TRIBAL SOCIETY 261 



the minds of peoples tliat liavc made some advance be- 

 yond the lowest savagery by a belief in personal spirits 

 or ghosts. The basis of magic is the "mana," already 

 mentioned. 



Frazer reduces the fundamental ])rinciples of magic 

 to two: first, that like ])i-oduces like, or that an 

 effect resembles its cause ; and second, that things which 

 have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so, 

 continue to act on each other as if the contact still per- 

 sisted. The savage infers from the first of these prin- 

 ciples that lie can produce any desired effect by merely 

 imitating it; from the second principle he concludes that 

 he can inliuence at pleasure and at any distance, any per- 

 son of whom, or any thing of which he possesses a 

 l)article. Magic of the first sort Frazer has called ''imi- 

 tative magic," and magic of the second kind he has called 

 "symi)athetic nuigic." But inasmuch as the efficacy of 

 the imitative magic depends upon a certain physical in- 

 fluence or sjmipathy, both kinds of magic may be con- 

 veniently called sympathetic magic. 



The most familiar application of imitative magic based 

 ui^on the ])rinciple that like produces like, is the attempt 

 to injure or destroy an enemy by mutilating or destroy- 

 ing an image of him, in the belief that, just as the 

 image is hurt, so does the man suffer and die when the 

 image perishes."**' The Ojebway Indian desiring to work 

 evil to his enemy, makes a little wooden image of him 

 and runs a needle into its head or heart, or he shoots an 

 arrow into it, for he l)elieves that by so doing his foe 

 will at the same instant be seized with a sharp pain in 

 the corresponding part of his body. A Malay charm 

 which enables one to injure another ])erson is to take 



^« Frazer, J. G. — I'he Golden Bough, 2iul. I'll., vol. i, pp. 0-74. 



