698 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



or whistle as bird catchers. Just as clever magic pictures of the 

 primitive hunting art consisted of the drawings in caves and on rocks 

 the sound magic art was represented by the celebrated animal pan- 

 tomimes, in which the animal voices were reproduced with much 

 exactness. 



. A word may be said regarding these pantomimes. It was formerly 

 a favorite idea of the culture theorists, that in the anim.al pantomime 

 something like a foreshadowing of a universal art work was to be seen 

 and hence an uninteresting art performance. As a result of the 

 observations of Lichtenstein, Catlin, and Keade that view is no longer 

 possible. Yrjo Hirn in his book on the origin of art remarks quite 

 correctly that "the pantomimes have in reality just as practical a 

 purpose as the lifelike pictures of animals with which hunters in all 

 parts of the world endeavored to attract their game within reach. In 

 accordance with the theory of sympathetic magic it is merely a self- 

 evident fact that the representation of a tiling at any distance can 

 influence the tiling itself, and that in tliis way a buffalo dance, even 

 performed in the camp, can compel the buffaloes to come within 

 reach of the hunters. 



The deceptive a])pearance of an absence of utility, which in this 

 case could lead to the error of mistaking a mere example of hunting 

 magic for a display of pure dramatic art, makes one cautious about 

 regarding any performance of primitive men as purely esthetic. 



Sound magic, however, also arrived at a mystic stage in which it 

 no longer sought to exorcise visible beings but demons. We have 

 learned to recognize some of the phenomena of this stage, for example, 

 the use of "bull roarers" by weather magicians. In the same man- 

 ner the Basutos employ their rain flutes in times of drought. Other 

 primitive peoples by whipping the water imitate the sound of rain 

 wliich they may thus bewitch. Very instructive as regards this 

 psychology is an anecdote which Mason relates of the Pueblo Indians. 

 In making a sounding vessel the women imitate with their voices the 

 sound of a well-burned vessel in order that these good qualities may 

 be carried over to the unfinished piece. 



A noteworthy sound-magic phenomenon which is reported of the 

 Arabs gives us a clew as to how the originally so naturalistic behef 

 slowly changes into the animistic. To the Arabs whistling is some- 

 what sinful. In whistling sounds they hear the "whispering of the 

 spirits." The sound of the wind is to them the voice of the departed. 

 It follows, therefore, quite properly that the spirits which are, how- 

 ever, feared are called by whistling. When the traveler Burekhardt 

 whistled before the Hejazis they believed that he spoke with the 

 devil. 



The sound magic finally became fully mystic and occult in the 

 fetish drums and their cmnous manipulation. This mystic sound 



