VI

So far, we only spoke of the relation between spell and rite. The last point, however, brings us to the problem of the condition of the performer. His belly is a tabernacle of magical force. Such a privilege carries its dangers and obligations. It is clear that you cannot stuff foreign matter indiscriminately into a place, where extremely valuable possessions are kept. Food restrictions, therefore, become imperative. Many of them are directly determined by the contents of the spell. We saw some examples of this, as when red fish, invoked in magic, is tabooed to the performer; or the dog, spoken about in the Ka’ubanai spell, may not be heard howling while the man eats. In other cases, the object which is the aim of the magic, cannot be partaken by the magician. This is the rule in the case of shark fishing, kalala fishing, and other forms of fishing magic. The garden magician is also debarred from partaking of new crops, up to a certain period. There is hardly any clear doctrine, as to why things mentioned in magical formulæ, whether they are the aims of the magic or only cooperating factors, should not be eaten. There is just the general apprehension that the formula would be damaged by it. There are other taboos, binding the magician, some of them permanent, some of them temporary, during the season of his magical performance. We saw some permanent ones, as in the case of the man who knows Kayga’u magic, and is not allowed to eat while children make noises. The temporary ones, such as the sexual abstinence during the first rites of the Kula, could be supplemented by numerous examples from other forms of magic. Thus, in order to bring about rain, the magician paints himself black and has to remain unwashed and unkempt for some time. The shark magician has to keep his house open, to remove his pubic leaf and to sit with his legs apart, while the fishing and the magic last, “so that the shark’s mouth might remain gaping.” But we cannot enter too much into enumeration of these taboos and observances, and have only to make it clear that the proper behaviour of the magician is one of the essentials of magic, and that in many cases this behaviour is dictated by the contents of the spell.

The taboos and observances are not the only conditions which a man must fulfil in order to carry out certain forms of magic. In many cases the most important condition is his membership in a social group, for many forms of magic are strictly local, and must be performed by one, who is the descendant of the mythical, original owner of the magic. Thus in every case of garden magic, a magic which to the natives ranks first among all the other types of beneficent magic, the performer must be genealogically related to the first ancestor, who locally emerged from the hole. Certain exceptions to this rule are to be found only in cases where a family of high rank has come and usurped the headmanship of the group, but these exceptions are rare. In the case of the several systems of local fishing magic, the office of magician is hereditary, and associated with the locality. The important rain and sun magic which have been ‘born’ in Kasana’i, can only be performed by the chiefs of that spot, who have usurped this important privilege from the original local headman. The succession, is of course, always matrilineal. A man may make a gift of such a magic to his son, but this latter may be obliged to relinquish the privilege at his father’s death, and he never will be allowed to hand it over to his son, unless this latter belongs again to the local group, through cross-cousin marriage. Even in transactions where magic is sold or given away from one clan to another, the prestige of certain local groups as main specialists and experts in a branch of magic still remain. For instance, the black magic, though practised all over the place and no more localised, is still believed to be best known in the villages of Ba’u and Bwoytalu, where the original crab fell down from the skies, and brought with him the magic. The Kula magic is also spread over the whole district, yet it is still associated with definite localities.

To summarise these sociological observations, We may say that, where the local character of magic is still maintained, the magician has to belong to the dala (sub-clan or local group) of the mythical ancestor. In all other cases, the local character of magic is still recognised, even though it does not influence the sociology of the magician.

The traditional character of magic and the magical filiation of the performer find their expression in another important feature of the spells. In some of them, as we have seen, references to mythical events are made, or names of mythical ancestors are uttered. Even more often, we find a whole list of names, beginning with the mythical founder of the magic, and ending with the name of the immediate predecessor, that is, of the man from whom the magic was obtained by the actual performer. Such a list links up the present magician by a sort of magical pedigree with all those, who had previously been using this formula. In other formulæ again, the magician identifies himself with some mythical individual, and utters the latter’s name in the first person. Thus, in the spell uttered whilst plucking the mint plant, we found the phrase: “I, Kwoyregu, with my father, we cut the sulumwoya of Laba’i.” Both the actual genealogical descent of the magician from the mythical ancestors, and the magical filiation expressed in the formulæ show again the paramount importance of tradition, in this case acting on the sociological determination of the performer. He is placed in a definite social group of those, who by birth, or what could be called ‘magical adoption’, have had the right of performing this magic. In the very act of uttering the spell, the magician bears testimony to his indebtedness to the past by the enumeration of magical names, and by references to myth and mythical events. Both the sociological restrictions, wherever they still exist, and the magical filiation confirm once more the dependence of magic on tradition. On the other hand, both show, as also do the taboos, that the obligations imposed on the magician and the conditions he has to fulfil, are largely derived from the spell.