Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

356 THE WILL IN NATTJEE.
tion of maleficent sorcery as practised, it is said success
fully, by the priests of the savage tribes on the island of
Nukahiva, the procedure in which is exactly similar to that
of our cures by charms. This fact is especially remark
able on account of the identity of the thing, notwithstand
ing the distance from all European tradition. With it
ought to be compared Bende Bendsen s account of a head-
acH he caused in another person by sorcery, through the
medium of some of that person s hair which had been cut
"
off. He concludes with the following words : As far as
I can learn, what is called witchcraft consists simply in
preparing and applying noxious magnetic charms com
bined with a maleficent influence of the will: this is the
detestable league with Satan." l
The agreement of all these writers, not only among
themselves, but with the convictions to which Animal
Magnetism has led in latter years, and finally even with
what might be concluded from my speculative doctrine on
this point, is surely a most remarkable phenomenon. This
sents. This sorcery, which they call Kaha, consists in inflicting a linger
ing death upon those to whom they bear a grudge, twenty days being how
ever fixed as the term for this. They go to work as follows. Whoever wishes
to practise revenge by means of sorcery, seeks to procure either saliva
or urine or excrements of his enemy in some way or other. These he
mixes with a powder, lays the compound in a bag which is woven in a
special manner, and buries it. The most important secret is in the art
of weaving the bag in the right way and of preparing the powder. As
soon as it is buried, the effects show themselves in the person who is the
object of this witchcraft. He sickens, becomes daily weaker, loses at
last all his strength, and in twenty days is sure to die. If, on the other
hand, he attempts to divert his enemy s revenge from himself by offering
up a pig, or making some other valuable present in order to save his
life, he may yet be saved, even on the nineteenth day, and no sooner is
the bag unburied, than the attacks of illness cease. Ho recovers gradually,
and after a few days is quite restored to health."
"
Reise um die
Welt." Ed. in 12mo, 1812, Part i., p. 249 et
seq. [Add. to 3rd ed.]
1
Kieser, "Archiv fiir thierischen Magnetismus," vol. ix. s. i. in the
note, pp. 128-132.