Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/180

 1 62 From spell to Prayer.

the idea of which is that the thief may suffer from stones in the stomach like to these. These Borneo stones are similarly treated as personal agencies. They are called on to witness the anathema. Or again, if a friend of the pro- prietor wishes to pluck the fruit, he first lights a fire and asks it to explain to the stones that he is no thief. ^- In short, there is fairly crucial evidence to show how naturally and insensibly the charm-symbol may pass into the idol.^' All that is needed is that there should be sufficient personi- fication for prayer to be said.

It remains to speak very briefly of the corresponding personification and gradual deification of what in contrast to the "instrument" I have called the "end." Now clearly the curtailed form of spell with suppressed protasis is to all outward appearance a prayer and nothing else. Take a single very simple example— the " Fruit, Fruit, Fruit, Fruit," which we find at the end of various Malay charms connected with the practice of " productive " magic.^* According to our previous conclusions, however, this is no prayer so long as the force which sets the spell in motion is felt by the operator as an exertion of imperative will and an attempt to establish control. But, given a form of words which need suffer no change though the thought at the back of it alter, what more natural than that the mind of the charmer should fluctuate between " bluff" and blandishment, conjuration and cajolery ?

Mr. Skeat provides us with examples of how easily this transition effects itself in the course of one and the same ceremony. Thus " Listen, O listen, to my injunctions " — which is surely prayer — is immediately followed by threat backed by the name of power : " And if you hearken not to my instructions you shall be rebels in the sight of Allah." ^^ And, that we need not suppose this transition to

^- J. A. J., xxiii., l6l. 5* Cf. Mr. Skcat in Folk-I.ore, xiii., 161. " Folk- Lore, xiii., 142.
 * ' Cf. Dr. Haddon \nj. A. /., xix., 324.