The Danger of Dealing with a Witch

      Unrequited love! One of life's great frustrations! Haven't we all been a position whereby a little love magic would come in handy - preferably a type which could not be used by our rival, or against us? (That's the trouble, of course, with magic: it works both ways.) In the 1920s journalist, W. B. Seabrook went to Haiti to investigate Voodoo, and reported on how a young man called Paul, besotted with a woman who had rejected him, asked his grandmother, Maman Célie for help. In response, she ground into powder a dead hummingbird, all the time chanting prayers or spells, added a few dried drops of her grandson's blood and semen, plus the pollen of jungle flowers, and placed it in a pouch made from the scrotum of a billy goat. Now the fun part: how was he going to get the object of his affection to eat or drink the stuff? 

The Witches Who Failed to Fly

      It is, of course, well established that the Great Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th centuries, stretching even into the 18th, represented a resurgence of pre-Christian superstitions. They had once been ignored and mocked, but were now being taken seriously. However, I didn't realise just how ancient these beliefs were until I reread Apuleius' second century novel, The Golden Ass. There, the author describes how he watched a Thessalian witch strip naked, rub herself with a magic ointment, and promptly turn into an owl. That was very similar to what witches were accused of doing 13 or 14 centuries later! Some were even trying it out themselves!

Holy Suicide

     The word "Juggernaut" entered the English language to describe something huge and inexorable, implacably crushing down anything in its path. Originally, it was inspired by the custom of devotees of Jagannâth ("Lord of the World") of throwing themselves under his great temple car when the latter was taken in procession through Orissa (now Odisha) in northeastern India. Nowadays, you will read (for example, here) that the story is a myth, inspired by accidents when devotees fell under the wheels due to the press of the crowd. This is quite untrue.

Voyage to the Edge of the World

     "No-one goes beyond the reef!" insisted Chief Tui in Disney's latest cartoon, Moana. Of course, as the story developed we were reminded that the people of the Pacific had no concern about the moana, or ocean. They colonised its countless islands by exploratory voyages extending hundreds, even thousands of miles. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands, now known as Kiribati, once believed that if they sailed too far west, they would fall off the edge of the world.

Sex, Sorcery, and Swordfish

     The power of mind over matter can be quite spectacular, when the "matter" is the human body, and not always for the best. Take, for instance, a phantom pregnancy, when a woman wants a child so much that her body goes through all the features of pregnancy, except that no child has been conceived. The classic case was that of England's first queen regnant, the unfortunate Mary I ("Bloody Mary"). Married to the King of Spain at the age of 40, and desperate for an heir, she was apparently pregnant for eleven months, but nothing came of it. Even worse is "sorcery death" or voodoo death. Recorded in many parts of the world, the most dramatic is the phenomenon of "pointing the bone", also known as "singing to death" among the Australian Aborigines. When a person has a curse put upon him by a witchdoctor by having a bone pointed at him, he literally wills himself to die within a few days or a few weeks, unless the curse is removed.
    But what happens when both phenomena occur together?

Burning Buddha's Tooth

     When one of the Pandyan kings, an invader and Hindu fanatic, ordered the destruction of the Buddha's tooth, the holy relic rebounded from the hammer blow in a ball of light. That, at least, was the event depicted in this modern painting in the inner sanctum of the Temple of the Tooth, Kandy, in central Sri Lanka. This was the last photograph I was able to take in the temple, because immediately afterwards the battery in my camera failed. Well, I had my revenge on the Tooth. Shortly afterwards, I told my companions its dirty little secret.

Daniel Boone on Religion

     Now that the festival of our Saviour's birth is coming up, it might be appropriate to hear a few words from that famous American theologian, Daniel Boone. It comes from a letter he once wrote to a sister-in-law, and which was quoted in chapter 19 of Daniel Boone, Master of the Wilderness by John Bakeless (1939).

     Relating to our family and how we Live in this World and what Chance we Shall have in the next we know Not for my part I am as ignurant as a Child all the Relegan I have to Love and feer god beleve in Jeses Christ Dow all the good to my Neighbour and my Self as I Can and Do as Little harm as I Can help and trust in gods marcy for the Rest and I Beleve god neve made a man of prisepel to be Lost and I flater my Self Deer Sister that you are well on your way in Cristianity.

    To which one can only say, "Amen".

The God Who Talks to Earthworms

     The Aetas [eye-tas] of the Philippine island of Luzon are negritos: one of those strange group of black pygmies, pockets of whose populations dot the fringes of southern Asia, remnants of a very early human migration from Africa, hunter-gatherers pushed into the rainforest by later, agricultural peoples. Psychologist Kilton Stewart visited them in the 1930s, accompanied by a half-Aeta interpreter. He discovered that, although not strictly speaking monotheists, they did worship a Supreme God, in this case with the name of Tolandian.

Damned Bats and the River of Blood

     Every now and then we come across some rather curious beliefs from what we would regard as "backward" parts of the world. Because they involve what would normally be regarded as the supernatural, they are often lumped into the category of religion. However, since they don't involve any sort of worship, it is best to treat them as quaint stories created to explain unusual circumstances by people who don't follow our un-supernatural outlook on the world.
     Take, for example, this account by the adventurer, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, who spent the years 1919 to 1921 in Central America, especially Honduras.

The Old Man of the Blackfeet

     The religion of the American Indians was/is a mosaic of gods, nature spirits, and visions, but in the background is the figure, sometimes remote, sometimes overarching, of the High God, the Creator. Contrary to what you may have read, the Great Spirit was not a creation of Christian missionaries, although their teachings may have had an influence on modern Indian spirituality. Among the Blackfeet, as among the Crees, Arapahos, and Gros Ventres, he was Napi, the Old Man.
     But unlike the distant Great Spirit of the eastern tribes, and the complex, multi-faceted Great Mystery of the Sioux, the Old Man was a familiar, grandfatherly figure, even given to practical jokes, who departed after his work was completed.
     After creating the earth and the animals, the Old Man constructed his wife, the Old Woman out of mud, and together they designed the human race. Of course, said the Old Man, he intended to have the first say in everything. That was all right, agreed his wife, provided she have second say.

     Old Man said, "Let the people have eyes and mouths in their faces, and let them be straight up and down." But the Old Woman added. "Yes, let them have eyes and mouths; but they shall be set crosswise in their faces."
     Old Man said, "Let the people have ten fingers on each hand." "No," declared Old Woman, "ten fingers will be in the way. Let them have four fingers and a thumb on each." So the people were made.

     I like this story, for it reminds us that the relationship between men and women is much the same all over the world. I might also add that, as the man of the house, I always have the last word in everything. And usually that last word is, "Yes, dear."

Reference: John C. Ewers (1958), The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, University of Oklahoma Press, pp 3-4, quoting Alexander Henry and David Thompson (1897), New Light of the Early History of the Greater Northwest, II, 528.

When It Doesn't Pay to Have the Courage of Your Convictions

     As I pointed out in my last post, it doesn't always pay to have the courage of your convictions. Of course, we all say we admire the person who does. We also say it takes a big man to admit he was wrong.
     William Miller was one of those people who believe the Bible was written in code, and he had found the key. He was actually able to predict the second coming of Jesus to the day and the hour - apparently oblivious to the fact that the hour differs according to one's position on the earth. To quote the inimitable words of C. S. Lewis: "Thousands waited for the Lord at midnight on 21 March [1844], and went home to a late breakfast on 22nd followed by the jeers of a drunkard." Afterwards, one of his disciples, Samuel Snow persuaded him that the correct date would be 22 October 1844. But when the earth still turned after that day, Miller at least had the sense to call it quits, and admit he had been wrong. But for a New Guinea prophet, having the courage of his convictions came with a high price.

A Couple of Cargo Cults

     Cargo cults! They spring up like weeds in Melanesia, and mutate like flu viruses. They would be amusing, except that they all lead to futility, and many of them to tragedy. Not that they are really unique to Melanesia. They represent one aspect of the sort of movements which eventuate when primitive societies come into contact with sophisticated ones. The American Indian Ghost Dance had cargo cult features. So did the terrible cattle-killing movement in South Africa, which left thousands of people dead. It has also been pointed out that Westerners beset by the same ignorance of economics tend to go in for socialist utopias. But the particular mindset of Melanesia makes it the centre of the full cargo cult phenomenon.