686 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



shainan'd assistants and perform Lis commands. Yet sliamauhood is not refrarded 

 as a gift, but as a burden. To become a shaman, either a man must find favour 

 with one of these assistant tutelary gods, or such a god must be bestowed upon 

 him by bis father or uncle. Conversion into a shaman forms a break in the life of 

 the chosen, accompanied by many complicated psychical phenomena. The process 

 in his own case was described by a shaman to a Russian anthropologist. For more 

 than two months he was sick and lay without movement or consciou.sness. As 

 soon as he revived from one attack he fell under another. 'I should have died,' he 

 said, ' if I had not become a shaman.' He began to dream at night that he .sang 

 shaman songs. Visions appeared to him, and he was told to make a drum and the 

 proper apparatus of a shaman, and to sing. If he were a simple man, the vision 

 told him, nothing would happen ; ' but if thou art a shaman, be a real ,?baman.' 

 When he awoko he found that it was thought the spirits had killed him, and 

 preparations for his funeral rites had been made. But he got a drum and began to 

 sing. This produced a feeling which hovered between intoxication and death. 

 Then for the first time he saw his tutelary gods, and received from them histruc- 

 tions in his business as a sharaau.' Among the Chukchi, also, the shaman is 

 chosen by the spirits, and a similar method of initiation is pursued by them.^ In 

 South Africa, the Zulu or Xosa who aspires to become a witch-doctor dis- 

 tinguishes himself by dreams and visions, and begins to talk of his intercourse 

 with the spirits of the dead. He often behaves as if he were out of his mind. 

 He 'becomes a house of dreams;' he is possessed by an Itongo. Then he is 

 admitted to the society of other wizards and receives instruction from them. 

 Finally he is accounted a new creature, whoso intercourse with spirits and share 

 in their supernatural power is recognised by everyone.^ The Ojibway sorcerer, 

 after prolonged fasting, is initiated by the supernatural powers.* 



Among the Sea Dyaks of Boi'neo ' there are two descriptions of manangs 

 [shamans], the regular and the irregular. The regular are those who have been 

 called to that vocation by dreams, and to whom the spirits liave revealed them- 

 selves. The iiTegular are self-created and without a fiimiliar spirit.' It is not 

 enough for the manang simply to ' say that he feels himself called ; he must prove 

 to his friends that he is able to commune with the spirits ; and in proof of this he 

 will occasionally abstain from food and indulge in trances, from which he will 

 awake with all the tokens of one possessed by a devil, foaming at tlie mouth and 

 talking incoherently.'^ One of the ways to ' get magic ' among the Malays is to 

 meet the ghost of a murdered man. In order to do tliis a ceremony must be per- 

 formed at the grave on a Tuesday at full moon. The aspirant calls upon the 

 deceased for help, and states his request. Ultimately an aged man appears, to 

 whom the request is repeated ; and it would seem that he gets what he wants.'' 



The records of witchcraft in Europe are full of stories of initiation, which begin 

 by the formal renunciation of Christian worship and baptism. The novice tramples 

 upon symbols of the Christian faith, or otherwise treats them with indignity ; he 

 utters incantations with appropriate rites to call up the devil ; finally that 

 gentleman appears to receive his formal profession of allegiance, admit him cere- 

 monially into his band of worshippers, and tutor him in the methods of his art. 

 Down to this day, indeed, in many Continental countries, if not in the British 

 Islands, the peasant witch enters upon her trade by a ceremony which recalls the 

 main features of this initiation. 



It would be easy to expand the list. Enough has, however, been said to show 

 that at all stages of civilisation now to be found in the world, save where magic 

 is a mere attenuated survival, what we call supernatural beings are concerned 

 with the initiation of the magician, and that the Arunta beliefs do not differ in 



' Arcldv fur neligiomwissenschaft, vol. viii. pp. 463, 467. 

 ' Amer. Anthroj). N.S., vol. iii. p. 98. 



^ Merensky, Beitrdge zur Kenntnisg Siid-Afriltns, p. 135 ; Shooter, Kafirst of Natal , 

 p. 101 ; Callaway, Ileligwun System, p. 259. 

 * Peter Jones, Ojehway Iiidians, p. 269. 

 '^ Eoth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i. p. 2G6. « Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 60. 



