44 MAGIC. 



the clippings of their hair, or, simpler still, not to clip it at all. 

 Millions of people to-day obey these instructions, though 

 many have forgotten why, and account for the habit by 

 saying that their hair and nails are part of their bodies and 

 will Ixj required of them on the day of Resurrection. The 

 third way of addressing your charm is exactly that which 

 one would employ with a letter, one writes the name and 

 address on the back. Judging by the analogy of the Post 

 Office one may surely hope that disaster will overwhelm one's 

 enemy by breakfast time the next day. But these enemies 

 are full of guile. He may have given a wrong name and 

 address. Most savages are very chary for this very reason 

 of telling their real names to strangers, and some have the 

 very good reason that they do not know them themselves. 

 Among some primitive tribes the artful parents whisper a 

 iic\\ -born baby's real name into its unreceptive ear, and then 

 give it a false one by which alone it is know r n for the rest of 

 its life. This shunts off the spells of ill-wishers on to the 

 wrong track, and if they hit the wrong man, that is his look 

 out. 



We now see that this black form of magic is becoming more 

 and more intricate, so intricate indeed that the magician 

 himself does not understand half its meaning. 



In this confusion of thought these mysterious hidden 

 names which the magician must be at such pains to discover, 

 may gradually become understood to have a power of their 

 own, such as " open sesame," or to be the names of powerful 

 and malevolent spirits who are bound to obey the wishes 

 of any man who is in possession of their secret. 



Thus we get the Abracadabra, Rumpelstilskin type of 

 magic. I myself have seen in the Sudan a charm in the 

 n;imcs of Hosem Dosem and Brasem, meant to seal the eyes 

 and ears of myself and other officials to a fanatical rising 

 \\hich cost two of our number their lives. 



Still further complications may arise : the magic name 

 that gives the control of an evil spirit into the hands of its 

 discoverer may become transfigured into the magic ring or 



