Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/389

Rh magician, and so regard him, even when not a professional but merely performing those acts casually, and whether for his own benefit or for that of others. Magical representations are the ideas and beliefs corresponding to the magical acts. The magical acts are rites, provisionally distinguished from religious rites, as not part of an organised cult, but private, secret, mysterious, and tending towards the prohibited. This definition turns out in the sequel to be inaccurate, inasmuch as some magical rites are performed coram publico, like rain-making, or in the presence of a number of interested persons, like rites for the healing of the sick, or even by a large number of persons acting together, as in the case of the Dyak women who execute certain dances while their husbands are away head-hunting, to secure for them success. It is, however, not easy so to define a magical rite as to distinguish it infallibly from a religious rite. To define it as a sympathetic rite would be on the one hand to exclude rites of purification, rites of sacrifice, rites of preparation of magical instruments, and so forth, which are certainly magical. On the other hand it would include many religious rites which would be at once recognised as sympathetic, such as the ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles, when the high priest poured water on the altar "in order that the rains of the year may be blessed to you," or as when the Hindu priest in the course of a solemn sacrifice pours a libation, and prolongs or shortens the life of the person on whose behalf he offers by lengthening or shortening the flow as he pours. Neither of these acts, forming part of a religious ceremony, can be regarded as simply magical. Moreover the distinction proposed by Dr. Frazer between a rite which operates directly of itself (magic) and a rite which operates indirectly by prayer and respectful persuasion is invalid, because a religious rite often has a value of its own, compelling even the gods to the will of the worshipper. Such, to enumerate only two instances, was the belief in the later days of classic paganism; and no reader of English literature need be reminded that it was upon this belief as exhibited in the Brahminical religion that Southey founded The Curse of Kehama. It is not difficult to guess what Dr. Frazer would reply on both these points, and it must be said at once that there is no member of the definition given by the authors of a magical rite that is true for all times and all places. It is a provisional definition only, put forth for the purpose of the