Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/400

 ment of the chain. In economic pursuits such as gardening, fishing, the construction of a canoe, or a kula expedition, or, again, in the magic of beauty just described, the rites accompany each successive stage of the enterprise, which naturally proceeds in a definite order.

But there are other spheres of magic where the system possesses a slightly different character. For instance, sorcery is believed to be the real cause of disease. Indeed, black magic must be effective and finally fatal, provided that it is properly carried out with due observance of all conditions, and provided that it is not met by a stronger counter-magic. The sorcerer opens the attack, the victim defends himself by securing counter-magic, and by making use of every factor which could counteract the full efficiency of black magic. Even if the sorcerer is successful, or partially so, the resultant illness does not develop along fixed lines as does the growth of a garden. Hence this system cannot follow a fixed sequence of events. Instead, a system of black magic consists of a succession of spells and rites which gradually increase in strength. When the sorcerer is successful, the increasing strength of his spells produces the more rapid decline of his victim until death supervenes. If the sorcerer is being thwarted, he launches increasingly strong formulas in order to get at his victim through the barrier of precautions, adverse conditions, and counter-magic with which the latter has protected himself.

Let us examine black magic, not from the native, but from the ethnographer's point of view. A sorcerer either is paid to remove a victim or does so from personal mo