had his birth through the navel string into water or not Among the Arunter of Central Australia the navel string is swathed in fur string and made into a necklace which is placed around 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 In the Cateish tribe of Central Australia the practice and belief are similar In the Waramanga tribe after the string has hung around 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 Among the natives on the Benefather River in Queensland is believed that a part of the child's spirit Kui stays in the afterbirth Hence the grandmother takes the afterbirth away and buries it in the sand She marks a spot by a number of twigs which he sticks in the ground in a circle trying their tops together so that the structure resembles a cone When Anjia the being who causes conception of women by putting mud babies into their wombs comes along and sees the place he takes out the spirit and carries it away to wife's haunts such as a tree, a hole in a rock or a lagoon where it may remain for years but some time or other he will put the spirit again into a baby and it will be born once more into the world Contagious magic of navel string and new guinea Fiji the Caroline Islands and the Gilbert Islands In the Abin tribe of German New Guinea the mother ties the navel string to the net in which she carries a child at least anyone should use the string to the child's heart In some parts of Fiji the navel string of a male infant is planted together with a coconut or a slip of a breadfruit 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 skillful fisherwoman By the curious use I ever saw the string put to was at Rotama 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 road said to fasten a 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 In Pune, one of the Caroline islands the navel string is placed in a shell and then disposed of in such a way a shell 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 In the Gilbert Islands the navel string is wrapped by the child's father or adoptive father in a pandermal sleeve and then worn by him has it braced over several months after that it 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 boys be lost before the child has 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 found weeks will pass before the relations resign themselves to its loss When the boy is grown to be a youth and has distinguished himself for the first time in war the boats that contain the navel string is taken by the villagers by a day fixed for the purpose fire at the sea The adoptive father of the lad throws a bracelet overboard and all the canoes begin to catch as many fish as they can The first fish caught by the largest small is carefully preserved apart from the rest Meantime the old women at home have been being preparing a copious banquet for the fisherman When little feet comes to shore the old woman who helps at the lad's berth 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 and they and it are covered up with another mat Then the old woman goes round the mat striking a 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 rumble and that he may turn out a skillful fisherman The navel string of a girl as soon as she is grown up is thrown at the sea with similar ceremonies and the ceremony on land is the same except that the old woman's prayer is naturally different The girl's god to grant that she may have a happy marriage with many children After the mat has been removed the fish is caught to meet him 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 reserved for the children of wealthy parents who can defray the cost In the case of a child of poorer parents the racer contains the navel string slipping hangs till it disappears in one way or another The navel string and afterbirth in them will look as Among the galleraries to the western 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 coconut The KU Islanders to the southwest 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 In the Bay Bar Acoblego between New Guinea and Salibs the playcenter 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 Histrix The women carry swords for the purpose of fighting the evil spirits otherwise his mischief as beings might get hold of the playcenter and make the child sick The navel string is kept in a little box in the house In the Tenimbo and Timorlot Islands the playcenter is buried in a basket under a sego or coconut 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 In the Watobela Islands the precenter is buried under a coconut mangar or great fig tree along the shell of the coconut of which the pulp had been used to smear the newborn child In many of the islands between New Guinea and Salibs the playcenter is put in the branches of a tree often the top of one of the highest trees the neighborhood Sometimes the navel string is deposited along with the playcenter in the tree but often it is kept to be used as medicine or an amulet by the child Thus in Karem the child sometimes wears the navel string around its neck as a charm to avert sickness and in the islands of Litty, Moa in war or on a far journey We cannot doubt that the intention of putting the playcenter in the top of a tall tree is to keep it and with it to the child out of harm's way In the islands of Saporia Herochio and Noesolot to the east of Amboina the midwife buries the afterbirth and strews flowers over it Moreover, resin or lamp is kept burning for seven or three nights over the buried afterbirth in order that Noha 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 roars or stews the boat must make her keep a straight course otherwise the child would grow up a gatter belt Before the pot is flung into the sea the midwife disengages the piece of white cotton in which it is wrapped and his 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 call 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 him from exercising this uncanny power they can do so In that case, the midwife must drive the call in the sun, steep in water and then wash the child with the water thrice Further, when the child is a little older she must grind the call to power and give the child the powder to eat with its pap Some people keep the call and if the child falls ill it is given water to drink in which the call has been steeped Similarly, in a long, so much islands a child born with a call is counted lucky and can perceive and recognise the spirits of his ancestors A call, it may be said is merely the fetal membrane which usually forms part of the afterbirth Occasionally a child is born that wrapped like a hood around its head Contagious magic are the placenta in celebs In Parigi a kingdom on the coast of central celebs the placenta is slayed in a cooking pot and one of the mother's female relations carries the pot wrapped in white cotton and hidden under a petticoat sarong to a spot beneath the house or elsewhere and there she buries it A coconut is planted in the place Going and coming the woman is led by another and must keep her eyes flush shut for if she looked right or left the child would squint because she is, at this time closer united with a part of the child to which his older brother in other words the placenta On her return to the house she lies down 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 connection with the child and so prevent her from exercising any influence on it Among the taleraki of central celebs turmeric and other spices are put on the placenta which is then enclosed in two coconut shells that fit one on the other These are wrapped in bark cloth and kept in the house If the child falls ill the coconut 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 Among the talbunko of central celebs the after-purpose place dinner rice pot with various plants which are intended to preserve it from decay as long as possible 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 in the house four times each time they enter they kiss the child but they take care not to look to the right or the left or 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 and take it down from the tree and lay bananas rice of four sorts and a lighter taper beside it Having done so they hang it up on a tree if it was previously buried if it was formally hung up The tamari of central celebs wash the after-birth, put it in a rice pot and bury it under the house Great care is taken that no water or a spittle falls on the place For a few days the after-birth is sometimes fed with rice and eggs which are laid on the spot where it is buried At worst the people cease to trouble themselves about it In southern celebs they call the navel stream and after-birth the two brothers or sisters of the child When the infant happens to be a princess the navel stream and after-birth are placed with salt and tamari 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 a 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 of rare 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 coconuts are planted with much ceremony in a square enclosure and the water which was used in cleansing the after-birth and navel stream is poured upon them These coconuts are called the contemporaries of the child and grew up with him When the planting is done the rice pot with the navel stream and after-birth 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 on the sun by an umbrella If the prince or princess should die the after-birth and navel stream are buried among common people in self-salibs these parts of the infinite are generally buried immediately after the birth or they are sunk in the deep sea or hung in a rice pot on a tree Condacious magic of the placenta and navel stream in Timor Savo and Hotea In the island of Timor the placenta is called the child's companion and treated accordingly The midwife puts it in earth and covers it with ashes from the earth After standing thus three days it is taken away and buried by a person who must observe silence in discharging this duty in Savo, a small island to the southwest of Timor the after-birth is filled with native herbs and having been deposited in a new pot which is never before being used and 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 fertilize it or thrown into the sea to secure a good catch of fish The person who thus disposes of the after-birth may not look to the right or to the left He must be joyous and if possible goes singing on his way If it is to be hung on a tree he must climb nearly up in order that the child may always be lucky to describe a similar fertilizing virtue to a call 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 call and run several times around the rice field in order that the wind may want the genuine influence of the call over the rice In Rotty 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 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 as 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 the navel strings receive a different treatment It is their task to go fishing 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 wanting to fish. That in the part of the priestess she there eats one or two small bag full of spoiled rice on the spot where she intends to deposit the dried navel string on 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 clasps it among the stones of the reef generally or in south of the edge in 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 the no crocodile may eschew from the lagoon and he'd rub and the sharp calls and broken shells may not wound her feet contagious magic of the placenta in floors Bali and Java In the island of floor the placenta is put in an earthen pot along with some rice and bettle and buried by the father in the neighborhood of the house or else preserved in one of the highest trees. Natives of Bali, an island to the east of Java, believe firmly that the afterbirth is the child's brother or sister and they'd bury it in the courtyard and the half of coconut from which the kernel has not been removed. For 40 days afterwards a light is buried and food, water and bettle deposited on the spot Dallas 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 wrapped in white cotton put in a new pot or a coconut 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 out of the place where the rice pot is suspended. The purpose of the light is to ward off demons to whose measure nations the child and its supposed brother or sister are at this season especially exposed. 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 smarter than his learning. If the child is a girl a needle and thread are deposited in the pot as he may be a good seamstress 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. 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. Contagious magic of placenta and navel string in Sumatra in Mandeling a district on the west coast of Sumatra the afterbirth is washed and placed under the house of a pot in an earthenware pot which is carefully shut up and thrown into the river. This is done to avert the supposed unfaithful influence of the afterbirth of 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 it's former owner is ill. In Mandeling too the midwife prefers to cut the navel string with a piece of flute on which she gets first blown for then the child will be sure to have a fine voice. Among the Minang Kabal people of Sumatra the placenta is put in a new earthenware pot which is then carefully closed with 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. In central Sumatra the placenta is wrapped in white cotton deposited in a basket or a calabash and buried in the courtyard before the house or under a rice bar. 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 earth 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 Kuimajun is burned and a shot fired. For three abings afterwards canals are lighted on the spot. Tell us to keep off demons. Among the Bates of Sumatra as among so many other people saw 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 Bates it is bound up with the child's welfare and seems in fact to be the seed of the transferable soul of whose wanderings outside of the body which are here something later on. The Carol Bates even affirmed that of a man's two souls it is a true soul that lives with the placenta under the house. That is a soul they say which begets children. Contagious magic of placenta enable string in Borneo, India and Assam. In Pasio, 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 naval string have fallen off. All the time it is in the house canals are burned and a little food is placed beside the pot. When the naval string has fallen off it is placed with the placenta in the pot and the two are buried in the ground in the house. The reason why the people take this care of the afterbirth is that they believe it able to cause a child all kinds of sickness and mishaps. The Malas, a low, telugu caste of southern India, buried the placenta in a pot with leaves in some convenient place. Generally in the back yard, less dogs or other animals should carry it off. Prove that word to happen may fancy that the child would be of a wandering disposition. The casus of Assam keep the placenta in a pot in the house until the child is being formally named. When the ceremony is over the father waves the pot containing the placenta thrice over the child's head and he hangs it to a tree outside the village. Contagious magic of placenta and naval string in the Pattani states China and Japan. In some Malayo Siamese families of the Pattani states it is customary to bury the afterbirth under a banana tree, the condition of which is henceforth regarded as ominous of the child's fate for good or ill. A Chinese medical work prescribes that the placenta should be stored away in a furicitive spot under the salutary places of the sky of the moon, deep in 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 scoffless. If crows or magpies swallow it the child will have an abrupt or violent death. If it is casted at the fire the child incurs running sores. The Japanese preserve the naval string most carefully and bury it with a dead in the grave. Contagious magic of placenta and naval string in Africa, especially among the Baganda. Among the gallows of East Africa the naval string is carefully kept sewn up a leather and serves an amulet for female camels which then become the child's property together with all the young they give birth to. 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 naval string which remains attached to the child after birth. This ghost must be preserved if the child is to be healthy hence when the naval string drops off it is rubbed with butter swathed in barcloth and kept through life under the name of the twin, Malongo. The afterbirth is wrapped 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 of the kind whose fruit is made into beer if the child be a girl the tree 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 mother's mother may come near it and think about it. All other people are kept from it by a rope or plantation fiber 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 into 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 brother would leave it and go into the other woman. Contagious magic of the naval stream among the vaganda. Further at the ceremony of naming a child the object of which being among the vaganda is to determine whether the child is legitimate or not for this purpose the naval stream 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 naval stream or twin Malongo is either kept by the clan or buried along with the arch-birth at the root of the plantain tree such are the customs observed with regard to the arch-birth and naval stream of the vaganda commoners. The king's naval stream or twin wrapped in barcloths 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 meet with butter and again set in the doorway until the evening when it is swathed once more in its barclothes and restored to its proper resting place out of the king's death his twin is deposited along with his jaw bone in a huge heart which forms his temple the spirit of the dead king is supposed to dwell in these two relics they are placed on the dais when he wishes to hold his court and when he is oraculary consulted on special occasions contagious magic of naval stream and after birth in America the Incas of Peru preserve the naval stream with the greatest care to the child to suck whenever it fell ill in ancient Mexico they used to give a boy his naval stream 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 naval stream of a girl was buried beside the domestic earth because this was believed to inspire her with the love of home and a taste for cooking and baking Algonquin women hung the naval stream around the child's neck if he lost it they thought the child would be stupid and spiritless among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia the naval stream was sewn up by the mother in a piece of buckskin embroidered with hair, quills and beads it was then tied to the bullet buckskin band which extended around the head of the cradle on the outside many thongs hung from it each carrying thorns, hooves and beads that jinkled when the cradle was moved if the naval stream were lost they looked on it as a calamity for they believed that in after years the child would become foolish or it would be lost in the chase or on a journey among the Guaculto 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 were leated because the boys will thus acquire the ravens prophetic vision, the same Indians are persuaded that the naval stream may be the means of imparting a variety of accomplishments to its ritual owner, thus if it were fastened to a dancing mask which is then worn by a skillful dancer the child would dance well if it is attached to a knife which is there after used by a cunning carver the child will carve well again if the parents wish their son to sing beautifully they tie his naval stream 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 votery of the muses thereupon takes his baton and moves it twice down the bite's side and twice down the side of the boy's body after which he gives to lad some of his food tweet that as an infallible way of becoming a beautiful boy, a beautiful singer among the Cherokee is a naval stream of an infant girl is buried under the corn mortar, in order that the girl may grow up to be a good baker by the naval stream of a boy is hung up on a tree in the woods, in order that may he may be a hunter among the Coyolas the naval stream of a girl is sewn up in a small beaded pouch and won by her at her belt as she grows to womanhood if the girl's mother ever sells a built-in pouch she is careful to extract the naval stream from the pouch before the bargain is struck if the child die, the pouch containing her naval stream would be fastened to a stick and set up over her grave contagious magic of naval stream in afterbirth in Europe even in Europe, many people still believe that a person's destiny is more or less bound up with that of his naval stream or afterbirth thus in Renish Bavaria the naval stream is kept for a while wrapped up in a base of old dine 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 skillful workman or a good seamstress in Berlin, the midwife calmly delivers the dried naval stream to the father of a strict injunction to preserve it carefully for so long as it is kept the children will live and thrive and be free from sickness in Bios and Perishii the people are careful to throw the naval stream neither into water nor into fire believing that if that were done the child would be drowned or burned among the Ruthenians of Bokoina the owner of a cow is 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 some German peasants think that the afterbirth of the cow must be hung up in an apple tree otherwise the cow will not have a calf next year similarly, her Cleveland and Yorkshire when a mare falls, it is a customer to hang up the place centre in a tree particularly in a thorn tree should the berth take place in the fields the 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 building still specially marked out for the reception of those peculiar pendants in one instance lately, I heard of a large tree so it devoted but admittedly in default of the thorn tree long employed for the purpose of having died out again in Europe children born with a cow are considered lucky in Holland as in the East Indies they can see ghosts the Icelanders also hold that child born with a cow will afterwards possess gifts of second sight that he will never be harmed by sorcery and will be victorious in every contest he undertakes provided he has the cow dried and carries it with him this letter belief explains why both in ancient and modern times advocates have bought cows with the hope of winning their cases by means of them probably they thought that his spirit in the cow would prove an invincible ally to the person who had purchased it's services in like manner the aborigines of Central Australia believe that their sacred sticks or stones are intimately associated with the spirits the dead men to whom they belonged and that in a fighter man who carries one of these sticks or stones will certainly vanquish an adversary who has no such talisman child's guardian spirit associated with the chorion further is an ancient belief in Iceland that a child's guardian spirit or a part of his soul has his seat in the chorion or fetal membrane which usually forms part of the afterbirth but is known as a call when the child happens to be born with it hence the chorion was itself known as the phylgia or guardian spirit it might not be thrown away out of the open sky the steam should get hold of it and work the child harmed thereby or lest wild beasts should eat it up it might not be burned for if it were burned the child would have no phylgia which would be as bad as to have no shadow formally 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 afterlife, the guardian spirit in the shape of a bear, an eagle, a wolf, an ox or a boar the guardian spirits of cunning men or wizards had the shape of a fox while those of beautiful women appeared as swans in all these forms the guardian spirits formally announced their coming and presented themselves to the persons to whom they belonged and nowadays both the belief and the custom have changed in many respects afterbirth or navel string a seed of the external soul thus, in many parts the world or 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 letter belief we have found among the aborigines of Queensland, the Batas of Sumatra and the Nortsmen of Iceland in accordance with such beliefs it has been customary to preserve these parts of the body and beliefs for a time with the utmost care, thus 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 connection is 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 skillful hunter or a brave soldier, and making her if it is a woman, an expert fisher, a cunning seamstress a good cook or baker and so forth thus the beliefs and usages concerned with the afterbirth hopeless centre 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 found on it hence it is highly rash to conjecture that the resemblance is no mere chance coincidence but that in the afterbirth hopeless centre 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 the latter part of this work contagious magic exemplified in the sympathetic connection supposed to exist between a wound and the weapon a curious application of the doctrine 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 plenty tells us that if you have wounded a man and are sorry for it we have only to spit on the hand that gave the wound and the pain of the sufferer will be instantly alleviated in Melanesia the man's friends get position 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 was hard of 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 do twang it occasionally for this will cause a wounded man to suffer from tension of nerves and spasms of tetanus similarly when a Quakututl Indian or British Columbia had bitten a piece out of an enemy's arm he used to drink hot water outwards for the purpose of thereby inflaming the wound in his phone's body among the Lakanjan Indians of the same region 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 another fire to the wound is healed if a knife for an arrow which is still covered with the man's blood were thrown into the fire wounded man would suffer very much in the Yokler Mining tribe of southeastern Australia it is thought that if anyone but the medicine man touches the flint knife with which a boy has been sub-tensized the boy will thereby be made very ill so seriously is the belief that if the lad chanced their arm to default second time the man who has touched the knife would be killed Bacon on the custom of anointing the weapon in order to heal the wound it is constantly received in a vouch says Bacon that the anointing of a weapon that make if 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 diver's 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 bore and the bear killed in the act of generation the precious ointment compounded out of these and other ingredients was applied as philosopher explains not to the wound 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 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 to work the effect remedies of the saw which bacon deemed worthy of his attention are still in vogue in the eastern counties of England East Anglican practice of anointing the weapon instead of the wound 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 come 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 after I pulled it out if a horse wounds his 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 burned her face with a flat iron preserved that the face would never heal to the iron had been pulled out of the way even if it did heal it would be sure to break out again every time the iron was heated a 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 coerced 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 locked jaw similarly Cambridge Shire labourers think that if a horse has run a nail into its foot it is necessary to grease a nail with lard or oil and put it away in some safe place where the horse will not recover a few years ago a veterinary surgeon was sent forward to attend a horse which had ripped its side open on the hinge of a farm gatepost when 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's order that it might be greased and put away some of the Cambridge Waysaykers would condounce to the recovery of the animal anointing the weapon instead of the wound similarly Essex rustic supine 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 so in Bavaria you are directed to anoint lining, 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 similarly in the highest mountains they say that if you cut yourself you ought to smear the knife for 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 other people however in Germany say that if you should stick the knife in some damp place in the ground and that your hurt will heal as the knife rusts in Bavaria recommend you to smear the axe or whatever it is with blood and put it under the eaves further extensions of this curse 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 or possum 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 and 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 another 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 Renish Bavaria or Hitz 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 paint the injured pig or sheep into the cure in this last case it is clear that we have passed out of the region of contagious magic and into the region of homeopathic 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 stimulation of the treatment which a more rational surgery would bestow on the real patient sympathetic connection between a wooden person and his built blood the sympathetic connection supposed to exist between a man and a weapon in which his wound to him is fully 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 Telnil and island of German New Guinea are careful to throw into the sea the bloody bandages with which their wounds have been dressed for their 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 a sympathetic connection is supposed to exist between a person and his clothes so that any injury done to the clothes is felt by the man strange and unnatural to this idea may seem to us is perhaps less so than the belief that magic sympathies 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 the same Papuans of Telnil search most angrily for the smallest scrap which they may have lost of their scanty garments and why other Papuans travelling through the thick forest will stop and carefully scrape from a bow any clot of red pomade which may have a deal to it from their greasy heads contagious magic of clothes in the What Job I Look 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 casorino wood which he had made certain marks such as likeness of his victims and of a poisonous snake this bundle here would then roast slowly in a 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 yet the wizard consented he would give the thing back telling the sick man's friends put it in water so as to wash the fire out in such cases we are told he would be more cooled and would most likely recover in Tanner one of the new hebrides a man who had a grudge at another and desired his death would try to get position of a cloth which had touched the sweat of his enemies body if he succeeded he rubbed the cloth carefully over the leaves and twigs of a certain tree rolled and bound cloth twigs and leaves into a long sausage shaped bundle and burnt it slowly in the fire as the bundle was consumed the victim fell ill and when it was reduced to ashes he died in the 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 sword it seems that the garment by itself is enough to give the sorcerer a hold upon his victim the witch hymned theocrates 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 shed of his cloak which he had dropped in her house Prussian custom of beating the garments which her thief has dropped 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 if you bit sadly the thief will fall sick this belief is firmly rooted in the popular mind some 70 or 80 years ago in the neighbourhood of Berenk 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 lost his coat he was so alarmed that he took to his bed and died but in Germany it is not every stick that is good enough to beat an abster man with it should be a hazel rod cut before sunrise on a good Friday some say it should be a one year old hazel sapling now you should cut it with three strokes looking to the east in the name of the father the son of the Holy Ghost others think the best time for cutting the rod is at the new moon on a Tuesday morning for sunrise once you have got this valuable instrument you have only to spread a garment on a small hill or run the threshold and to lay on with hardy goodwill mentioning the name of the person whom you desire to injure though he may be miles off he will fill every whack as if it descended on his body Contagious magic may be wrought on a man through the impressions left by his body in sand or earth particularly through his footprints again magic may be wrought on a man sympathetically not only through his clothes and severed parts itself but also through the impressions left by his body in sand or earth in particular is a worldwide superstition that by injuring footprints you injure the feet that made them thus the net is a southeastern Australia think that they can lay a man by placing sharp pieces of quartz glass bone or charcoal on his footprints rheumatic pains are often attributed by them to this cause seeing a Tatanglong man very lame is to hold 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 had a buried in it a piece of broken bottle the magical influence of which had entered his foot Contagious magic of footprints on another occasion Mr. Howard's party was forced by a number of strange natives who looked with great interest at the footprints of the horses and camels a black fellow with Mr. Howard was much alarmed and declared that the strangers were putting poison in his footsteps the Wing Goody a tribe in western Australia have a magical instrument made of resin and rat's teeth which they called a son 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 in the unmatched era 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 area would go to him and his head would be full of lice 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 stingray the Maori's imagine that they can work rabies harm to an enemy by taking up earth from his footprints depositing it in a sacred place and performing a ceremony over it 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 that was commonly cursed in order that the sun might be afflicted with lameness the galeraries think that if anybody sticks something sharp into your footprints while you are walking you will be wounded in your feet in Japan every house has been built by night and the burglars footprints are visible in the morning the house water will burn mark what on them hoping thereby to hurt the robbers feet so that he cannot run fire and the place may easily overtake him among the Karen's of Burma some people are said to keep poison fangs for the purpose of killing their enemies they use a thrust at 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 peasants of North India commonly attribute all sorts of pains and sores to the machinations of a witch or sorcerer who has meddled with their footprints for example with the Cherul a Dravidian race of labourers in the hill country of Mirzebur a favourite mode of harming an enemy to measure his footprints in the dust with a straw and their mattress spell over them that brings on wounds and sores in his feet such magical operations have been familiar to the Hindus from of old in their Kosika Sutra a book of sorcery it is directed that well or fur is walking southward you should make cuts in his footprints 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 he must tie a dust from the footprint in the leaf of a certain tree or a friendosa and throw it into a frying pan if it crackles in the pan your enemy is undone another old Hindu charm was to obtain earth from the footprint of a beleaguered king and scattered in the wind the hero 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 the Orvalam bull of the same region believe that they can be bewitched by enemy through the dust or sand of their footprints hence a man who has special reason to tread the spider to the foe will carefully efface his footprints with a branch as fast as he makes them they use speaking people of West Africa fancy they can drive an enemy man by throwing a magic powder on his footprints among the Shuswap and the 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 in North Africa the magic of the footprints is sometimes used for more amenable purposes a woman who wishes to attach her husband or lover to herself will take earth from the print of his right foot tied up with some of the hairs in a packet and wear the packet next her skin contagious magic of footprints in Europe similar practises prevail in various parts of Europe thus in Macklinburg it is thought that if you try to nail into a man's footprint you will fall lame sometimes it is required that the nail should be taken from a coffin a like mode of injuring an enemy is restored to in some parts of France it is said that there was an old woman who used to frequent Stowell and Suffolk and she was a witch if while she walked anyone went after her and stuck a nail or a knife into a footprint of the dust the dame could not stir a step till it was withdrawn more commonly it would seem in Germany 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 shrills up the same practises and the same belief are said to be common in Mato Grossoil a province of Brazil a Bohemian variation of the charm is to put the earth from the footprint in a pot with nails needles, brook and glass and so forth then set the pot on a fire and let it boil till it bursts after that the man whose footprint has been boiled with a burning leg for the rest of his life 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 a similar practises reported from Mecklenburg the Estonians of the island of O.S.S. measure the footprint where the stick and bury the stick thereby undermining the health of the man or woman whose foot made the mark among the self-slaves of the prince or the man she loves and put it in a flower pot then she plants the pot a marigold a flower that is thought to be fateless and as it's golden blossom grows and blooms and never fades so shall her sweethearts love grow and bloom and never never fade thus the love spell acts on the man through the earth he taught on an old Danish mode of concluding a trading was based on the same idea on the sympathetic connection between a man and his footprints the confidentin parties sprinkled blood thus giving a pledge of fidelity the 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 dumbness and a maxim ascribed to Pythagoras forbade people to pierce a man's footprint with a nail or a knife 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 coven into the first spore of the quarry believing that this will enter the animal from escaping the aborigines of victoria put hot ambers in the tracks of the animals they were pursuing hot and taut hunters throw into the air a handful of sand taken from the footprints of the game believing that this will bring the animal down Thompson Indians used to lay charms on the tracks of wounded deer after that they dined with superfluous to pursue the animal any further that day for being thus charmed it would not travel far and would soon die similarly Ojibwe Indians placed medicine on the track of the first deer or bear they meet with supposing that this would soon bring the animal into sight even over two or three days journey off for this charm had power to compress the journey of several days into a few hours Ewer hunters of West Africa stabbed the footprints of game with a sharp pointed stick in order to remain the quarry and allowed them to come up with it the impesants 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 the anal think that here is bewitched people hence in one of them sees a 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 sick it and die in order to recover a strayed cattle the animal's dung and earth will net footprints and place both in the chief's vessel round which a magic circle is drawn and the chief says I have now conquered them those cattle are now here I am now sitting upon them I do not know what way they will escape contagious magic brought through the impressions of other parts of the body but though the footprint is most obvious it is not the only impression made by the body through which magic may be wrought on a man the average news of southeastern Australia believe that a man may be injured by bearing sharp fragments of quartz glass and so forth in the marks made by his reclining body the magical virtue of these sharp things intrudes his body and causes those acute pains which the ignorant european puts down to rheumatism sometimes they beat the place where the man sat with a pointed stick of the hyoke coserina leptochlada chanting an appropriate song at the same time the stick will enter his person and kill him provided the place is operated on is still warm with the heat of his body at Delana in British New Guinea a man will sometimes revenge himself on a girl who was rejected his love by thrusting the spine of a stingray 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 a girl dies the natives of Tamlio an island of German New Guinea he faced the marks they had left on the ground they said this magic should be wrought on them thereby before they leave 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 made chance to leave behind 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 the rule was simply an oral precaution against magic and it was only part of a whole code of superstitious maxims which antiquity fathered on Pythagoras though doubtless they were familiar to the barbarous forefathers of the Greeks long before the time of their philosopher contagious magic of imprints to ensure the good behaviour of an ally with whom they had just had a conference the basaltors will cut and preserve the grass which the allies sat during the interview probably they regard the grass as a hostage for the observance of the treaty since though they could punish the man who sat on the grass if he should break faith more as he would write on the sand are superstitially careful to obliterate all the marks they made never leaving a stroke or a dot in the sand when they have done rutting another of the so called maxims of Pythagoras made people lifting a pot always to smooth away the imprint hit left on the ashes 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 face the impression as made otherwise they think they'd want or knock your door but this seems to be enough to devise to explain a rule which the original meaning was forgotten the old notion probably was that a magician could sympathetically injure any person who weighed 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 through the pot itself through the pot to the meat containing in it and finally through the meat to theatre end of section 7 section 8 of volume 1 of the golden bow part 1 the magic art and the evolution of kings volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings in the public domain for more information for volunteer please visit LibriVox.org chapter 3 sub chapter 4 the magician's progress private and public magic the public magician who practices 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've illustrated them have been drawn for the most part from what may be called private magic that is from magical rights and incantations practiced 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 magics that is sorcery practiced 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 a religious evolution of society but when the welfare of the tribe is supposed to depend on the performance of these magical rights 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 most ambitious men of the tribe because it holds out to them a prospect of honor and wealth and power such as highly any other career could offer it reminds, perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker brother and to plan his superstition for their own advantage not that the sorcerer is always a naive and imposter he is often sincerely convinced that he really possesses these wonderful powers which the brutality of his fellow as ascribes to him but the more suggestious he is the more likely he is to see through the fallacies which impose on duller widths thus the ablest members of the profession must tend to be more or less conscious deceivers as 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 pretentions is in far greater peril and is much more likely to be cut short in his career than the deliberate imposter the honest wizard always expects that his charms and incantations will reduce their supposed effect and when they fail not only really as they always do by conspicuously and disasterously as they often do he is taken aback he is not like his neighbor's colleague ready with a plausible excuse to account for their failure and before you can find one he may be knocked on the head by his disappointed and angry employers tenancy of supreme power to fall into the hands of the ableist 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 repulous character if we could balance the harm they do by their navery against the benefits they confer by their superior suggestivity it might well be found that the good greatly outweighs the evil for more mischief has probably been wrought in the world by honest fools in high places than by intellectual rascals once he was shrewd rogue has attained the height of his ambition and has no longer any selfish ends 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 one was that of wealth, political authority or what not in the field of politics the willy intrigue the ruthless victor may end by being a wise and magnanimous ruler blessed in his lifetime of prosperity 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 more disastrous is likely to be the use he makes the heaviest calamity in English history that breach with America might never have occurred if George III had not been an honest dullard the elevation of magicians to power tends to substitute a monarchy with their primitive democracy or rather oligarchy of old men which is characteristic of the 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 men it shifted the balance of power from the many to the one it substituted a monarchy for 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 council builders the change by whatever cause is produced and whatever the character of the early rulers was on the whole very beneficial for the rise of monarchy abused to be an essential condition of the emergence of mankind from savagery no human being is so hide bound by custom and tradition as your democratic savage in no state of society consequently 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 hoard his steps from birth to death and rule him with a rod of iron what they did in his pattern of right the unwritten law to which he yields a blind unquestioning obedience their least possible scope is thus afforded to superior talent to change old customs 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 aesthetic condition of affairs which demagogues and dreamers in their times have lauded as their 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 demands natural abilities deserves to be welcomed by all who have the real good of their fill as a heart once these elevating influences are begun to operate and they cannot be forever suppressed the progress of civilization becomes comparatively rapid and his supreme power nowles him to carry through changes in a single lifetime which previously many generations might not have suffice 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 caresses 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 seizes to be swayed by the timid and divided councils of the elders and yields to the direction of a single strong and resolute mind it becomes formidable to its neighbors and enters on a career of aggrandisement which in an early state of history is often highly favorable to social industrial and intellectual progress extending its sway partially by force of irons partially by the voluntary submission of weaker tribes the community soon acquires wealth and slaves by the witch by relieving some classes from the perpetual struggle for their subsistence by devoting themselves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which is another of the most powerful instrument to ameliorate the lot of man intellectual progress depended on economic progress which is often furthered by a conquest and empire intellectual progress which reveals itself in the growth of art and science and its better more liberal views cannot be disassociated from industrial or economic progress and that in its turn recedes immense impulse from conquest and empire is no mere accident that the most of a hammered outburst of activity of the human mind have followed close on the hills of victory and that the great conquering races the whole world have commonly done most to advance and spread civilization thus hailing and pace the wounds they inflicted in war the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans the Arabs are the 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 it is an accident that all the first great strives towards civilization have been made under despotic and theocratic governments like those vichyped Babylonian through while the supreme ruler claimed and received the survival agents 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 out of the most absolute despotism the most grinding tourney then under the apparent freedom of savage life where the individual lot is cast from the cradle to the grave in the iron mould of a red terry custom benefits rendered to civilization by magic so far therefore as the public profession of magic has been one of the words by which the ablest men have passed their supreme power it has contributed to emancipate mankind from the realm of tradition and to elevate them into a larger freer life for the broader outlook on the world this is no small service rendered to humanity and when we remember further that another direction magic has paved the way for science we are fortunate if the black card has done much evil has been the source of much good that if it is the child of era it has yet been a mother of freedom and truth End of section 8