The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and ReligionFrazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
The western tribes of British New Guinea employ a charm to aid the
hunter in spearing dugong or turtle. A small beetle, which haunts
coco-nut trees, is placed in the hole of the spear-haft into which
the spear-head fits. This is supposed to make the spear-head stick
fast in the dugong or turtle, just as the beetle sticks fast to a
man's skin when it bites him. When a Cambodian hunter has set his
nets and taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off,
then strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be
caught in it, and cries, "Hillo! what's this? I'm afraid I'm
caught." After that the net is sure to catch game. A pantomime of
the same sort has been acted within the living memory in our
Scottish Highlands. The Rev. James Macdonald, now of Reay in
Caithness, tells us that in his boyhood when he was fishing with
companions about Loch Aline and they had had no bites for a long
time, they used to make a pretence of throwing one of their fellows
overboard and hauling him out of the water, as if he were a fish;
after that the trout or silloch would begin to nibble, according as
the boat was on fresh or salt water. Before a Carrier Indian goes
out to snare martens, he sleeps by himself for about ten nights
beside the fire with a little stick pressed down on his neck. This
naturally causes the fall-stick of his trap to drop down on the neck
of the marten. Among the Galelareese, who inhabit a district in the
northern part of Halmahera, a large island to the west of New
Guinea, it is a maxim that when you are loading your gun to go out
shooting, you should always put the bullet in your mouth before you
insert it in the gun; for by so doing you practically eat the game
that is to be hit by the bullet, which therefore cannot possibly
miss the mark. A Malay who has baited a trap for crocodiles, and is
awaiting results, is careful in eating his curry always to begin by
swallowing three lumps of rice successively; for this helps the bait
to slide more easily down the crocodile's throat. He is equally
scrupulous not to take any bones out of his curry; for, if he did,
it seems clear that the sharp-pointed stick on which the bait is
skewered would similarly work itself loose, and the crocodile would
get off with the bait. Hence in these circumstances it is prudent
for the hunter, before he begins his meal, to get somebody else to
take the bones out of his curry, otherwise he may at any moment have
to choose between swallowing a bone and losing the crocodile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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