Wotjobaluk,» says Howitt, »believed that a man became a bangal (wizard) by meeting with a supernatural being, called by them Ngatje, who opens the man's side and inserts therein such things as quartz crystals, by which he obtains his powers.» The Woiworung and Murring also considered that the spirits gave the wizards their powers.1 Some of the Warramunga doctors, as well as those of the Binbinga and Mara tribes, are in the same way appointed by the spirits.

4

2

So, too, the power of curing illness, frequently attributed to priests, is in many cases thought to be derived from the gods. Ellis writes of the Tahitians that the priests pretended to have received from the gods the knowledge of the healing art.3 In Hawaii also, according to a tradition, the knowledge of medicine was originally imparted by the gods. The Dyak doctors receive from the gods the stones which they make use of in their cures. 5 Among the Australian Dieyeries the doctors are supposed to have received power from the devil to heal the sick, and according to the belief of the Pomo, a Californian tribe, it is by being moved by the spirits >>that the elect are assured of their divine mission to undertake the healing of men.» 7

6

Very generally the gods communicate the necessary secrets to the priests in dreams. Bonwick says that in

2

1 Howitt, 'Australian Medicine Men,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xvi. 48.

Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp.

4

Id., Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii, pp. 384 sq.

Tromp, 'De Rambai en Sebroeang Dajaks,' in Tijdschrift voor

Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde, xxv. 113.

6 Gason, 'The Dieyerie Tribe,' in Woods, The Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 283. Curr, The Australian Race, ii. 73. Taplin, South Australian Aborigines, p. 78.

7

Powers, Tribes of California,' in Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, iii. 152.

1

most cases the magic power of certain Australian seers fell upon them in dreams by spirit agency. This is stated by Gason of the Dieyerie doctors, who are supposed to receive in a dream the power from the devil, 2 and by Howitt of the Kurnai wizards, of whom he says that, when they were asleep, »either the ancestral ghosts visited the sleeper and communicated to him protective chants, or they took him in spirit with them and completed his education elsewhere.» 3 Among the Sea Dyaks, the regular Manangs, or medicine-men, »are those who have been called to that vocation in dreams, and to whom the spirits have revealed themselves.» The priestly office of the Khonds »may be assumed by any one who chooses to assert a call to the service of a god the mandate being communicated in a dream or vision.»> 5 With reference to the shamans of the Tunguses it is stated in a paper in the Sibirski Vestnik that the wouldbe shaman declares a departed shaman has appeared to him in a dream commanding him to take his office." The Golds, a tribe in North Eastern Asia, consider it a condition for those aspiring to shamanhood, to have seen the god in a dream. The sleeper is told by the god that he must make himself a shaman and that the spirits will protect him. 7

Besides dreams, there are various other means by which the gods are believed to choose their favourites

209.

v. 58.

1 Bonwick, "The Australian Natives,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xvi.

2 Gason, 'Of the Tribes Dieyerie,' etc., ib., xxiv. 175.

3 Howitt, 'Australian Medicine Men,' ib., xvi. 48.

+ Ling Roth, 'Natives of Borneo,' ib., xxi. 115.

5

6

Macpherson, 'Report upon the Khonds,' in The Calcutta Review,

• "Тунгусы, in Сибирскій Вѣстникъ, хіх. 39 sq. Шимкевичъ, Шаманство у Гольдовъ, in Записки

7

Приамурск. Отд. Геогр. Общ. її, 1. р. 8.

1

for the priestly vocation. Sometimes they intimate their wishes in a more or less peculiar way. By the Moxo in Brazil and certain tribes in Paraguai it was deemed necessary that the aspirants for the priestly office should have been attacked and wounded by a jaguar, which animal was the visible object of their worship: >>they considered him, therefore, as setting his mark upon those whom he chose to be his priests.» Regarding the Itonama Indians, on the other hand, who also worshipped the jaguar, we read: >>When a man, after a long journey, had not been attacked by any animal of this family, he was appointed a 'comocois', or priest, because he was considered to be favoured by God.» 2 Mr. Bourkie mentions a medicine-woman of the Apache whose claims to pre-eminence among her people seemed to have had no better foundation than her escape from a stroke of lightning and from the bite of a mountain lion. 3

It is in general of no rare occurrence that men who have been struck by lightning are looked upon as chosen by the gods and are therefore admitted to priestly honours. This, according to Mikhailofski, is the case among the Buryats. If anybody is killed by lightning, it is held to betoken the will of the gods, who have thereby conferred a certain distinction upon the family of the dead man; he is considered as a shaman, and his nearest relative enjoys the right to shamanhood. In ancient Peru we meet with a kindred idea regarding thunder. Father Molina makes mention of a class of

1

Southey, History of Brazil, iii. 202. Coreal, Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, i. 241; ii. 361.

2 Hutchinson, 'On the Chaco and other Indians of South America,' in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. iii. 323.

3 Bourkie, 'The Medicine-Men of the Apache,' in Smithsonian

Reports, ix. 456.

4 Михайловскій, ’Шаманство, in Извѣстія Общ. Любителей Естествознанія, etc., lxxv. 74.

Peruvian wizards, called Camascas, who declared that their grace and virtue were derived from the thunder, saying that when a thunderbolt fell, and one of them was struck with terror, after he came to himself he proclaimed how the thunder had revealed to him the art of healing by means of herbs, and how to give answers to those who consulted him. Similarly, when any one escaped from some great danger, they said that the devil had appeared. 1

1

When we read that the Munda Kolhs by various superstitious procedures find out the proper Pahan, or priest, to perform their sacrifices, for instance, by watching a frightened bull which stops before a certain house, 2 we must presume that the god was supposed to make his will known by those signs. The natives of the Gold Coast supply an instance of the priest being chosen in a direct way by the god. Mr. Bell relates that when an additional priest is wanted in a village, a general meeting of the inhabitants takes place, and a certain number of young men and women are made to stand in a circle. The fetish-priest, after certain weird and gruesome ceremonies, places on the head of each candidate a bundle of herbs and leaves. »While this proceeding,» the author tells us, »may have no effect on the majority, it happens, in most cases, that one or more of the youths and girls fall straightway into a sort of fit and appear to be possessed by some strange influence. This is taken as a sign that the Fetish has spoken, and that the deity has fixed on the person or persons so affected for his service.» 3

Among the various endowments which are requisite for aspirants to priesthood, we have in the first place to

1

Molina, The Fables and Rites of the Yncas, p. 14.

2 Jellinghaus, 'Munda-Kolhs,' in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, iii. 334.

mention the faculty of wonder-working. Of many peoples we are in fact told that the would-be priests are expected to perform miracles, and that the candidate has to manifest his powers in that respect before he is admitted to the sacerdotal order. It is reported from the Isle of Pines that persons ambitious to become priests will pretend to have been told by some spirit of future events which are to happen: should any of their predictions relating to warlike expeditions, or other events which greatly interest the people, happen to come to pass, nothing more would be required to constitute the foreteller of such events a duly inspired priest and entitle him to the power and respect claimed by that class of persons.1 Hale tells us that the Fijians, by way of trying a novice, » desire him to consult the gods about some business in which they are engaged. If he goes through the ceremony to their satisfaction, and the oracle proves correct, he is forthwith installed in the vacant mbure,» or temple. 2 Another writer remarks of the priestly novices among the same people: >> He must take care that

his maiden effort at divination is not too glaring a blunder.» 3 Certain Andaman boys are looked upon by the people as coming medicine-men, and Man says their position is generally »in the first instance attained by relating an extraordinary dream, the details of which are declared to have been borne out subsequently by some unforeseen event, as, for instance, a sudden death by accident. With the Málers or Hillmen of Rájmahál in India, before a priest is admitted to full orders, »his ability to foretell events correctly must be verified, and

1

Cheyne, Western Pacific Ccean, p. 10.

2 Hale, 'Ethnography and Philology,' in Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, vi. 56.

4

Man, 'Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in Jour.

Anthr. Inst. xii. 96 sq.