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object:1.06 - Magicians as Kings
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter



VI. Magicians as Kings

THE FOREGOING evidence may satisfy us that in many lands and many
races magic has claimed to control the great forces of nature for
the good of man. If that has been so, the practitioners of the art
must necessarily be personages of importance and influence in any
society which puts faith in their extravagant pretensions, and it
would be no matter for surprise if, by virtue of the reputation
which they enjoy and of the awe which they inspire, some of them
should attain to the highest position of authority over their
credulous fellows. In point of fact magicians appear to have often
developed into chiefs and kings.

Let us begin by looking at the lowest race of men as to whom we
possess comparatively full and accurate information, the aborigines
of Australia. These savages are ruled neither by chiefs nor kings.
So far as their tribes can be said to have a political constitution,
it is a democracy or rather an oligarchy of old and influential men,
who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance to the
practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly
answers to the senate of later times: if we had to coin a word for
such a government of elders we might call it a _gerontocracy._ The
elders who in aboriginal Australia thus meet and direct the affairs
of their tribe appear to be for the most part the headmen of their
respective totem clans. Now in Central Australia, where the desert
nature of the country and the almost complete isolation from foreign
influences have retarded progress and preserved the natives on the
whole in their most primitive state, the headmen of the various
totem clans are charged with the important task of performing
magical ceremonies for the multiplication of the totems, and as the
great majority of the totems are edible animals or plants, it
follows that these men are commonly expected to provide the people
with food by means of magic. Others have to make the rain to fall or
to render other services to the community. In short, among the
tribes of Central Australia the headmen are public magicians.
Further, their most important function is to take charge of the
sacred storehouse, usually a cleft in the rocks or a hole in the
ground, where are kept the holy stones and sticks (_churinga_) with
which the souls of all the people, both living and dead, are
apparently supposed to be in a manner bound up. Thus while the
headmen have certainly to perform what we should call civil duties,
such as to inflict punishment for breaches of tribal custom, their
principal functions are sacred or magical.

When we pass from Australia to New Guinea we find that, though the
natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian
aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still
essentially democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only
in embryo. Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New
Guinea no one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong
enough to become the despot even of a single district. "The nearest
approach to this has been the very distant one of some person
becoming a renowned wizard; but that has only resulted in levying a
certain amount of blackmail."

According to a native account, the origin of the power of Melanesian
chiefs lies entirely in the belief that they have communication with
mighty ghosts, and wield that supernatural power whereby they can
bring the influence of the ghosts to bear. If a chief imposed a
fine, it was paid because the people universally dreaded his ghostly
power, and firmly believed that he could inflict calamity and
sickness upon such as resisted him. As soon as any considerable
number of his people began to disbelieve in his influence with the
ghosts, his power to levy fines was shaken. Again, Dr. George Brown
tells us that in New Britain "a ruling chief was always supposed to
exercise priestly functions, that is, he professed to be in constant
communication with the _tebarans_ (spirits), and through their
influence he was enabled to bring rain or sunshine, fair winds or
foul ones, sickness or health, success or disaster in war, and
generally to procure any blessing or curse for which the applicant
was willing to pay a sufficient price."

Still rising in the scale of culture we come to Africa, where both
the chieftainship and the kingship are fully developed; and here the
evidence for the evolution of the chief out of the magician, and
especially out of the rain-maker, is comparatively plentiful. Thus
among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of East Africa, the original form
of government was a family republic, but the enormous power of the
sorcerers, transmitted by inheritance, soon raised them to the rank
of petty lords or chiefs. Of the three chiefs living in the country
in 1894 two were much dreaded as magicians, and the wealth of cattle
they possessed came to them almost wholly in the shape of presents
bestowed for their services in that capacity. Their principal art
was that of rain-making. The chiefs of the Wataturu, another people
of East Africa, are said to be nothing but sorcerers destitute of
any direct political influence. Again, among the Wagogo of East
Africa the main power of the chiefs, we are told, is derived from
their art of rain-making. If a chief cannot make rain himself, he
must procure it from some one who can.

Again, among the tribes of the Upper Nile the medicine-men are
generally the chiefs. Their authority rests above all upon their
supposed power of making rain, for "rain is the one thing which
matters to the people in those districts, as if it does not come
down at the right time it means untold hardships for the community.
It is therefore small wonder that men more cunning than their
fellows should arrogate to themselves the power of producing it, or
that having gained such a reputation, they should trade on the
credulity of their simpler neighbours." Hence "most of the chiefs of
these tribes are rain-makers, and enjoy a popularity in proportion
to their powers to give rain to their people at the proper season. .
. . Rain-making chiefs always build their villages on the slopes of
a fairly high hill, as they no doubt know that the hills attract the
clouds, and that they are, therefore, fairly safe in their weather
forecasts." Each of these rain-makers has a number of rain-stones,
such as rock-crystal, aventurine, and amethyst, which he keeps in a
pot. When he wishes to produce rain he plunges the stones in water,
and taking in his hand a peeled cane, which is split at the top, he
beckons with it to the clouds to come or waves them away in the way
they should go, muttering an incantation the while. Or he pours
water and the entrails of a sheep or goat into a hollow in a stone
and then sprinkles the water towards the sky. Though the chief
acquires wealth by the exercise of his supposed magical powers, he
often, perhaps generally, comes to a violent end; for in time of
drought the angry people assemble and kill him, believing that it is
he who prevents the rain from falling. Yet the office is usually
hereditary and passes from father to son. Among the tribes which
cherish these beliefs and observe these customs are the Latuka,
Bari, Laluba, and Lokoiya.

In Central Africa, again, the Lendu tribe, to the west of Lake
Albert, firmly believe that certain people possess the power of
making rain. Among them the rain-maker either is a chief or almost
invariably becomes one. The Banyoro also have a great respect for
the dispensers of rain, whom they load with a profusion of gifts.
The great dispenser, he who has absolute and uncontrollable power
over the rain, is the king; but he can depute his power to other
persons, so that the benefit may be distributed and the heavenly
water laid on over the various parts of the kingdom.

In Western as well as in Eastern and Central Africa we meet with the
same union of chiefly with magical functions. Thus in the Fan tribe
the strict distinction between chief and medicine-man does not
exist. The chief is also a medicine-man and a smith to boot; for the
Fans esteem the smith's craft sacred, and none but chiefs may meddle
with it.

As to the relation between the offices of chief and rain-maker in
South Africa a well-informed writer observes: "In very old days the
chief was the great Rain-maker of the tribe. Some chiefs allowed no
one else to compete with them, lest a successful Rain-maker should
be chosen as chief. There was also another reason: the Rain-maker
was sure to become a rich man if he gained a great reputation, and
it would manifestly never do for the chief to allow any one to be
too rich. The Rain-maker exerts tremendous control over the people,
and so it would be most important to keep this function connected
with royalty. Tradition always places the power of making rain as
the fundamental glory of ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems
probable that it may have been the origin of chieftainship. The man
who made the rain would naturally become the chief. In the same way
Chaka [the famous Zulu despot] used to declare that he was the only
diviner in the country, for if he allowed rivals his life would be
insecure." Similarly speaking of the South African tribes in
general, Dr. Moffat says that "the rain-maker is in the estimation
of the people no mean personage, possessing an influence over the
minds of the people superior even to that of the king, who is
likewise compelled to yield to the dictates of this arch-official."

The foregoing evidence renders it probable that in Africa the king
has often been developed out of the public magician, and especially
out of the rain-maker. The unbounded fear which the magician
inspires and the wealth which he amasses in the exercise of his
profession may both be supposed to have contributed to his
promotion. But if the career of a magician and especially of a
rain-maker offers great rewards to the successful practitioner of
the art, it is beset with many pitfalls into which the unskilful or
unlucky artist may fall. The position of the public sorcerer is
indeed a very precarious one; for where the people firmly believe
that he has it in his power to make the rain to fall, the sun to
shine, and the fruits of the earth to grow, they naturally impute
drought and dearth to his culpable negligence or wilful obstinacy,
and they punish him accordingly. Hence in Africa the chief who fails
to procure rain is often exiled or killed. Thus, in some parts of
West Africa, when prayers and offerings presented to the king have
failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him with ropes and take
him by force to the grave of his forefathers that he may obtain from
them the needed rain. The Banjars in West Africa ascribe to their
king the power of causing rain or fine weather. So long as the
weather is fine they load him with presents of grain and cattle. But
if long drought or rain threatens to spoil the crops, they insult
and beat him till the weather changes. When the harvest fails or the
surf on the coast is too heavy to allow of fishing, the people of
Loango accuse their king of a "bad heart" and depose him. On the
Grain Coast the high priest or fetish king, who bears the title of
Bodio, is responsible for the health of the community, the fertility
of the earth, and the abundance of fish in the sea and rivers; and
if the country suffers in any of these respects the Bodio is deposed
from his office. In Ussukuma, a great district on the southern bank
of the Victoria Nyanza, "the rain and locust question is part and
parcel of the Sultan's government. He, too, must know how to make
rain and drive away the locusts. If he and his medicine-men are
unable to accomplish this, his whole existence is at stake in times
of distress. On a certain occasion, when the rain so greatly desired
by the people did not come, the Sultan was simply driven out (in
Ututwa, near Nassa). The people, in fact, hold that rulers must have
power over Nature and her phenomena." Again, we are told of the
natives of the Nyanaza region generally that "they are persuaded
that rain only falls as a result of magic, and the important duty of
causing it to descend devolves on the chief of the tribe. If rain
does not come at the proper time, everybody complains. More than one
petty king has been banished his country because of drought." Among
the Latuka of the Upper Nile, when the crops are withering, and all
the efforts of the chief to draw down rain have proved fruitless,
the people commonly attack him by night, rob him of all he
possesses, and drive him away. But often they kill him.

In many other parts of the world kings have been expected to
regulate the course of nature for the good of their people and have
been punished if they failed to do so. It appears that the
Scythians, when food was scarce, used to put their king in bonds. In
ancient Egypt the sacred kings were blamed for the failure of the
crops, but the sacred beasts were also held responsible for the
course of nature. When pestilence and other calamities had fallen on
the land, in consequence of a long and severe drought, the priests
took the animals by night and threatened them, but if the evil did
not abate they slew the beasts. On the coral island of Niue or
Savage Island, in the South Pacific, there formerly reigned a line
of kings. But as the kings were also high priests, and were supposed
to make the food grow, the people became angry with them in times of
scarcity and killed them; till at last, as one after another was
killed, no one would be king, and the monarchy came to an end.
Ancient Chinese writers inform us that in Corea the blame was laid
on the king whenever too much or too little rain fell and the crops
did not ripen. Some said that he must be deposed, others that he
must be slain.

Among the American Indians the furthest advance towards civilisation
was made under the monarchical and theocratic governments of Mexico
and Peru; but we know too little of the early history of these
countries to say whether the predecessors of their deified kings
were medicine-men or not. Perhaps a trace of such a succession may
be detected in the oath which the Mexican kings, when they mounted
the throne, swore that they would make the sun to shine, the clouds
to give rain, the rivers to flow, and the earth to bring forth
fruits in abundance. Certainly, in aboriginal America the sorcerer
or medicine-man, surrounded by a halo of mystery and an atmosphere
of awe, was a personage of great influence and importance, and he
may well have developed into a chief or king in many tribes, though
positive evidence of such a development appears to be lacking. Thus
Catlin tells us that in North America the medicine-men "are valued
as dignitaries in the tribe, and the greatest respect is paid to
them by the whole community; not only for their skill in their
_materia medica,_ but more especially for their tact in magic and
mysteries, in which they all deal to a very great extent. . . . In
all tribes their doctors are conjurers--are magicians--are
sooth-sayers, and I had like to have said high-priests, inasmuch as
they superintend and conduct all their religious ceremonies; they
are looked upon by all as oracles of the nation. In all councils of
war and peace, they have a seat with the chiefs, are regularly
consulted before any public step is taken, and the greatest
deference and respect is paid to their opinions." Similarly in
California "the shaman was, and still is, perhaps the most important
individual among the Maidu. In the absence of any definite system of
government, the word of a shaman has great weight: as a class they
are regarded with much awe, and as a rule are obeyed much more than
the chief."

In South America also the magicians or medicine-men seem to have
been on the highroad to chieftainship or kingship. One of the
earliest settlers on the coast of Brazil, the Frenchman Thevet,
reports that the Indians "hold these _pages_ (or medicine-men) in
such honour and reverence that they adore, or rather idolise them.
You may see the common folk go to meet them, prostrate themselves,
and pray to them, saying, 'Grant that I be not ill, that I do not
die, neither I nor my children,' or some such request. And he
answers, 'You shall not die, you shall not be ill,' and such like
replies. But sometimes if it happens that these _pages_ do not tell
the truth, and things turn out otherwise than they predicted, the
people make no scruple of killing them as unworthy of the title and
dignity of _pages._" Among the Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco
every clan has its cazique or chief, but he possesses little
authority. In virtue of his office he has to make many presents, so
he seldom grows rich and is generally more shabbily clad than any of
his subjects. "As a matter of fact the magician is the man who has
most power in his hands, and he is accustomed to receive presents
instead of to give them." It is the magician's duty to bring down
misfortune and plagues on the enemies of his tribe, and to guard his
own people against hostile magic. For these services he is well
paid, and by them he acquires a position of great influence and
authority.

Throughout the Malay region the rajah or king is commonly regarded
with superstitious veneration as the possessor of supernatural
powers, and there are grounds for thinking that he too, like
apparently so many African chiefs, has been developed out of a
simple magician. At the present day the Malays firmly believe that
the king possesses a personal influence over the works of nature,
such as the growth of the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees. The
same prolific virtue is supposed to reside, though in a lesser
degree, in his delegates, and even in the persons of Europeans who
chance to have charge of districts. Thus in Selangor, one of the
native states of the Malay Peninsula, the success or failure of the
rice-crops is often attributed to a change of district officers. The
Toorateyas of Southern Celebes hold that the prosperity of the rice
depends on the behaviour of their princes, and that bad government,
by which they mean a government which does not conform to ancient
custom, will result in a failure of the crops.

The Dyaks of Sarawak believed that their famous English ruler, Rajah
Brooke, was endowed with a certain magical virtue which, if properly
applied, could render the rice-crops abundant. Hence when he visited
a tribe, they used to bring him the seed which they intended to sow
next year, and he fertilised it by shaking over it the women's
necklaces, which had been previously dipped in a special mixture.
And when he entered a village, the women would wash and bathe his
feet, first with water, and then with the milk of a young coco-nut,
and lastly with water again, and all this water which had touched
his person they preserved for the purpose of distributing it on
their farms, believing that it ensured an abundant harvest. Tribes
which were too far off for him to visit used to send him a small
piece of white cloth and a little gold or silver, and when these
things had been impregnated by his generative virtue they buried
them in their fields, and confidently expected a heavy crop. Once
when a European remarked that the rice-crops of the Samban tribe
were thin, the chief immediately replied that they could not be
otherwise, since Rajah Brooke had never visited them, and he begged
that Mr. Brooke might be induced to visit his tribe and remove the
sterility of their land.

The belief that kings possess magical or supernatural powers by
virtue of which they can fertilise the earth and confer other
benefits on their subjects would seem to have been shared by the
ancestors of all the Aryan races from India to Ireland, and it has
left clear traces of itself in our own country down to modern times.
Thus the ancient Hindoo law-book called _The Laws of Manu_ describes
as follows the effects of a good king's reign: "In that country
where the king avoids taking the property of mortal sinners, men are
born in due time and are long-lived. And the crops of the husbandmen
spring up, each as it was sown, and the children die not, and no
misshaped offspring is born." In Homeric Greece kings and chiefs
were spoken of as sacred or divine; their houses, too, were divine
and their chariots sacred; and it was thought that the reign of a
good king caused the black earth to bring forth wheat and barley,
the trees to be loaded with fruit, the flocks to multiply, and the
sea to yield fish. In the Middle Ages, when Waldemar I., King of
Denmark, travelled in Germany, mothers brought their infants and
husbandmen their seed for him to lay his hands on, thinking that
children would both thrive the better for the royal touch, and for a
like reason farmers asked him to throw the seed for them. It was the
belief of the ancient Irish that when their kings observed the
customs of their ancestors, the seasons were mild, the crops
plentiful, the cattle fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, and
the fruit trees had to be propped up on account of the weight of
their produce. A canon attributed to St. Patrick enumerates among
the blessings that attend the reign of a just king "fine weather,
calm seas, crops abundant, and trees laden with fruit." On the other
hand, dearth, dryness of cows, blight of fruit, and scarcity of corn
were regarded as infallible proofs that the reigning king was bad.

Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions which lingered about
our English kings was the notion that they could heal scrofula by
their touch. The disease was accordingly known as the King's Evil.
Queen Elizabeth often exercised this miraculous gift of healing. On
Midsummer Day 1633, Charles the First cured a hundred patients at
one swoop in the chapel royal at Holyrood. But it was under his son
Charles the Second that the practice seems to have attained its
highest vogue. It is said that in the course of his reign Charles
the Second touched near a hundred thousand persons for scrofula. The
press to get near him was sometimes terrific. On one occasion six or
seven of those who came to be healed were trampled to death. The
cool-headed William the Third contemptuously refused to lend himself
to the hocuspocus; and when his palace was besieged by the usual
unsavoury crowd, he ordered them to be turned away with a dole. On
the only occasion when he was importuned into laying his hand on a
patient, he said to him, "God give you better health and more
sense." However, the practice was continued, as might have been
expected, by the dull bigot James the Second and his dull daughter
Queen Anne.

The kings of France also claimed to possess the same gift of healing
by touch, which they are said to have derived from Clovis or from
St. Louis, while our English kings inherited it from Edward the
Confessor. Similarly the savage chiefs of Tonga were believed to
heal scrofula and cases of indurated liver by the touch of their
feet; and the cure was strictly homoeopathic, for the disease as
well as the cure was thought to be caused by contact with the royal
person or with anything that belonged to it.

On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in inferring that in
many parts of the world the king is the lineal successor of the old
magician or medicine-man. When once a special class of sorcerers has
been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the
discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are
believed to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power,
till their leaders blossom out into sacred kings. But the great
social revolution which thus begins with democracy and ends in
despotism is attended by an intellectual revolution which affects
both the conception and the functions of royalty. For as time goes
on, the fallacy of magic becomes more and more apparent to the
acuter minds and is slowly displaced by religion; in other words,
the magician gives way to the priest, who, renouncing the attempt to
control directly the processes of nature for the good of man, seeks
to attain the same end indirectly by appealing to the gods to do for
him what he no longer fancies he can do for himself. Hence the king,
starting as a magician, tends gradually to exchange the practice of
magic for the priestly functions of prayer and sacrifice. And while
the distinction between the human and the divine is still
imperfectly drawn, it is often imagined that men may themselves
attain to godhead, not merely after their death, but in their
lifetime, through the temporary or permanent possession of their
whole nature by a great and powerful spirit. No class of the
community has benefited so much as kings by this belief in the
possible incarnation of a god in human form. The doctrine of that
incarnation, and with it the theory of the divinity of kings in the
strict sense of the word, will form the subject of the following
chapter.





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