MUSIC OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES — PASTOE. 697 



to-day very where recognizable in the greatest profusion, an evi- 

 dence of how long it must have hud ]5ower over mankind. The 

 clearest example is perhaps th(^ so-called picture magic. The facts 

 are well known. A man obsessed by superstition (to take a com- 

 monest example) believes in the power of affecting existence that 

 his mere corporeal image possesses. Hence the so common fear o/ 

 the ])hotographic camera. Portions of the body, such as clippings 

 of hair and nails, can, in magic homeopathy, produce evil effects. 

 To tliis circle of conceptions belongs also black magic, which extends 

 back into remote lustorical times and in which people still believe. 

 Andrea gives some very interesting examples of it in his essays on 

 "Sjmipathy Magic," and "Pictures rob the Soul" ("New Ethno- 

 graphical Parallels"). It is the same with amulet and talisman 

 beliefs, and the idea of the pious Italian to insure for himself the 

 protection of the particular saint whose image he carries in his 

 bosom. In the luck penny which our children carry in their purses 

 to attract other })ennies the last dim trace of this supers titition 

 remains. 



In its beginnings this entire magic art was not so stupid. Na]>oleon 

 was accustomed to write down a name wliich he wished to remember 

 and to throw away the slip of paper after he had learned the picture 

 of the letters. Our whole mnemonic system is based on the same 

 principle. So, likewise, did the oldest belief in picture magic have an 

 entirely rational and purely empirical basis. The one who "hit the 

 quarry" best in a picture had the most fundamental training in obser- 

 vation and thereby the best prospect to strike the jjrey in reality. 

 Tliis explains the oldest practice of this art of drawing wliich must once 

 have been thoroughly systematic. We have its precious remains in 

 the celebrated paleolithic cave and rock pictures. 



Observation of the naturalistic beginnings of belief in magic on the 

 one hand and of its later mystic develo])ments on the other show us 

 two strong evolutionary contrasts. From an originally rational 

 belief a magic belief has developed later. That is the course of develop- 

 ment as regards picture magic and it is in no wise different as regards 

 tone magic wliich precedes all genuine artistic music. 



The oldest sound magic was also entirely rational. The observances 

 in the two agree. It is a kind of sound magic when advancing troops 

 make an attack with hurrahs, and the strange war songs of various 

 savage peoples, so often described, are also sound magic. A hord of 

 Maoris and a troup of Prussian soldiers act here under the same 

 hypothesis. This magic reaches back, moreover, to the Hunting 

 Age (if we may mention this epoch briefly here without taking up 

 the subject of the very important results of the researches of Ed. 

 Hahn ) . In this, the hunters of the Old Stone Age differed in nothing 

 from their living representatives, when they imitate the black cock, 



