Direct magical rites begin in very simple ways, probably with gestures: as to point at a man in threatening; to throw out the open hand in warding off evil; to claw the air behind a man’s back, as Australian women do. It becomes more and more elaborate as the result of much study devoted to a matter of supreme interest: especially after the rise of a professional class of medicine-men, with whom inventions accumulate and become traditionary. Similarly, spells are at first merely wishes, or commands, or warnings. An Australian Wind-doctor cries, “Let the west wind be bound.”[124] The southern Massim of New Guinea have a spell to open a cave—“O rock, be cleft!” and, again, to shut the cave—“O rock, be closed!”[125] Nothing can be simpler. How spells rise into poetry and are combined with rites and charms is shown by a Polynesian example: a man being ill with consumption, which is called _Moomoo_, a medicine-man is sent for. He comes, sits by the patient, and sings— “O Moomoo, O Moomoo! I’m on the eve of spearing you.” Then, rising, he flourishes his spear over the patient’s head, and goes away. No one dares speak or smile.[126] As to charms, the simplest, and perhaps the earliest, are small pebbles, such as the Australian “bulks,” or crystals.[127] In Papua there are quartz charms so powerful that it is not safe for even the owner to touch them. In that country the qualities that make a thing suitable for a charm are: (1) similarity in contour, or in other ways, to the object to be influenced; (2) rarity; (3) unusual shape in not very uncommon objects:[128] in short, whatever arrests attention. Dr. Codrington says: “A stone takes a man’s fancy; it is like something, clearly not a common stone; there must be _mana_ in it: puts it in his garden; and a good crop proves he was right.”[129] Among the Esquimo, strange or curious objects never before seen are sometimes considered to bring success to the finder; and charms are carried shaped like the animals hunted.[130] Such a taste is very ancient, if the same purpose was served by those animal-shaped stones, retouched to increase the resemblance, which have been found in considerable numbers in France and England.[131] In the bag of a West African sorcerer may be seen a bit of leopard skin, of snake’s skin, hawk’s talons, bone of a dead man, leaves of certain plants, etc.; each having its own virtue, and uniting their powers in the interest of the formidable owner. The _Chanson de Roland_ describes a talisman to which the chief of Charlemagne’s peers must have owed no small part of his prowess—his famous sword:— “Ah! Durendal, most holy, fair indeed! Relics enough thy golden hilt conceals: Saint Peter’s Tooth, the Blood of Saint Basile, Some of the Hairs of my lord, Saint Denise, Some of the Robe, was worn by Saint Mary.”[132]