Hence there are abundant analogues in experience by which the savage can conceive of his talisman as a force-thing that acts invisibly and acts at a distance. Australian medicine-men “threw their joïas (evil magic) invisibly, ‘like the wind,’ as they said.”[108] The talisman acts at a distance, like a missile; it acts for the person who owns it as his spear does, and is dangerous to others who have not practised with it. Sometimes, indeed, magic things have no owners, and are dangerous to everybody: malignant influence radiating from them, like the heat of a fire or the stench of a corpse. Such are two stones described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen[109] as marking the place where an old man and two women died for breaking a marriage-taboo. “They are so full of evil magic that if any but old men go near, it kills them. Now and then a very old man goes and throws stones and bushes upon the spot to keep down the evil magic.” It is as if one covered up a fire or a corpse. And, further, magical force may exist in a diffused way, like darkness, heat, cold, epidemic disease, tribal unrest, without necessarily attaching to any particular thing. In the Western Isles of Torres Straits[110] mishaps may be signs of an unlucky state of things in general. A fisherman, usually successful, having once failed at his task, was depressed; but on two women dying in his village soon after, he was consoled; since this showed that failure was not his fault. Currents of this magical force, favourable or unfavourable to things in general, may be seen in the flow and ebb of the tide, the waxing and waning of the moon, and in the course of the seasons. From this way of thinking it is but a step to the conception of _mana_, as it is called in Melanesia:[111] _orenda_ of the Iroquois, _manitou_ of the Algonquin, _wakanda_ of the Omaha.[112] It is the power of the wonderful and mysterious in the world, which becomes especially manifest in Magic and in the agency of spirits. Similar notions are found in many regions at various stages of culture, but nowhere (I believe) at the lowest stages; so that it is unreasonable to treat it as the first source of ideas of the supernatural. It is too comprehensive a generalisation to find expression amongst savages. The Arunta have got as far as the generalisation of evil Magic under the name of _arungquiltha_.[113] But _mana_ is a generalisation of all the imaginary forces of superstition, vague and mysterious; as “cause,” in popular use, is a generalisation of all the supposed “forces” of nature.