28 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



Afterwards he went about and when he saw a woman 

 and wished her to be pregnant, forthwith she conceived. 1 

 Sometimes a wish uttered by the woman herself has 

 the same effect. Dr. Paton reports two Greek tales 

 from the ygean, in one of which a woman wishes for 

 a child " were it but a laurel-berry," in the other for 

 "a son even though he were a donkey." In both the 

 wish is granted literally. 2 The might of a curse or 

 any other verbal charm is one of the commonplaces of 

 folklore. It is deeply rooted in savage belief, where the 

 mere expression or even the formation without ex- 

 pression of a wish is sufficient to obtain the result. 

 Assyrian tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs yield in- 

 cantations without number. The repetition of these 

 formulae is supposed to produce the effect desired. 

 Virtue, or to use a Melanesian term mana, goes out 

 from the speaker or the chanter, or the person who 

 wills the event ; and the object is attained. Stories of 

 pregnancy caused by a wish are merely examples of 

 incantation employed for a particular purpose. The 

 power which animates the form of words is magical, 

 that is to say, supranormal ; it is mana. 



The tales of Supernatural Birth are practically 

 inexhaustible. In the foregoing pages I have done no 

 more than select and summarise a few belonging to 

 various types within the limit of our inquiry, namely, 

 narratives of births independent of sexual intercourse 

 but the result of means we now know to be inadequate 

 and inappropriate for the reproduction of mankind. It 

 is not too much to say that the myth of Supernatural 

 Birth as thus defined is worldwide. Efforts have often 



1 Kroeber, Journ. Am. F. L. xviii. 96. 

 * F. L. xi. 339 ; xii. 320. 



