HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 77 



host of other savage and barbarous peoples. They 

 not only animate and personify material objects, but 

 even diseases and their remedies. 



The incubus, for example, termed Mara in Northern 

 mythology, was the spirit which tormented sleepers. 

 This is the Mar of the German proverb : Dich hat 

 greitten dcr Mar. The word is derived from Mar, a 

 horse, and becomes nightmare in English, Cauchemar 

 in French, E^mArqe in Greek, meaning one which 

 rides upon another. So with epilepsy, which signifies 

 the act of being seized by any one ; it was, like all 

 nervous diseases, held to be a sacred evil, and those 

 afflicted by it were supposed to be possessed. In- 

 sanity was regarded in the same way, as we see in 

 the Bible where Saul's melancholy is said to be an 

 evil spirit sent from God. A furious madman was 

 supposed to have been carried off by a demon, and 

 in Persia the insane were said to be God's fools. 

 In Tahiti they were called Eatooa, that is, possessed 

 by a divine spirit; and in the Sandwich Isles they 

 were worshipped as men into whom a divinity had 

 entered. In German the plica polonica is called 

 Alpzopf, or hobgoblin's tail. All nations believed 

 that the malign beings which animated diseases 

 could, like men, be propitiated by ceremonies and 

 incantations. The Redskins are always in fear of 

 the assaults of evil spirits, and have recourse to in- 

 cantations, and to the most absurd sacerdotal rites, 

 or to the influence of their manitu, in order to be 



