The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 01 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 01 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
sacrifice a corresponding image of the creature.[195] This may help
us to understand the meaning of the figures of cattle, deer, horses,
and pigs which were dedicated to Diana at Nemi.[196] They may have
been the offerings of farmers or huntsmen who hoped thereby to multiply
the cattle or the game. Similarly when the Todas of Southern India
desire to obtain more buffaloes, they offer silver images of these
animals in the temples.[197] The Peruvian Indians moulded images of
fat mixed with grain to imitate the persons whom they disliked or
feared, and then burned the effigy on the road where the intended
victim was to pass. This they called burning his soul. But they drew a
delicate distinction between the kinds of materials to be used in the
manufacture of these images, according as the victim was an Indian or a
Viracocha, that is, a Spaniard. To kill an Indian they employed maize
and the fat of a llama, to kill a Spaniard they used wheat and the fat
of a pig, because Viracochas did not eat llamas and preferred wheat to
maize.[198] {p57}
[Sidenote: Magical images among the Malays.]
A Malay charm of the same sort is as follows. Take parings of nails,
hair, eyebrows, spittle, and so forth of your intended victim, enough
to represent every part of his person, and then make them up into his
likeness with wax from a deserted bees’ comb. Scorch the figure slowly
by holding it over a lamp every night for seven nights, and say:
“_It is not wax that I am scorching,_
_It is the liver, hearty and spleen of So-and-so that I scorch._”
After the seventh time burn the figure, and your victim will die. This
charm obviously combines the principles of homoeopathic and contagious
magic; since the image which is made in the likeness of an enemy
contains things which once were in contact with him, namely, his nails,
hair, and spittle. Another form of the Malay charm, which resembles the
Ojebway practice still more closely, is to make a corpse of wax from
an empty bees’ comb and of the length of a footstep; then pierce the
eye of the image, and your enemy {p58} is blind; pierce the stomach,
and he is sick; pierce the head, and his head aches; pierce the breast,
and his breast will suffer. If you would kill him outright, transfix
the image from the head downwards; enshroud it as you would a corpse;
pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; then bury it in the
middle of a path where your victim will be sure to step over it. In
order that his blood may not be on your head, you should say:
“_It is not I who am burying him,_
_It is Gabriel who is burying him._”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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