Still, the wizard, whether of home or foreign growth, becomes necessary in every crisis of life, at birth and marriage, in misfortune, sickness and death; in every undertaking—hunting, agriculture or commerce; and by his omens and auguries may determine war and peace. After his own death, he may sometimes look forward to being deified. With such powers, surrounded by intimidated and dependent crowds, and often enjoying a long career of conscious or unconscious imposture, he seems to himself, as to others, a “superman”; his _Selbstgefühl_ rises to megalomania, and his boasting becomes monstrous and stupefying.
(4) The more to impress the imagination of all spectators and enhance his reputation, the wizard usually affects a costume, or behaviour, or strange companionship of animals, that distinguishes him from the rest of his tribe. Not always; for Miss Czaplicka[454] says that in Siberia the shaman is in everyday life not distinguished from others, except occasionally by a haughty demeanour; but the rule is otherwise. A. W. Howitt[455] relates that one Australian medicine-man obtained influence by always carrying about with him a lace-lizard four feet long; another cherished a tame brown snake; and an old woman kept a native cat (_Daysurus_): “familiars” that correspond to the black cats and goats of our own witches. The Arunta medicine-man bores a hole in his tongue, appears with a broad band of powdered charcoal and fat across the bridge of his nose and learns to look preternaturally solemn, as one possessing knowledge hidden from ordinary men.[456] In the forest of the upper Amazons, the medicine-man does not depilate, though the rest of his tribe do so to distinguish themselves from monkeys; and he attempts to present in his costume something original and striking.[457] In S. Africa, too, the witch-doctor’s dress is often very conspicuous. So it is throughout history: the thaumaturgist, by his wand, robes, austerities, demeanour, advertises himself as a man apart from the crowd. Rites of initiation mark this superiority: as tribal initiation separates a man from women and boys, so the wizard’s initiation makes him a “superman.”
(5) Such a temper cannot endure opposition, and is jealous of rivalry; the man whom it actuates lives in constant fear of failure and discredit and is, therefore, full of suspicion and cruelty. In S. Africa, professional hatred is pushed to its last limits amongst magicians. They test their colleagues, steal each other’s drugs, or pray to the gods to make their rival’s art inefficient.[458] The savage sorcerer looks with no kindly eye upon the European; who, too plainly, possesses extraordinary Magic. Captain Whiffen says[459] of the sorcerer amongst the South Amerinds, who has much knowledge of poisons, that to maintain his reputation, if he has declared that he cannot cure a patient, he poisons him. Of the sorcerer of the Lower Congo, Mr. Weeks says, that “his face becomes ugly, repulsive, the canvas on which cruelty, chicanery, hatred and all devilish passions are portrayed with repellent accuracy.”[460] An extreme case perhaps; but, leading up to it, there are all degrees of rancour and malignity toward those who hinder our ambitions; and it can only be in exceptional magicians that megalomania is reconcilable with considerateness and magnanimity.