“Hither, Soul, come hither! Hither, little one, come hither! Hither, bird, come hither! Hither, filmy one, come hither!”[147]
Must we not infer that these Malays have in some way lost the common belief, and so are put to this extra trouble?
If it be asked how this account of the matter can justify the use of a stick or stone instead of a man’s image, merely assigning it to represent him, the reply (I think) is that the stick is a symbol. Since images are never much like the man, and may be unlike in all degrees, the stick is a sort of limiting case. A symbol is always the remainder, or reminder, of something that once had intrinsic value, as an image, shadow, or reflection has by being or participating in the man’s soul. Besides, it is perhaps a tacit assumption of Magic (as in other departments of life—including Philosophy), “that whatever for one’s purpose it is necessary to assume, is real or true”: the situation demands it.
As to the magical continuity between a man and whatever has been in contact with him, the belief in it may with some confidence be derived from the fact that it retains his odour; and when an animistic explanation is required, it is naturally thought that this odour is his soul or soul-stuff, as the savour of a burnt-offering is its soul-stuff that regales the gods.
Belief in the participation of an image, or part or appurtenance of a man in the man himself, or in his virtue, or in his soul, must give to rites of black Magic a great deal of the subjective satisfaction which is a secret motive of all Magic. The images, or nail-parings, or what not, identify the man to be attacked; they fix the wizard’s attention, vivify his imagination, direct the spell whom to strike (as a dog is set upon a trail), and heighten the joy of imaginary revenge.
There are, however, many cases usually classed as “sympathetic Magic” that cannot without great violence be explained in this way; and I complain of the epithet “sympathetic,” as applied to all indirect Magic, that it implies this explanation. Consider the Mandan buffalo-dances, the hunting dance and the mating dance; these are imitations or dramatic representations of the hunting of buffaloes and of their mating, which they are designed to prosper: can such dances be interpreted as the efflux or decortications of the future hunt or mating? Or, again, the story of the muræna (quoted above, p. 101) and its resuscitation by the rising tide—is this a radiation of the budding of the taro which it is expected to expedite? Such cases, which are pretty numerous, must be understood upon some other ground than “participation.”