Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
In addition to these forms of symbolical magic (which might be
multiplied to any extent), we find among savages the belief in the power
of songs of INCANTATION. This is a feature of magic which specially
deserves our attention. In myths, and still more in marchen or household
tales, we shall constantly find that the most miraculous effects are
caused when the hero pronounces a few lines of rhyme. In Rome, as we
have all read in the Latin Delectus, it was thought that incantations
could draw down the moon. In the Odyssey the kinsfolk of Odysseus sing
"a song of healing" over the wound which was dealt him by the boar's
tusk. Jeanne d'Arc, wounded at Orleans, refused a similar remedy.
Sophocles speaks of the folly of muttering incantations over wounds
that need the surgeon's knife. The song that salved wounds occurs in
the Kalewala, the epic poem of the Finns. In many of Grimm's marchen,
miracles are wrought by the repetition of snatches of rhyme. This belief
is derived from the savage state of fancy. According to Kohl,(1) "Every
sorrowful or joyful emotion that opens the Indian's mouth is at once
wrapped up in the garb of a wabanonagamowin (chanson magicale). If you
ask one of them to sing you a simple innocent hymn in praise of Nature,
a spring or jovial hunting stave, he never gives you anything but a form
of incantation, with which he says you will be able to call to you all
the birds from the sky, and all the foxes and wolves from their caves
and burrows."(2) The giant's daughter in the Scotch marchen, Nicht,
Nought, Nothing, is thus enabled to call to her aid "all the birds of
the sky". In the same way, if you ask an Indian for a love-song, he
will say that a philtre is really much more efficacious. The savage, in
short, is extremely practical. His arts, music and drawing, exist not
pour l'art, but for a definite purpose, as methods of getting something
that the artist wants. The young lover whom Kohl knew, like the lover
of Bombyca in Theocritus, believed in having an image of himself and an
image of the beloved. Into the heart of the female image he thrust magic
powders, and he said that this was common, lovers adding songs, "partly
elegiac, partly malicious, and almost criminal forms of incantation".(3)
(1) Page 395.
(2) Cf. Comparetti's Traditional Poetry of the Finns.
(3) Kitchi gami, pp. 395, 397.
Among the Indo-Aryans the masaminik or incantations of the Red Man are
known as mantras.(1) These are usually texts from the Veda, and are
chanted over the sick and in other circumstances where magic is believed
to be efficacious. Among the New Zealanders the incantations are called
karakias, and are employed in actual life. There is a special karakia to
raise the wind. In Maori myths the hero is very handy with his karakia.
Rocks split before him, as before girls who use incantations in Kaffir
and Bushman tales. He assumes the shape of any animal at will, or flies
in the air, all by virtue of the karakia or incantation.(2)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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