THE BASIS OF MAGIC IN FISHING 29 



out, " What is this? I fear I am caught." Such procedure 

 is beheved to attract the fish efficaciously and to ensure a 

 good haul.i 



Scotland not a century ago witnessed pantomimes of similar 

 character, according to the Rev. J. Macdonald, minister of 

 Reay. Fishermen, when dogged by ill luck, threw one of their 

 number overboard and then hauled him out of the water, 

 exactly as if he were a fish. This Jonah-like ruse apparently 

 induced appetite, for " soon after trout, or sillock, would begin 

 to nibble." 



The comparative ethnologist detects in all these cases an 

 attempt to establish direct relations between the hunter or the 

 fisher and his quarry. Primitive man in search for food 

 frequently seeks to establish an impalpable but in his eyes very 

 serviceable connection between himself and the object of his 

 quest by working a likeness of his desired prey. 



Such a Hkeness, according to the doctrine that a simulacrum 

 is actively en rapport with that which it represents, bestows 

 on its possessor power over the original — " I'auteur ou le pos- 

 sesseur d'une image pent influencer ce qu'elle represente." 2 

 The cases are simply the commonplaces of homoepathic or 

 imitative magic. ^ 



We find that just as the savage attempts to appease the 

 ghosts of men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the 

 spirits of the animals and fish he has killed : for this purpose 

 elaborate ceremonies of propitiation are widely observed. * 

 Of similar character and intent are the taboos observed by 

 fishermen before the season opens, and the purifications per- 

 formed on returning with their booty. 



Magic, exercised not so much to propitiate as to avoid 

 offending some power — in the following instance the element 

 of water — originated the rule (existent among the Eskimos 

 fifty years ago) that forbade during the salmon season any 



^ E. Aymonier, Cochinchene Francoise, No. i6, p. 157, as quoted by Frazer. 

 Ibid. 



2 S. Reinach, L' Aiiihropologie (1903), p. 257. 



3 Such is the solution which Bates {Ancient Egyptian Fishing, 191 7, p. 

 205) offers of the presence in the pre-dynastic Egyptian graves of the numerous 

 slate palettes bearing the profile of a fish or beast. 



* Frazer, Gulden Bough. Taboo, Part ii. (London, 1911), p. 191 ff. 



