Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/372

 334 Occult Powers of Healing in the Panjab.

The only other case noted that may be called one of treatment rather than of occult healing is the well-known bit of savage magic that follows : —

"A Jat of Silana in Tahsil Jhajjar cures all diseases by sucking the chest of the patient and by spitting blood." (Rohtak.)

There is little admixture of common-sense in any of these remedies ; singularly little, in fact, of anything that can be considered as the rudiments of rational medical practice. We find wounds treated by local applications, necklaces worn for swollen glands in the neck, bathing resorted to for boils and swellings, and salt and water used (evidently) to compel the sufferer from hydrophobia to drink ; but little more. That these notes form a complete account of the folk-medicine practised in the Panjab is not to be supposed ; but they do at any rate contribute some valuable evidence on the much-discussed subject of the origin of magic. This evidence, I suggest, so far as it goes, — but it does not touch on magic feats performed on things or persons at a distance, — supports the view that the essential element of magic is the occult power, — the "virtue," the niana, — of the wonder-worker, or of the words or materials (plants, waters, and so on) used by the " cunning man." The sympathetic or symbolic rite is here secondary ; the mana of the performer or his material is what makes it effective for its purpose among the population of the Panjab. And this principle appears irrespective of race, creed, or caste, for, as we have seen, the evidence is gathered from Mohammedans and Hindus, Brahmans, peasants, and vagrant tribes alike.

Charlotte S. Burne.