The reader may have observed that in some of the foregoing examples of taboos the magical influence is supposed to operate at considerable distances; thus among the Blackfeet Indians the wives and children of an eagle hunter are forbidden to use an awl during his absence, lest the eagles should scratch the distant husband and father;​[400] and again no male animal may be killed in the house of a Malagasy soldier while he is away at the wars, lest the killing of the animal should entail the killing of the man.​[401] This belief in the sympathetic influence exerted on each other by persons or things at a distance is of the essence of magic. Whatever doubts science may entertain as to the possibility of action at a distance, magic has none; faith in telepathy is one of its first principles. A modern advocate of the influence of mind upon mind at a distance would have no difficulty in {p120} convincing a savage; the savage believed in it long ago, and what is more, he acted on his belief with a logical consistency such as his civilised brother in the faith has not yet, so far as I am aware, exhibited in his conduct. For the savage is convinced not only that magical ceremonies affect persons and things afar off, but that the simplest acts of daily life may do so too. Hence on important occasions the behaviour of friends and relations at a distance is often regulated by a more or less elaborate code of rules, the neglect of which by the one set of persons would, it is supposed, entail misfortune or even death on the absent ones. In particular when a party of men are out hunting or fighting, their kinsfolk at home are often expected to do certain things or to abstain from doing certain others, for the sake of ensuring the safety and success of the distant hunters or warriors. I will now give some instances of this magical telepathy both in its positive and in its negative aspect.

In Laos when an elephant hunter is starting for the chase, he warns his wife not to cut her hair or oil her body in his absence; for if she cut her hair the elephant would burst the toils, if she oiled herself it would slip through them.​[402] When a Dyak village has turned out to hunt wild pigs in the jungle, the people who stay at home may not touch oil or water with their hands during the absence of their friends; for if they did so, the hunters would all be “butter-fingered” and the prey would slip through their hands.​[403] In setting out to look for the rare and precious eagle-wood on the mountains, Cham peasants enjoin their wives, whom they leave at home, not to scold or quarrel in their absence, for such domestic brawls would lead to their husbands being rent in pieces by bears and tigers.​[404] A Hottentot woman whose husband is out hunting must do one of two things all the time he is away. Either she must light a fire and keep it burning till he comes back; or if she does not choose to do that, she must go to the water {p121} and continue to splash it about on the ground. When she is tired with throwing the water about, her place may be taken by her servant, but the exercise must in any case be kept up without cessation. To cease splashing the water or to let the fire out would be equally fatal to the husband’s prospect of a successful bag.​[405] In Yule Island, Torres Straits, when the men are gone to fetch sago, a fire is lit and carefully kept burning the whole time of their absence; for the people believe that if it went out the voyagers would fare ill.​[406] At the other end of the world the Lapps similarly object to extinguish a brand in water while any members of the family are out fishing, since to do so would spoil their luck.​[407]

Among the Koniags of Alaska a traveller once observed a young woman lying wrapt in a bearskin in the corner of a hut. On asking whether she were ill, he learned that her husband was out whale-fishing, and that until his return she had to lie fasting in order to ensure a good catch.​[408] Among the Esquimaux of Alaska similar notions prevail. The women during the whaling season remain in comparative idleness, as it is considered not good for them to sew while the men are out in the boats. If during this period any garments should need to be repaired, the women must take them far back out of sight of the sea and mend them there in little tents in which just one person can sit. And while the crews are at sea no work should be done at home which would necessitate pounding or hewing or any kind of noise; and in the huts of men who are away in the boats no work of any kind whatever should be carried on.​[409] When the Esquimaux of Aivilik and Iglulik are away hunting on the ice, the bedding may not be raised up, because they think that to do so would cause the ice to crack and drift off, and so the men might be lost. And among these people in the winter, {p122} when the new moon appears, boys must run out of the snow-house, take a handful of snow, and put it into the kettle. It is believed that this helps the hunter to capture the seal and to bring it home.​[410] When the Maidu Indians of California were engaged in driving deer into the snares which they had prepared for them, and which consisted of fences stretched from tree to tree, the women and children who were left behind in the village had to observe a variety of regulations. The women had to keep quiet and spend much of the time indoors, and children might not romp, shout, jump over things, kick, run, fall down, or throw stones. If these rules were broken, it was believed that the deer would become unmanageable and would jump the fence, so that the whole drive would be unsuccessful.​[411]

While a Gilyak hunter is pursuing the game in the forest, his children at home are forbidden to make drawings on wood or on sand; for they fear that if the children did so, the paths in the forest would become as perplexed as the lines in the drawings, so that the hunter might lose his way and never return. A Russian political prisoner once taught some Gilyak children to read and write; but their parents forbade them to write when any of their fathers was away from home; for it seemed to them that writing was a peculiarly complicated form of drawing, and they stood aghast at the idea of the danger to which such a drawing would expose the hunters out in the wild woods.​[412] Among the Jukagirs of north-eastern Siberia, when a young man is out hunting, his unmarried sister at home may not look at his footprints nor eat certain parts of the game killed by him. If she leaves the house while he is absent at the chase, she must keep her eyes fixed on the ground, and may not speak of the chase nor ask any questions about it.​[413] When a Nuba of north-eastern Africa goes to El Obeid for the first time, he tells his wife not to wash or oil herself and not to wear pearls {p123} round her neck during his absence, because by doing so she would draw down on him the most terrible misfortunes.​[414] When Bushmen are out hunting, any bad shots they may make are set down to such causes as that the children at home are playing on the men’s beds or the like, and the wives who allow such things to happen are blamed for their husbands’ indifferent marksmanship.​[415]

Elephant-hunters in East Africa believe that, if their wives prove unfaithful in their absence, this gives the elephant power over his pursuer, who will accordingly be killed or severely wounded. Hence if a hunter hears of his wife’s misconduct, he abandons the chase and returns home.​[416] If a Wagogo hunter is unsuccessful, or is attacked by a lion, he attributes it to his wife’s misbehaviour at home, and returns to her in great wrath. While he is away hunting, she may not let any one pass behind her or stand in front of her as she sits; and she must lie on her face in bed.​[417] The Moxos Indians of eastern Bolivia thought that if a hunter’s wife was unfaithful to him in his absence he would be bitten by a serpent or a jaguar. Accordingly, if such an accident happened to him, it was sure to entail the punishment, and often the death, of the woman, whether she was innocent or guilty.​[418] An Aleutian hunter of sea-otters thinks that he cannot kill a single animal if during his absence from home his wife should be unfaithful or his sister unchaste.​[419]

The Huichol Indians of Mexico treat as a demi-god a species of cactus which throws the eater into a state of ecstasy. The plant does not grow in their country, and has to be fetched every year by men who make a journey of forty-three days for the purpose. Meanwhile the wives at home contribute to the safety of their absent husbands by never walking fast, much less running, while the men are on the road. They also do their best to ensure the benefits which, in the shape of rain, {p124} good crops, and so forth, are expected to flow from the sacred mission. With this intention they subject themselves to severe restrictions like those imposed upon their husbands. During the whole of the time which elapses till the festival of the cactus is held, neither party washes except on certain occasions, and then only with water brought from the distant country where the holy plant grows. They also fast much, eat no salt, and are bound to strict continence. Any one who breaks this law is punished with illness, and, moreover, jeopardises the result which all are striving for. Health, luck, and life are to be gained by gathering the cactus, the gourd of the God of Fire; but inasmuch as the pure fire cannot benefit the impure, men and women must not only remain chaste for the time being, but must also purge themselves from the taint of past sin. Hence four days after the men have started the women gather and confess to Grandfather Fire with what men they have been in love from childhood till now. They may not omit a single one, for if they did so the men would not find a single cactus. So to refresh their memories each one prepares a string with as many knots as she has had lovers. This she brings to the temple, and, standing before the fire, she mentions aloud all the men she has scored on her string, name after name. Having ended her confession, she throws the string into the fire, and when the god has consumed it in his pure flame, her sins are forgiven her and she departs in peace. From now on the women are averse even to letting men pass near them. The cactus-seekers themselves make in like manner a clean breast of all their frailties. For every peccadillo they tie a knot on a string, and after they have “talked to all the five winds” they deliver the rosary of their sins to the leader, who burns it in the fire.​[420]

Many of the indigenous tribes of Sarawak are firmly persuaded that were the wives to commit adultery while their husbands are searching for camphor in the jungle, the camphor obtained by the men would evaporate.​[421] {p125} Husbands can discover, by certain knots in the tree, when their wives are unfaithful; and it is said that in former days many women were killed by jealous husbands on no better evidence than that of these knots. Further, the wives dare not touch a comb while their husbands are away collecting the camphor; for if they did so, the interstices between the fibres of the tree, instead of being filled with the precious crystals, would be empty like the spaces between the teeth of a comb.​[422] While men of the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of eastern New Guinea are away hunting, fishing, fighting, or on any long journey, the people who remain at home must observe strict chastity, and may not let the fire go out. Those of them who stay in the men’s club-houses must further abstain from eating certain foods and from touching anything that belongs to others. A breach of these rules might, it is believed, entail the failure of the expedition.​[423] Among the tribes of Geelvink Bay, in north-western New Guinea, when the men are gone on a long journey, as to Ceram or Tidore, the wives and sisters left at home sing to the moon, accompanying the lay with the booming music of gongs. The singing takes place in the afternoons, beginning two or three days before the new moon, and lasting for the same time after it. If the silver sickle of the moon is seen in the sky, they raise a loud cry of joy. Asked why they do so, they answer, “Now we see the moon, and so do our husbands, and now we know that they are well; if we did not sing, they would be sick or some other misfortune would befall them.”​[424] On nights when the moon is at the full the natives of Doreh, in north-western New Guinea, go out fishing on the lagoons. Their mode of proceeding is to poison the water with the pounded roots of a certain plant which has a powerful narcotic effect; the fish are stunned by it, and so easily caught. While the men are at work on the moonlit water, the people on the shore must {p126} keep as still as death with their eyes fixed on the fishermen; but no woman with child may be among them, for if she were there and looked at the water, the poison would at once lose its effect and the fish would escape.​[425] In the Kei Islands, to the south-west of New Guinea, as soon as a vessel that is about to sail for a distant port has been launched, the part of the beach on which it lay is covered as speedily as possible with palm branches, and becomes sacred. No one may thenceforth cross that spot till the ship comes home. To cross it sooner would cause the vessel to perish.​[426] Moreover, all the time that the voyage lasts three or four young girls, specially chosen for the duty, are supposed to remain in sympathetic connexion with the mariners and to contribute by their behaviour to the safety and success of the voyage. On no account, except for the most necessary purpose, may they quit the room that has been assigned to them. More than that, so long as the vessel is believed to be at sea they must remain absolutely motionless, crouched on their mats with their hands clasped between their knees. They may not turn their heads to the left or to the right or make any other movement whatsoever. If they did, it would cause the boat to pitch and toss; and they may not eat any sticky stuff, such as rice boiled in coco-nut milk, for the stickiness of the food would clog the passage of the boat through the water. When the sailors are supposed to have reached their destination, the strictness of these rules is somewhat relaxed; but during the whole time that the voyage lasts the girls are forbidden to eat fish which have sharp bones or stings, such as the sting-ray, lest their friends at sea should be involved in sharp, stinging trouble.​[427]

Where beliefs like these prevail as to the sympathetic connexion between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above everything else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of the deepest and tenderest of human {p127} emotions, should quicken in the anxious relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end so natural and laudable, friends at home are apt to resort to devices which will strike us as pathetic or ludicrous, according as we consider their object or the means adopted to effect it. Thus in some districts of Borneo, when a Dyak is out head-hunting, his wife or, if he is unmarried, his sister must wear a sword day and night in order that he may always be thinking of his weapons; and she may not sleep during the day nor go to bed before two in the morning, lest her husband or brother should thereby be surprised in his sleep by an enemy.​[428] In other parts of Borneo, when the men are away on a warlike expedition, their mats are spread in their houses just as if they were at home, and the fires are kept up till late in the evening and lighted again before dawn, in order that the men may not be cold. Further, the roofing of the house is opened before daylight to prevent the distant husbands, brothers, and sons from sleeping too late, and so being surprised by the enemy.​[429] While a Malay of the Peninsula is away at the wars, his pillows and sleeping-mat at home must be kept rolled up. If any one else were to use them, the absent warrior’s courage would fail and disaster would befall him. His wife and children may not have their hair cut in his absence, nor may he himself have his hair shorn.​[430]

Among the Sea Dyaks of Banting in Sarawak the women strictly observe an elaborate code of rules while the men are away fighting. Some of the rules are negative and some are positive, but all alike are based on the principles of magical homoeopathy and telepathy. Amongst them are the following. The women must wake very early in the morning and open the windows as soon as it is light; otherwise their absent husbands will oversleep themselves. The women may not oil their hair, or the men will slip. The women may neither sleep nor doze by day, {p128} or the men will be drowsy on the march. The women must cook and scatter popcorn on the verandah every morning; so will the men be agile in their movements. The rooms must be kept very tidy, all boxes being placed near the walls; for if any one were to stumble over them, the absent husbands would fall and be at the mercy of the foe. At every meal a little rice must be left in the pot and put aside; so will the men far away always have something to eat and need never go hungry. On no account may the women sit at the loom till their legs grow cramped, otherwise their husbands will likewise be stiff in their joints and unable to rise up quickly or to run away from the foe. So in order to keep their husband’s joints supple the women often vary their labours at the loom by walking up and down the verandah. Further, they may not cover up their faces, or the men would not be able to find their way through the tall grass or jungle. Again, the women may not sew with a needle, or the men will tread on the sharp spikes set by the enemy in the path. Should a wife prove unfaithful while her husband is away, he will lose his life in the enemy’s country. Some years ago all these rules and more were observed by the women of Banting, while their husbands were fighting for the English against rebels. But alas! these tender precautions availed them little; for many a man, whose faithful wife was keeping watch and ward for him at home, found a soldier’s grave.​[431]

Among the Shans of Burma the wife of an absent warrior has to observe certain rules. Every fifth day she rests and does no work. She fills an earthen goblet with water to the brim and puts flowers into it every day. If the water sinks or the flowers fade, it is an omen of death. Moreover, she may not sleep on her husband’s bed during his absence, but she sweeps the bedding clean and lays it out every night.​[432] In the island of Timor, while war is being waged, the high-priest never quits the temple; his food is brought to him or cooked inside; day and night he must keep the fire burning, for if he were to let it die out, disaster would befall the warriors and would continue so {p129} long as the hearth was cold. Moreover, he must drink only hot water during the time the army is absent; for every draught of cold water would damp the spirits of the people, so that they could not vanquish the enemy.​[433] Among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, when a party of men is out hunting for heads, the villagers who stay at home, and especially the wives of the head-hunters, have to observe certain rules in order not to hinder the absent men at their task. In the first place, the entrance to the lobo or spirit-house is shut. For the spirits of their fathers, who live in that house, are now away with the warriors, watching over and guarding them; and if any one entered their house in their absence they would hear the noise and return and be very angry at being thus called back from the campaign. Moreover, the people at home have to keep the house tidy: the sleeping-mats of the absent men must be hung on beams, not rolled up as if they were to be away a long time: their wives and next-of-kin may not quit the house at night: every night a light burns in the house, and a fire must be kept up constantly at the foot of the house-ladder: garments, turbans, and head-dresses may not be laid aside at night, for if the turban or head-dress were put off the warrior’s turban might drop from his head in the battle; and the wives may sew no garments. When the spirit of the head-hunter returns home in his sleep (which is the Toradja expression for a soldier’s dream) he must find everything there in good order and nothing that could vex him. By the observance of these rules, say the Toradjas, the souls of the head-hunters are “covered” or protected. And in order to make them strong, that they may not soon grow weary, rice is strewed morning and evening on the floor of the house. The women too go about constantly with a certain plant of which the pods are so light and feathery that they are easily wafted by the wind, for that helps to make the men nimble-footed.​[434] {p130}

When Galelareese men are going away to war, they are accompanied down to the boats by the women. But after the leave-taking is over, the women, in returning to their houses, must be careful not to stumble or fall, and in the house they may neither be angry nor lift up weapons against each other; otherwise the men will fall and be killed in battle.​[435] Similarly, we saw that among the Chams domestic brawls at home are supposed to cause the searcher for eagle-wood to fall a prey to wild beasts on the mountains.​[436] Further, Galelareese women may not lay down the chopping knives in the house while their husbands are at the wars; the knives must always be hung up on hooks.​[437] The reason for the rule is not given; we may conjecture that it is a fear lest, if the chopping knives were laid down by the women at home, the men would be apt to lay down their weapons in the battle or at other inopportune moments. In the Kei Islands, when the warriors have departed, the women return indoors and bring out certain baskets containing fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they anoint and place on a board, murmuring as they do so, “O lord sun, moon, let the bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and other relations, just as raindrops rebound from these objects which are smeared with oil.” As soon as the first shot is heard, the baskets are put aside, and the women, seizing their fans, rush out of the houses. Then, waving their fans in the direction of the enemy, they run through the village, while they sing, “O golden fans! let our bullets hit, and those of the enemy miss.”​[438] In this custom the ceremony of anointing stones, in order that the bullets may recoil from the men like raindrops from the stones, is a piece of pure homoeopathic or imitative magic; but the prayer to the sun, that he will be pleased to give effect to the charm, is a religious and perhaps later addition. The waving of the fans seems to be a charm to direct the bullets towards or away from their {p131} mark, according as they are discharged from the guns of friends or foes.

An old historian of Madagascar informs us that “while the men are at the wars, and until their return, the women and girls cease not day and night to dance, and neither lie down nor take food in their own houses. And although they are very voluptuously inclined, they would not for anything in the world have an intrigue with another man while their husband is at the war, believing firmly that if that happened, their husband would be either killed or wounded. They believe that by dancing they impart strength, courage, and good fortune to their husbands; accordingly during such times they give themselves no rest, and this custom they observe very religiously.”​[439] Similarly a traveller of the seventeenth century writes that in Madagascar “when the man is in battle or under march, the wife continually dances and sings, and will not sleep or eat in her own house, nor admit of the use of any other man, unless she be desirous to be rid of her own; for they entertain this opinion among them, that if they suffer themselves to be overcome in an intestin war at home, their husbands must suffer for it, being ingaged in a forreign expedition; but, on the contrary, if they behave themselves chastely, and dance lustily, that then their husbands, by some certain sympathetical operation, will be able to vanquish all their combatants.”​[440] We have seen that among hunters in various parts of the world the infidelity of the wife at home is believed to have a disastrous effect on her absent husband. In the Babar Archipelago, and among the Wagogo of East Africa, when the men are at the wars the women at home are bound to chastity, and in the Babar Archipelago they must fast besides.​[441] Under similar circumstances in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor the women and children are forbidden to remain inside of the houses and to twine thread or weave.​[442] {p132}

Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast the wives of men who are away with the army paint themselves white, and adorn their persons with beads and charms. On the day when a battle is expected to take place, they run about armed with guns, or sticks carved to look like guns, and taking green paw-paws (fruits shaped somewhat like a melon), they hack them with knives, as if they were chopping off the heads of the foe.​[443] The pantomime is no doubt merely an imitative charm, to enable the men to do to the enemy as the women do to the paw-paws. In the West African town of Framin, while the Ashantee war was raging some years ago, Mr. Fitzgerald Marriott saw a dance performed by women whose husbands had gone as carriers to the war. They were painted white and wore nothing but a short petticoat. At their head was a shrivelled old sorceress in a very short white petticoat, her black hair arranged in a sort of long projecting horn, and her black face, breasts, arms, and legs profusely adorned with white circles and crescents. All carried long white brushes made of buffalo or horse tails, and as they danced they sang, “Our husbands have gone to Ashanteeland; may they sweep their enemies off the face of the earth!”​[444] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, when the men were on the war-path, the women performed dances at frequent intervals. These dances were believed to ensure the success of the expedition. The dancers flourished their knives, threw long sharp-pointed sticks forward, or drew sticks with hooked ends repeatedly backward and forward. Throwing the sticks forward was symbolic of piercing or warding off the enemy, and drawing them back was symbolic of drawing their own men from danger. The hook at the end of the stick was particularly well adapted to serve the purpose of a life-saving apparatus. The women always pointed their weapons towards the enemy’s country. They painted their faces red and sang as they danced, and they prayed to the weapons to preserve their husbands and help them to kill many foes. Some had {p133} eagle-down stuck on the points of their sticks. When the dance was over, these weapons were hidden. If a woman whose husband was at the war thought she saw hair or a piece of a scalp on the weapon when she took it out, she knew that her husband had killed an enemy. But if she saw a stain of blood on it, she knew he was wounded or dead.​[445] When the men of the Yuki tribe of Indians in California were away fighting, the women at home did not sleep; they danced continually in a circle, chanting and waving leafy wands. For they said that if they danced all the time, their husbands would not grow tired.​[446] Among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, when the men had gone to war, the women at home would get up very early in the morning and pretend to make war by falling upon their children and feigning to take them for slaves. This was supposed to help their husbands to go and do likewise. If a wife were unfaithful to her husband while he was away on the war-path, he would probably be killed. For ten nights all the women at home lay with their heads towards the point of the compass to which the war-canoes had paddled away. Then they changed about, for the warriors were supposed to be coming home across the sea. At Masset the Haida women danced and sang war-songs all the time their husbands were away at the wars, and they had to keep everything about them in a certain order. It was thought that a wife might kill her husband by not observing these customs.​[447] In the Kafir district of the Hindoo Koosh, while the men are out raiding, the women abandon their work in the fields and assemble in the villages to dance day and night. The dances are kept up most of each day and the whole of each night. Sir George Robertson, who reports the custom, more than once watched the dancers dancing at midnight and in the early morning, and could see by the fitful glow of the {p134} woodfire how haggard and tired they looked, yet how gravely and earnestly they persisted in what they regarded as a serious duty.​[448] The dances of these Kafirs are said to be performed in honour of certain of the national gods, but when we consider the custom in connexion with the others which have just been passed in review, we may reasonably surmise that it is or was originally in its essence a sympathetic charm intended to keep the absent warriors wakeful, lest they should be surprised in their sleep by the enemy. When a band of Carib Indians of the Orinoco had gone on the war-path, their friends left in the village used to calculate as nearly as they could the exact moment when the absent warriors would be advancing to attack the enemy. Then they took two lads, laid them down on a bench, and inflicted a most severe scourging on their bare backs. This the youths submitted to without a murmur, supported in their sufferings by the firm conviction, in which they had been bred from childhood, that on the constancy and fortitude with which they bore the cruel ordeal depended the valour and success of their comrades in the battle.​[449]

So much for the savage theory of telepathy in war and the chase. We pass now to other cases of homoeopathic or imitative magic. While marriageable boys of the Mekeo district in British New Guinea are making their drums, they have to live alone in the forest and to observe a number of rules which are based on the principle of homoeopathic magic. The drums will be used in the dances, and in order that they may give out a resonant sonorous note, great care must be taken in their construction. The boys may spend from two days to a week at the task. Having chosen a suitable piece of wood, they scrape the outside into shape with a shell, and hollow out the inside by burning it with a hot coal till the sides are very thin. The skin of an iguana, made supple by being steeped in coco-nut milk, is then stretched over the hollow and tightened with string and glue. All the time a boy is at work on his drum, he must carefully avoid {p135} women; for if a woman or a girl were to see him, the drum would split and sound like an old cracked pot. If he ate fish, a bone would prick him and the skin of the drum would burst. If he ate a red banana it would choke him, and the drum would give a dull stifled note; if he tasted grated coco-nut, the white ants, like the white particles of the nut, would gnaw the body of the drum; if he cooked his food in the ordinary round-bellied pot, he would grow fat and would not be able to dance, and the girls would despise him and say, “Your belly is big; it is a pot!” Moreover, he must strictly shun water; for if he accidentally touched it with his feet, his hands, or his lips before the drum was quite hollowed out, he would throw the instrument away, saying: “I have touched water; my hot coal will be put out, and I shall never be able to hollow out my drum.”​[450] A Highland witch can sink a ship by homoeopathic or imitative magic. She has only to set a small round dish floating in a milk-pan full of water, and then to croon her spell. When the dish upsets in the pan, the ship will go down in the sea. They say that once three witches from Harris left home at night after placing the milk-pan thus on the floor, and strictly charging a serving-maid to let nothing come near it. But while the girl was not looking a duck came in and squattered about in the water on the floor. Next morning the witches returned and asked if anything had come near the pan. The girl said “No,” whereupon one of the witches said to the others, “What a heavy sea we had last night coming round Cabag head!”​[451] If a wolf has carried off a sheep or a pig, the Esthonians have a very simple mode of making him drop it. They let fall anything that they happen to have at hand, such as a cap or a glove, or, what is perhaps still better, they lift a heavy stone and then let it go. By that act, on the principle of homoeopathic magic, they compel the wolf to let go his booty.​[452]

Among the many beneficent uses to which a mistaken {p136} ingenuity has applied the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic, is that of causing trees and plants to bear fruit in due season. In Thüringen the man who sows flax carries the seed in a long bag which reaches from his shoulders to his knees, and he walks with long strides, so that the bag sways to and fro on his back. It is believed that this will cause the flax to wave in the wind.​[453] In the interior of Sumatra rice is sown by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down their back, in order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and have long stalks.​[454] Similarly, in ancient Mexico a festival was held in honour of the goddess of maize, or “the long-haired mother,” as she was called. It began at the time “when the plant had attained its full growth, and fibres shooting forth from the top of the green ear indicated that the grain was fully formed. During this festival the women wore their long hair unbound, shaking and tossing it in the dances which were the chief feature in the ceremonial, in order that the tassel of the maize might grow in like profusion, that the grain might be correspondingly large and flat, and that the people might have abundance.”​[455] It is a Malay maxim to plant maize when your stomach is full, and to see to it that your dibble is thick; for this will swell the ear of the maize.​[456] And they say that you should sow rice also with a full stomach, for then the ears will be full.​[457] The eminent novelist, Mr. Thomas Hardy, was once told that the reason why certain trees in front of his house, near Weymouth, did not thrive, was that he looked at them before breakfast on an empty stomach.​[458] More elaborate still are the measures taken by an Esthonian peasant woman to make her cabbages thrive. On the day when they are {p137} sown she bakes great pancakes, in order that the cabbages may have great broad leaves; and she wears a dazzling white hood in the belief that this will cause the cabbages to have fine white heads. Moreover, as soon as the cabbages are transplanted, a small round stone is wrapt up tightly in a white linen rag and set at the end of the cabbage bed, because in this way the cabbage heads will grow very white and firm.​[459] Among the Huzuls of the Carpathians, when a woman is planting cabbages, she winds many cloths about her head, in order that the heads of the cabbages may also be thick. And as soon as she has sown parsley, she grasps the calf of her leg with both hands, saying, “May it be as thick as that!”​[460] Among the Kurs of East Prussia, who inhabit the long sandy tongue of land known as the Nehrung which parts the Baltic from a lagoon, when a farmer sows his fields in spring, he carries an axe and chops the earth with it, in order that the cornstalks may be so sturdy that an axe will be needed to hew them down.​[461] For much the same reason a Bavarian sower in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that the corn may have a fine yellow colour.​[462] The Malagasy think that only people with a good even set of teeth should plant maize, for otherwise there will be empty spaces in the maize cob corresponding to the empty spaces in the planter’s teeth.​[463]

In many parts of Europe dancing or leaping high in the air are approved homoeopathic modes of making the crops grow high. Thus in Franche-Comté they say that you should dance at the Carnival in order to make the hemp grow tall.​[464] In the Vosges mountains the sower of hemp pulls his nether garments up as far as he can, because he imagines that the hemp he is sowing will {p138} attain the precise height to which he has succeeded in hitching up his breeches;​[465] and in the same region another way of ensuring a good crop of hemp is to dance on the roof of the house on Twelfth Day.​[466] In Swabia and among the Transylvanian Saxons it is a common custom for a man who has sown hemp to leap high on the field, in the belief that this will make the hemp grow tall.​[467] All over Baden till recently it was the custom for the farmer’s wife to give the sower a dish of eggs or a cake baked with eggs either before or after sowing, in order that he might leap as high as possible. This was deemed the best way of making the hemp grow high. For the same purpose some people who had sown hemp used to dance the hemp dance, as it was called, on Shrove Tuesday, and in this dance also the dancers jumped as high as they could. In some parts of Baden the hemp seed is thrown in the air as high as possible, and in Katzenthal the urchins leap over fires in order that the hemp may grow tall.​[468] Similarly in many other parts of Germany and Austria the peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table; the higher the leap the taller will the flax be that year. The special season for thus promoting the growth of flax is Shrove Tuesday, but in some places it is Candlemas or Walpurgis Night (the eve of May Day). The scene of the performance is the flax field, the farmhouse, or the village tavern.​[469] In {p139} some parts of Eastern Prussia the girls dance one by one in a large hoop at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The hoop is adorned with leaves, flowers, and ribbons, and attached to it are a small bell and some flax. Strictly speaking, the hoop should be wrapt in white linen handkerchiefs, but the place of these is often taken by many-coloured bits of cloth, wool, and so forth. While dancing within the hoop each girl has to wave her arms vigorously and cry “Flax grow!” or words to that effect. When she has done, she leaps out of the hoop, or is lifted out of it by her partner.​[470] In Anhalt, when the sower had sown the flax, he leaped up and flung the seed-bag high in the air, saying, “Grow and turn green! You have nothing else to do.” He hoped that the flax would grow as high as he flung the seed-bag in the air. At Quellendorff, in Anhalt, the first bushel of seed-corn had to be heaped up high in order that the corn-stalks should grow tall and bear plenty of grain.​[471] When Macedonian farmers have done digging their fields, they throw their spades up into the air, and catching them again, exclaim, “May the crop grow as high as the spade has gone!”​[472]