30 Science Religion and Reality 



various cultivated plants, of the mutual adaptation of these tv^^o 

 factors, and, last not least, upon their knowledge of the importance 

 of accurate and hard work. They have to select the soil and the 

 seedlings, they have appropriately to fix the times for clearing and 

 burning the scrub, for planting and weeding, for training the vines 

 of the yam-plants. In all this they are guided by a clear knowledge 

 of weather and seasons, plants and pests, soil and tubers, and by 

 a conviction that this knowledge is true and reliable, that it can 

 be counted upon and must be scrupulously obeyed. 



Yet mixed with all their activities there is to be found magic, 

 a series of rites performed every year over the gardens in rigorous 

 sequence and order. Since the leadership in garden work is in the 

 hands of the magician, and since ritual and practical work are 

 intimately associated, a superficial observer might be led to assume 

 that the mystic and the rational behaviour are mixed up, that their 

 effects are not distinguished by the natives and not distinguishable 

 in scientific analysis. Is this so really \ 



Magic is undoubtedly regarded by the natives as absolutely 

 indispensable to the welfare of the gardens. What would happen 

 without it no one can exactly tell, for no native garden has ever 

 been made without its ritual, in spite of some thirty years of 

 European rule and missionary influence and well over a century's 

 contact with white traders. But certainly various kinds of disaster, 

 blight, unseasonable droughts and rains, bush-pigs and locusts, would 

 destroy the unhallowed garden made without magic. 



Does this mean, however, that the natives attribute all the 

 good results to magic ? Certainly not. If you were to suggest 

 to a native that he should make his garden mainly by magic and 

 scamp his work, he would simply smile on your simplicity. He 

 knows as well as you do that there are natural conditions and 

 causes, and by his observations he knows also that he is able to 

 control these natural forces by mental and physical effort. His 

 knowledge is limited, no doubt, but as far as it goes it is sound and 

 proof against mysticism. If the fences are broken down, if the seed 

 is destroyed or has been dried or washed away, he will have recourse 

 not to magic, but to work, guided by knowledge and reason. His 

 experience has taught him also, on the other hand, that in spite of 

 all his forethought and beyond all his efforts there are agencies 

 and forces which one year bestow unwonted and unearned benefits 

 of fertility, making everything run smooth and well, rain and sun 



