Besides things that are in their magical nature dangerous, and therefore taboo, things inoffensive in themselves can sometimes be made taboo by merely declaring them to be so, or by setting up a symbolic notice that they are so, or by laying a conditional curse upon anybody who meddles with them. They have then become dangerous. This is the common case of making a talisman by means of a spell, transferring to it invisible power. Such practices, especially common in Melanesia, are often useful as a cheap defence of property (in gardens, for instance), but are also a means of exaction and tyranny. The prevalence of taboo amongst savages, by the way, enables them readily to appreciate our great commandment to do no work on Sunday.[139]
The use of charms, rites and spells, having been established in one department—say, hunting—may be extended to others by analogy, and is confirmed there in the same way, namely, by still doing one’s best. Having obtained the charms and learnt, or invented, the rites and spells, one applies them, but at the same time makes war or love as cunningly as one can, cultivates one’s garden, drives a bargain, and so forth, and ascribes all good results to the Magic. At first, I suppose, all such action was direct, discharged at the person or thing to be influenced. To slay an enemy a bone of a dead man was pointed, or a crocodile’s tooth hurled, in his direction (though, probably, not in his sight). To keep off evil Magic a wish was expressed—“Never sharp barn catch me”;[140] or to drive away a pest a command was issued, as in Borneo: “O rats, sparrows and noxious insects, go feed on the padi of people down river.”[141] But a time came when Magic began also to be carried out by practices indirect and purely dramatic, rites performed and spells recited not at the person or thing to be affected, but upon some substitute, or representative, or symbol; and this must have happened pretty early; for dramatic Magic is met with in Australia. To this sort of Magic belong the widely-diffused methods of operating upon the image of a man or anything assigned to stand for him, or upon hair-clippings, remains of food, or footprints instead of himself; or of tying knots to bind, or untying them to release a curse. With spells the indirect method is less common, but remarkable examples of it occur at a low level of culture. The Yabim of New Guinea, to promote the growth of their taro, tell a story: “Once upon a time, a man labouring in his field complained that he had no taro-shoots. Then came two doves flying from Paum. They had devoured much taro, and they perched upon a tree in the field, and during the night vomited up all the taro. Thus the man got so many shoots that he was even able to sell some of them to other people.”[142] Here, then, a mere story of a wish fulfilled is substituted, as a spell, for the wish itself, and expected to have the same effect upon the crop; and as that is, indeed, true, any failure of it is no more liable to be detected. But such practices seem to us sillier and less promising even than direct Magic. What can be the meaning of them?