Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/424

400 into the official religion. Mohammed recognized the Evil Eye. The reality of witchcraft is a dogma. Miracles are magic. Mohammedan doctors have exercised themselves in distinguishing between the saint's miraculous act and the sorcerer's prodigy; and they have declared that the sole difference is in the morality of the aim pursued. A miracle is legitimate witchcraft, and witchcraft is forbidden miracle. The Prophet himself recommended the employment of magical incantations: he only forbade those that have a polytheistic character. He himself employed rites in their essence magical, and uttered incantations. The ceremonies at the Kaaba, which he consecrated and perpetuated, are in effect magical. It is only witchcraft,—anti-social magic,—that is forbidden in Islam.

But, besides religion and witchcraft, there is another group of facts observable in Morocco, which are neither permitted nor forbidden, though not usually viewed with a favourable eye by orthodoxy. They belong to folklore, and include such celebrations as the Carnival and the Midsummer fires. They represent, in fact, ancient magical practices that once had a religious force, but in course of time have been disintegrated, so to say, from religion. The ideas, the myths, the beliefs connected with these practices have for the most part disappeared, and can only be reconstructed from the rites that remain. Some of them seem to coincide with festivals and solemnities, which have been taken up into Islam, but are themselves probably survivals of pre-existing pagan Arab customs.

These theories will be recognized as in general correspondence with those of the English and French schools, to which the author acknowledges his indebtedness, repeatedly citing Prof. Frazer, Mr. Marett, Messrs. Hubert and Mauss, and other anthropological and sociological investigators. The rest of the book may without unfairness be described as an application of the theories to the various practices and beliefs found in Morocco. The careful and detailed account of the phenomena it comprises is of the utmost interest to students of folklore, and will long remain an authoritative exposition of custom and superstition in a society hardly as yet disturbed by modern conditions and scientific discovery.