IMAGES AND NAMES. 135 



not yet set such limits as we recognize to tlie range of its ac- 

 tion. Tlie horror wliicli savages so often have of being looked 

 full in the face, is quite consistent with this feeling. You may 

 look at him or his, but you must not stare, and above all, you 

 must not look him full in the face, that is to say, you must not 

 do just what the stronger mind does when it uses the eye as an 

 instrument to force its will upon the weaker. 



It is clear that the superstitions which have been cursorily 

 described in this chapter, are no mere casual extravagances of 

 the human mind. The way in which the magic arts have taken 

 to themselves the verb to " do," as claiming to be " doing " 

 par excellence, sometimes gives us an opportunity of testing 

 their importance in the popular mind. As in Madagascar the 

 sorcerers and diviners of Matitanana go by the name of mpiasa, 

 that is " workers,"^ so words in the languages of om- Aryan 

 race show a like transition. In Sanskrit, magic has possessed 

 itself of a whole family of words derived from hr, to " do," 

 hrtija, sorcery, krfvan, enchanting, (literally, working), hdr- 

 manci, enchantment (from harman, a deed, work), and so on, 

 while Latin facere has produced in the Romance languages, 

 Italian fattura, enchantment, old French faiture, Portuguese 

 feitiQO {whence fetish) , and a dozen more, and Grimm holds that 

 the most probable derivation of zauher, Old High German 

 zowpar, is from zouwan, Gothic tdujan, to do,^ and other like 

 etymologies are to be found. The belief and practices to 

 which such words refer form a compact and organic whole, 

 mostly developed from a state of mind in wliich subjective and 

 objective connexions are not yet clearly separated. What then 

 does this mass of evidence show from the ethnologist's point of 

 view ; what is the position of sorcery in the history of man- 

 kind? 



When Dr. Martius, the Bavarian traveller, was lying one 

 night in his hammock in an Indian hut in South America, and 

 all the inhabitants seemed to be asleep, each family in its own 

 place, his reflexions were interrupted by a strange sight. "In a 



' Ellis, ' Madagascar;' vol. i. p. 73. 



2 Pictet, ' Origines ;' part ii. p. 641. Diez, Worterb. s. v. " faltizio. ' Grrimm, 

 D."M. p. 984, etc. See Diefenbach, Vevgl. Worterb. i. 12 ; ii. 659. 



