It has been suggested that the supposed force of mimetic Magic rests upon the belief that as a man’s shadow or reflection implies his presence, so does his image. And we shall see that, in some cases, this explanation is not far from the mark, though it cannot serve for all cases; inasmuch as the image operated upon in any rite need not be a likeness (of course it never is)—a stick will serve, if declared to stand for the victim; and, moreover, his presence is not needed in carrying out rites that act at a distance. What truth there is in this view has been better expressed by Prof. Yrjö Hirn:[143] namely, that a unity or solidarity exists between all persons and things that stand to one another in a relationship of contact or similarity, on account of a certain magical virtue; and that this solidarity is not destroyed by any breach of physical continuity. To take away a man’s cloak, or a lock of his hair, or a remnant of his food, does not interrupt the magical continuity which contact has established with the man: something of him, his virtue, remains with it. And in the same way an image of him contains something of his virtue; for to the immature mind, images or pictures are nothing but radiations or decortications of the thing itself, an efflux, like the Epicurean εἴδωλα. Hence the bones of a saint and his picture convey his virtue to a devotee by the same process: both are conductors of some emanation from himself. There is much truth in this theory.
When Animism is called in to explain Magic, this virtue or emanation of a man is apt to be explained as his soul, or part of it. A savage dislikes being photographed, lest you should take away his soul. M. Jounod says the Bantu regard a photograph as “an unsheathing of soul”;[144] Mr. Dorsey says no Dakota would have his portrait taken lest one of his souls [out of four] should remain in the picture, instead of going after death to spirit-land;[145] Mr. Carl Lumholtz says the Papagoes refused to be photographed, lest part of themselves should be taken away, and remain behind after death.[146] And it is a trick with some sorcerers to keep a looking-glass, in which they pretend to catch the souls of their dupes; and, of course, shadows and reflections are frequently confounded with the soul. So if the use of an image in Magic does not imply the presence of the man himself, generally it does imply the presence of a very important part of him. And this explanation is strengthened by an apparent exception; for some Malays, when they make an image of an enemy to compass his destruction, think it necessary before operating to coax his soul into it by a potent spell.