James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)

Examples of the fatal effects of imagination in other parts of the world.

Thus in the Polynesian race, to which the Maoris belong, superstition erected round the persons of sacred chiefs a real, though at the same time purely imaginary barrier, to transgress which actually entailed the death of the transgressor whenever he became aware of what he had done. This fatal power of the imagination working through superstitious terrors is by no means confined to one race; it appears to be common among savages. For example, among the aborigines of Australia a native will die after the infliction of even the most superficial wound if only he believes that the weapon which inflicted the wound had been sung over and thus endowed with magical virtue. He simply lies down, refuses food, and pines away. 495Similarly among some of the Indian tribes of Brazil, if the medicine-man predicted the death of any one who had offended him, “the wretch took to his hammock instantly in such full expectation of dying, that he would neither eat nor drink, and the prediction was a sentence which faith effectually executed.” 496Speaking of certain African races Major Leonard observes: “I have seen more than one hardened old Haussa soldier dying steadily and by inches, because he believed himself to be bewitched; so that no nourishment or medicines that were given to him had the slightest effect either to check the mischief or to improve his condition in any way, and nothing was able to divert him from a fate which he considered inevitable. In the same way, and under very similar conditions, I have seen Kru-men and others die, in spite of every effort that was made to save them, simply because they had made up their minds, not (as we thought at the time) to die, but that being in the clutch of malignant demons they were bound to die.” 497The Capuchin missionary Merolla da Sorrento, who travelled in the West African kingdom of Congo in the latter part of the seventeenth century, has described a remarkable case of death wrought purely by superstitious fear. He says: “It is a custom that either the parents or the wizards give certain rules to be inviolably observed by the young people, and which they call chegilla : these are to abstain from eating either some sorts of poultry, the flesh of some kinds of wild beasts, such and such fruits, roots either raw or boiled after this or another manner, with several other ridiculous injunctions of the like nature, too many to be enumerated here. You would wonder with what religious observance these commands are obeyed. These young people would sooner chuse to fast several days together, than to taste the least bit of what has been forbidden them; and if it sometimes happen that the chegilla

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See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , vol. i. pp. 332 sqq. , 373 sqq.

The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , vol. i. pp. 352 sqq.

Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century: from recent Dutch Visitors to Japan, and the German of Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold (London, 1841), pp. 141 sqq.

W. G. Aston, Shinto ( the Way of the Gods ) (London, 1905), p. 41; Michel Revon, Le Shintoïsme , i. (Paris, 1907), pp. 189 sqq. The Japanese word for god or deity is kami . It is thus explained by the native scholar Motoöri, one of the chief authorities on Japanese religion: “The term Kami is applied in the first place to the various deities of Heaven and Earth who are mentioned in the ancient records as well as their spirits ( mi-tama ) which reside in the shrines where they are worshipped. Moreover, not only human beings, but birds, beasts, plants and trees, seas and mountains, and all other things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess, are called Kami . They need not be eminent for surpassing nobleness, goodness, or serviceableness alone. Malignant and uncanny beings are also called Kami if only they are the objects of general dread. Among Kami who are human beings I need hardly mention first of all the successive Mikados – with reverence be it spoken… Then there have been numerous examples of divine human beings both in ancient and modern times, who, although not accepted by the nation generally, are treated as gods, each of his several dignity, in a single province, village, or family.” Hirata, another native authority on Japanese religion, defines kami as a term which comprises all things strange, wondrous, and possessing isao or virtue. And a recent dictionary gives the following definitions: “ Kami . 1. Something which has no form but is only spirit, has unlimited supernatural power, dispenses calamity and good fortune, punishes crime and rewards virtue. 2. Sovereigns of all times, wise and virtuous men, valorous and heroic persons whose spirits are prayed to after their death. 3. Divine things which transcend human intellect. 4. The Christian God, Creator, Supreme Lord.” See W. G. Aston, Shinto ( the Way of the Gods ), pp. 8-10, from which the foregoing quotations are made. Mr. Aston himself considers that “the deification of living Mikados was titular rather than real,” and he adds: “I am not aware that any specific so-called miraculous powers were authoritatively claimed for them” ( op. cit. p. 41). No doubt it is very difficult for the Western mind to put itself at the point of view of the Oriental and to seize the precise point (if it can be said to exist) where the divine fades into the human or the human brightens into the divine. In translating, as we must do, the vague thought of a crude theology into the comparatively exact language of civilised Europe we must allow for a considerable want of correspondence between the two: we must leave between them, as it were, a margin of cloudland to which in the last resort the deity may retreat from the too searching light of philosophy and science.

M. Revon, op. cit. i. 190 n. 2

Kaempfer, “History of Japan,” in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels , vii. 716 sq. However, Mr. W. G. Aston tells us that Kaempfer's statements regarding the sacred character of the Mikado's person cannot be depended on ( Shinto, the Way of the Gods , p. 41, note †). M. Revon quotes Kaempfer's account with the observation that, “ les naïvetés recèlent plus d'une idée juste ” ( Le Shintoïsme , vol. i. p. 191, note 2). To me it seems that Kaempfer's description is very strongly confirmed by its close correspondence in detail with the similar customs and superstitions which have prevailed in regard to sacred personages in many other parts of the world and with which it is most unlikely that Kaempfer was acquainted. This correspondence will be brought out in the following pages.