Post by Lady Anastasia on Jan 4, 2007 21:43:09 GMT -5
CHAPTER II
CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN PEOPLE
HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC
THOUGH not liable to many disorders, the gypsies in Eastern Europe, from their wandering, out-of-doors life, and camping by marshes and pools where there is malaria, suffer a great deal from fevers, which in their simple system of medicine are divided into the shilale--i.e., chills or cold--and the tate shilalyi, "hot-cold," or fever and ague. For the former, the following remedy is applied: Three lungs and three livers, of frogs are dried and powdered and drunk in spirits, after which the sick man or woman says
"Čuckerdya pal m're per
Čáven save miseçe!
Čuckerdya pal m're per
Den miseçeske drom odry prejiál!
"Frogs in my belly
Devour what is bad
Frogs in my belly
Show the evil the way out!"
By "the evil" is understood evil spirits. According to the old Shamanic belief, which was the primæval religion of all mankind, every disease is caused by an evil spirit which enters the body and can only be driven out by magic.
We have abundant traces of this left in our highest civilization and religion among people who gravely attribute every evil to the devil instead of the unavoidable antagonisms of nature. Nothing is more apparent in the New Testament than that all diseases were anciently regarded as coming from devils, or evil occult, spiritual influences, their negative or cure being holiness in some form. This the Jews, if they did not learn it from the Assyrians in the first place, had certainly studied deeply in Babylon, where it formed the great national cult. "It was the devil put it into my head," says the criminal; and there is not a point of this old sorcery which is not earnestly and seriously advocated by the Roman Catholic Church and the preachers of the Salvation Army.
Among the American Red Indians the idea of evil spirits is carried to logical extremes. If a pen drops from our fingers, or a penny rolls from our grasp, the former of course falls on our new white dress, while the latter nine times out of ten goes directly to the nearest grating, or crack or rat-hole. I aver that it is literally true, if I ever search for a letter or paper it is almost always at the bottom of the rest, while ink-wipers and pens seem to be endowed with more than mere instinct or reason--they manifest genius in concealing themselves.
The Indians having observed this have come to the conclusion that it is all the work of certain busy little mischievous goblins, in which I, to a certain extent, agree with them, holding, however, that the dwelling-place of these devilkins, is in our own brain. What are our dreams but the action of our other mind, or a second Me in my brain? Certainly it is with no will or effort, or act of mine, that I go through a diabolical torturing nightmare, or a dreadful dream, whose elaborate and subtle construction betrays very often more ingenuity than I in my waking hours possess. I have had philosophical and literary dreams, the outlines of which I have often remembered waking, which far transcended anything of the kind which I could ever hope to write. The maker of all this is not I or my will, and he is never about, or on hand, when I am self-conscious. But in the inadvertent moments of oblivion, while writing, or while performing any act, this other I, or I's, (for there may be a multitude of them for aught I know) step in and tease--even as they do in dreams.
Now the distinction between this of subjective demons acting objectively, and objective or outside spirits, is really too fine to be seen even by a Darwinian-Carpenterian-Häeckelite, and therefore one need not be amazed that PIEL SABADIS or TOMAQUAH, of the Passamaquoddy tribe, or OBEAH GUMBO of New Orleans, should, with these experiences, jump at ghosts and "gobblers," is not to be wondered at; still less that they should do something to conciliate or compel these haunting terrors, or "buggs," as they were once called--whence bogeys.
It is a fact that if one's ink-wipers get into the habit of hiding all we have to do is to deliberately destroy them and get others, or at least watch them carefully, and they will soon be cured of wandering.
On the other hand, sacrifices to conciliate and please naturally occur, and the more expensive these are the better are they supposed to be. And as human beings were of old the most valuable property, they were as naturally supposed to be most acceptable to the gods, or, by the monotheists, to God.
A West Indian voodoo on being reproached for human sacrifices to the serpent, and for eating the bodies slain, replied, "Do you believe that the Son of God was sacrificed to save man, and do you not eat what your priests say is His very body?" So difficult is it to draw distinctions between that which is spiritual and the mockeries which appear to be such!
The scape-goat, or sufferer, who is martyred that many may escape--or in other words, the unfortunate minority--is a natural result of sacrifice. There is a curious trace of it in Hungarian Gypsy Shamanism. On Easter Monday they make a wooden box or receptacle which is called the bìcáben, pronounced like the English gypsy word bitchapen and meaning the same, that is--a sending, a thing sent or gift. In this, at the bottom, are two sticks across, "as in a cradle," and on these are laid herbs and other fetish stuff which every one touches with the finger; then the whole is enveloped in a winding of white and red wool, and carried by the oldest person of the tribe from tent to tent; after which it is borne to the next running stream and left there, after every one has spat upon it. By doing this they think that all the diseases and disorders which would have befallen them during the coming year are conjured into the box. But woe to him who shall find the box and open it, instead of throwing it at once into the stream! All the diseases exorcised by the gypsy band will fall upon him and his in full measure.
It would be an interesting question to know how many good people there are, let us say in London, who, if they had all opportunity to work off all their colds, gouts, scarlet-fevers, tooth- head- and stomach-aches, with the consequent doctors' bills, or all suffering and expenses, on some other family by means of secret sorcery, would or would not "try it on"?
It is curious to observe the resemblance of the gypsy ceremony., with its box full of mischief, and the Jewish goat; not forgetting the red wool handed down from heathen sacrifice and sorcery of old.
In the Bible white wool is the symbol of purification (Isaiah i. 18). The feet of the statues of the gods were enveloped in wool--Dü laneos habent pedes--to signify that they are slow to avenge, if sure. It is altogether an interesting object, this gypsy casket, and one would like to know what all the channels were through which the magic ran ere it carne to them.
Another cure against the fever is to go to a running stream and cast pieces of wood nine times backwards into the running water, repeating the rhymes:--
"Shilályi prejiá,
Páñori me tut 'dáv!
Náñi me tut kámáv
Andakode prejiá,
Odoy tut čučiden,
Odoy tut ferinen,
Odoy tut may kámen
Mashurdalo sastyár!"
Fever go away from me,
I give it, water, unto thee
Unto me thou art not dear,
Therefore go away from here
To where they nursed thee,
Where they shelter thee,
Where they love thee,
Mashurdalo--help!"
This is a very remarkable invocation which takes us into true heathenism. Mâshurdálo, or, correctly speaking, Mâshmurdálo (it would be Mâsmérdo in English gypsy), means meat-killer. He is a sylvan giant--he has his hold by wode and wolde as outlawes wont to do, in faraway forests and lonely rocky places, where he lurks to catch beast and men in order to devour them.
It is needless to say to those who are aware that the taste of white people's flesh is like that of very superior chicken, and a negro's something much better than grouse, that Mâshmurdálo prefers, like a simple, unsophisticated savage as he is, men to animals.
Like the German peasant who remarked, "It's all meat, anyhow," when he found a mouse in his soup, Mâshmurdálo is not particular. He is the guardian of great treasures; like most men in the "advance business" he knows where the "money" is to be found--unlike them he is remarkably stupid, and can be easily cheated of his valuables.
But if anybody does this Morgante a service he is very grateful, and aids his benefactor either with a loan or with his enormous strength. In many respects he bears a remarkable resemblance to two giants in the American Algonkin mythology, especially to At-was-kenni ges--the Spirit of the Forest--who is equally powerful, good-natured, and stupid, and to the Chenoo, who is a cannibal giant and yet grateful to friends, and also to several Hindoo gods.
The gypsies have here evidently fused several Oriental beings into one., This is a process which occurs in the decline of mythologies as in languages. In the infancy of a speech, as in its old age, many words expressing different ideas, but which sound somewhat alike, become a single term. In English gypsy I have found as many as eight or ten Hindi words thus concentrated into one.
Another cure for a fever. The sufferer goes in the forest and finds a young tree. When the first rays of the rising sun fall on it the patient shakes it with all his might and exclaims:--
"Shilályi, shilályi prejia
Káthe tu beshá, káthe tu beshá!
"Fever, fever, go away!
Here shalt thou stay. Here shalt thou stay!"
It is here plain that the shaking the sapling is intended to transfer the shakes, as the chill and shuddering of the fever is called in America, to the tree.
"Then the fever passes into the tree." Perhaps it was in this way that the aspen learned to tremble. But among the gypsies in the south of Hungary, among whom the vaccination or inoculation of trees is greatly the fashion, a hole is bored into the wood, into which the patient spits thrice, repeats the spell, and then stops the hole with a plug.
The boring of holes in trees or transferring illness to them is also practised without formulas of speech. Thus, if while a man is lying down or sitting in the spring he hears the song of the cuckoo he believes that he will be ill all the time for a year to come, especially with fevers, unless he goes. nine times to a tree, bores a hole in it, and spits into it three times. Then he is safe.
In German mythology "the cuckoo is a bird which brings bad luck" (FRIEDRICH), and the inhabitants of Haiterbach were so persuaded of this that they introduced a prayer against it into their church service, whence they got the name of cuckoos (WOLF, "Zeitschrift für Deutsche Myth," Vol. i. p. 440). It announces to men the infidelity of wives, and tells listeners how many years they have to live.
It is possible that this is a relic of an old form of sacrifice, or proof that the idea occurs to all men of thus making a casket of a tree. The occasional discovery of stone axe-heads in very old trees in America renders this probable. And where the wood grows up and encloses the object it would very rarely happen that it would ever be discovered. It should be added to the previous instance that when they have closed the hole, the Transylvanian gypsies eat some of the bark of the next tree.
Another cure for fever is effected by going in the morning before sunrise to the bank of a stream, and digging a hole with some object--for instance, a knife--which has never been used. Into this hole the patient makes water, then fills up the hole, saying:--
"Shilályi áč kathe
Ná ává kiyá mánge!
Sutyárá andré čik!
Avá kiyá mánge
Káná káthe ná hin páñi!"
"Fever stay here!
Do not come to me!
Dry up in dust,
Come unto me
When no water is here."
Dr. WLISLOCKI translates this last line, "When there is no more water in the river," which is certainly what is meant. "While water
runs or grass grows," &c. is a formula common to ail countries. Another cure for fever is this: the patient must take a kreutzer, an egg, and a handful of salt, and before sunrise go with them to a cross-road, throw them away backwards, and repeat:--
"Káná ádálá kiyá mánge áven
Âvâ tu kiyâ mánge shilályi."
"When these things again I see,
Fever then return to me."
Or literally, "When these things to me come." For the next three days the invalid must not touch money, eggs, or salt.
There is an old MS. collection of English charms and ceremonies, professedly of "black witchcraft," in which we are told that if a girl will walk stark-naked by the light of the full moon round a field or a house, and cast behind her at every step a handful of salt, she will get the lover whom she desires.
Salt, says MORESINUS, was sacred to the infernal deities, and it was a symbol of the soul, or of life, because it preserved the body while in it (PITISCUS, "Leg. Ant. Rom." ii. p. 675). The devil never eats salt.
Once there was in Germany a peasant who had a witch for a wife, and the devil invited them to supper. But all the dishes were without any seasoning, and the peasant, despite all nudges and hints to hold his tongue kept crying for salt. And when it was brought and he said, "Thank God, here is salt at last!" the whole Spuck, or ghastly scene, vanished (HORST, "Dæmonomagie," Frankfurt, 1818, vol. ii. p. 213). For a great deal of further information and symbolism on and of salt, including all the views of the ancient Rabbis and modern rationalists on the subject of Lot's wife, the reader may consult "Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur," by J. B. FRIEDRICH, Wurzburg, 1859: "Salt is put into love-philtres and charms to ensure the duration of an attachment; in some Eastern countries it is carried in a little bag as an amulet to preserve health."
Another cure for fever. The patient must drink, from a new jug, water from three brooks, and after every drink throw into the running stream a handful of salt. Then he must make water into the first and say--
"Káthe hin t'ro sherro!"
"Here is thy head!"
At the second he repeats the sacred ceremony and murmurs
"Káthe hin t'ro perá!"
"Here is thy belly!"
And again at the third he exclaims:--
"Te kathehin t're punrá.
Já átunci ándre páñi!"
"And here are thy feet.
Go now into the water!"
But while passing from one stream to another he must not look back once, for then he might behold the dread demon of the fever which follows him, neither must he open his mouth, except while uttering the charm, for then the fever would at once enter his body again through the portal thus left unclosed. This walking on in apprehension of beholding the ugly spectre will recall to the reader a passage in the "Ancient Mariner," of the man who walks in fear and dread,
"Nor turns around his head,
For well he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
The wise wives among the gypsies in Hungary have many kinds of miraculous salves for sale to cure different disorders. These they declare are made from the fat of dogs, bears, wolves, frogs, and the like. As in all fetish remedies they are said to be of strange or revolting materials, like those used by Canidia of yore, the witches of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and of Burns in Tam O'Shanter.
When a man has been "struck by a spirit" there results a sore
p. 27
swelling or boil, which is cured by a sorceress as follows: The patient is put into a tent by himself, and is given divers drinks by his attendant then she rubs the sufferer with a salve, the secret of which is known only to her, while she chants:--
"Prejiá, prejiá, prejiá,
Kiyá miseçeske, ác odoy;
Trianda sapa the çaven tut,
Trianda jiuklá tut čingeren,
Trianda káçná tut čunáven!"
"Begone, begone, begone
To the Evil One; stay there.
May thirty snakes devour thee,
Thirty dogs tear thee,
Thirty cocks swallow thee!"
After this she slaughters a black hen, splits it open, and lays it on the boil. Then the sufferer must drink water from three springs or rivulets, and throw wood nine times into the fire daily until he is well. But black hens cost money, according to WLISLOCKI; albeit the gypsies, like the children of the Mist in "Waverley," are believed to be acquainted with a far more economical and direct method of obtaining such commodities. Therefore this expensive and high-class cure is not often resorted to, and when it is the sorceress generally substitutes something cheaper than poultry. It may be here observed that the black hen occurs frequently in mediæval witch-lore and legend as a demon-symbol (WOLF, "Niederländische Sagen," pp. 647, 650). Thus the bones of sorcerors turn into black hens and chickens, and it is well if your black hen dies, for if she had not you would have perished in her place. Black hens were walled up in castles as sacrifices to the devil, that the walls might long endure; hence the same fowl occurs in the arms of the family of Henneberg (NORK, "Mythologie der Volksagen," p. 381). The lore on this subject is very extensive.
The following remedy against headache is in general use among Transylvanian gypsies. The patient's head is rubbed, and then washed, with vinegar or hot water while the following charm is repeated:
"Oh duk ándro m'ro shero
The o dád miseçesero,
Adá dikhel ákáná,
Man tu máy dostá, márdyás,
Miro shero tu márdyás!
Tu ná ač tu ándre me.
Já tu, já tu, já kere.
Káy tu miseç čučides,
Odoy, odoy sikoves!
Ko jál pro m'ro ushályin,
Adáleske e duk hin!"
Oh, pain in my head,
The father of all evil,
Look upon thee now!
Thou hast greatly pained me,
Thou tormentest my head,
Remain not in me!
Go thou, go thou, go home,
Whence thou, Evil One, didst suck,
Thither, thither hasten!
Who treads upon my shadow,
To him be the pain!"
It will be seen that the principle of treading on the tail of the coat practised in Ireland is much outdone by the gypsies who give a headache to any one who so much as treads on their shadows. And it is not difficult to understand that, as with children, the rubbing the head, the bathing it with warm water or vinegar, and, finally, the singing a soothing song, may all conduce to a cure.
The readers of "Helen's Babies" will remember the cures habitually wrought on Budge by singing to him, "Charley boy one day." Gypsies are in many respects mere children, or little Budges.
There can be no doubt that where faith is very strong, and imagination is lively, cures which seem to border on the miraculous are often effected--and this is, indeed, the basis of all miracle as applied to relieving bodily afflictions.
All of this may be, if not as yet fully explained by physiology, at least shown to probably rest on a material basis. But no sound system of cure can be founded on it, because there is never any certainty, especially for difficult and serious disorders, that they can ever be healed twice in succession.
The "faith" exacted is sometimes a purely hereditary gift, at other times merely a form of blind ignorance and credulity. It may vividly influence all the body, and it may fail to act altogether. But the "Faith Healer" and "Christian Scientist," or "Metaphysical Doctor," push boldly on, and when they here and there heal a patient once, it is published to the four winds as a proof of invariable infallibility. And as everybody believes that he has "faith," so he hopes to be cured.
In popular custom for a man to say he believes in anything, and to be sure that he really has nothing against it, constitutes as much "faith" as most men understand. A man may be utterly destitute of any moral principle and yet live in a constant state of "faith" and pious conviction. Here the capacity for cure by means of charms is complete.
In connection with these charms for the head we may find not less interesting those in reference to the hair, as given by the same authority, Dr. von WLISLOCKI.
The greatest pains are taken to ensure even for the new-born child what is called a full head, because every one who dies bald is turned into a fish, and must remain in this form till he has collected as many hairs as would make an ordinary wig. But this lasts a long time, since he can find but a single hair every month or moon.
The moon is in many ways connected in gypsy faith with the hair. He who sleeps bare-headed in its light will lose his hair, or else it will become white. To have a heavy growth a man must scoop up with his left hand water from a running brook, against the current, and pour it on his head.
Immediately after the first bathing of a newly-born child, and its anointing, its forehead and neck are marked with a semicircle--perhaps meant to indicate the moon--made with a salve called barcali, intended to promote the growth of the hair. A brew, or mess, is made from beans and the blood of a cow. Hairs are taken from the heads of the father and mother, which hairs are burnt to a powder and mixed with the brew.
It is remarkable that the beans are only used for a boy, their object being to insure for him great virile or sexual power. "The bean," says FRIEDRICH ("Sym. d. N."), "is an erotic symbol, or one signifying sexual pleasure." Hence it was forbidden to the Egyptian priests, the Pythagoreans, the priests of Jupiter in Rome, and to the Jewish high priests on certain festivals. But if the child is a girl, the seeds of the pumpkin or sunflower are substituted for beans, because the latter would make her barren.
It is an old belief, and one widely spread, that if the witches or the devil can get a lock of anybody's hair, they can work him evil. The gypsies have the following articles of faith as regards hairs:--
CHARMS AND CONJURATIONS TO CURE THE DISORDERS OF GROWN PEOPLE
HUNGARIAN GYPSY MAGIC
THOUGH not liable to many disorders, the gypsies in Eastern Europe, from their wandering, out-of-doors life, and camping by marshes and pools where there is malaria, suffer a great deal from fevers, which in their simple system of medicine are divided into the shilale--i.e., chills or cold--and the tate shilalyi, "hot-cold," or fever and ague. For the former, the following remedy is applied: Three lungs and three livers, of frogs are dried and powdered and drunk in spirits, after which the sick man or woman says
"Čuckerdya pal m're per
Čáven save miseçe!
Čuckerdya pal m're per
Den miseçeske drom odry prejiál!
"Frogs in my belly
Devour what is bad
Frogs in my belly
Show the evil the way out!"
By "the evil" is understood evil spirits. According to the old Shamanic belief, which was the primæval religion of all mankind, every disease is caused by an evil spirit which enters the body and can only be driven out by magic.
We have abundant traces of this left in our highest civilization and religion among people who gravely attribute every evil to the devil instead of the unavoidable antagonisms of nature. Nothing is more apparent in the New Testament than that all diseases were anciently regarded as coming from devils, or evil occult, spiritual influences, their negative or cure being holiness in some form. This the Jews, if they did not learn it from the Assyrians in the first place, had certainly studied deeply in Babylon, where it formed the great national cult. "It was the devil put it into my head," says the criminal; and there is not a point of this old sorcery which is not earnestly and seriously advocated by the Roman Catholic Church and the preachers of the Salvation Army.
Among the American Red Indians the idea of evil spirits is carried to logical extremes. If a pen drops from our fingers, or a penny rolls from our grasp, the former of course falls on our new white dress, while the latter nine times out of ten goes directly to the nearest grating, or crack or rat-hole. I aver that it is literally true, if I ever search for a letter or paper it is almost always at the bottom of the rest, while ink-wipers and pens seem to be endowed with more than mere instinct or reason--they manifest genius in concealing themselves.
The Indians having observed this have come to the conclusion that it is all the work of certain busy little mischievous goblins, in which I, to a certain extent, agree with them, holding, however, that the dwelling-place of these devilkins, is in our own brain. What are our dreams but the action of our other mind, or a second Me in my brain? Certainly it is with no will or effort, or act of mine, that I go through a diabolical torturing nightmare, or a dreadful dream, whose elaborate and subtle construction betrays very often more ingenuity than I in my waking hours possess. I have had philosophical and literary dreams, the outlines of which I have often remembered waking, which far transcended anything of the kind which I could ever hope to write. The maker of all this is not I or my will, and he is never about, or on hand, when I am self-conscious. But in the inadvertent moments of oblivion, while writing, or while performing any act, this other I, or I's, (for there may be a multitude of them for aught I know) step in and tease--even as they do in dreams.
Now the distinction between this of subjective demons acting objectively, and objective or outside spirits, is really too fine to be seen even by a Darwinian-Carpenterian-Häeckelite, and therefore one need not be amazed that PIEL SABADIS or TOMAQUAH, of the Passamaquoddy tribe, or OBEAH GUMBO of New Orleans, should, with these experiences, jump at ghosts and "gobblers," is not to be wondered at; still less that they should do something to conciliate or compel these haunting terrors, or "buggs," as they were once called--whence bogeys.
It is a fact that if one's ink-wipers get into the habit of hiding all we have to do is to deliberately destroy them and get others, or at least watch them carefully, and they will soon be cured of wandering.
On the other hand, sacrifices to conciliate and please naturally occur, and the more expensive these are the better are they supposed to be. And as human beings were of old the most valuable property, they were as naturally supposed to be most acceptable to the gods, or, by the monotheists, to God.
A West Indian voodoo on being reproached for human sacrifices to the serpent, and for eating the bodies slain, replied, "Do you believe that the Son of God was sacrificed to save man, and do you not eat what your priests say is His very body?" So difficult is it to draw distinctions between that which is spiritual and the mockeries which appear to be such!
The scape-goat, or sufferer, who is martyred that many may escape--or in other words, the unfortunate minority--is a natural result of sacrifice. There is a curious trace of it in Hungarian Gypsy Shamanism. On Easter Monday they make a wooden box or receptacle which is called the bìcáben, pronounced like the English gypsy word bitchapen and meaning the same, that is--a sending, a thing sent or gift. In this, at the bottom, are two sticks across, "as in a cradle," and on these are laid herbs and other fetish stuff which every one touches with the finger; then the whole is enveloped in a winding of white and red wool, and carried by the oldest person of the tribe from tent to tent; after which it is borne to the next running stream and left there, after every one has spat upon it. By doing this they think that all the diseases and disorders which would have befallen them during the coming year are conjured into the box. But woe to him who shall find the box and open it, instead of throwing it at once into the stream! All the diseases exorcised by the gypsy band will fall upon him and his in full measure.
It would be an interesting question to know how many good people there are, let us say in London, who, if they had all opportunity to work off all their colds, gouts, scarlet-fevers, tooth- head- and stomach-aches, with the consequent doctors' bills, or all suffering and expenses, on some other family by means of secret sorcery, would or would not "try it on"?
It is curious to observe the resemblance of the gypsy ceremony., with its box full of mischief, and the Jewish goat; not forgetting the red wool handed down from heathen sacrifice and sorcery of old.
In the Bible white wool is the symbol of purification (Isaiah i. 18). The feet of the statues of the gods were enveloped in wool--Dü laneos habent pedes--to signify that they are slow to avenge, if sure. It is altogether an interesting object, this gypsy casket, and one would like to know what all the channels were through which the magic ran ere it carne to them.
Another cure against the fever is to go to a running stream and cast pieces of wood nine times backwards into the running water, repeating the rhymes:--
"Shilályi prejiá,
Páñori me tut 'dáv!
Náñi me tut kámáv
Andakode prejiá,
Odoy tut čučiden,
Odoy tut ferinen,
Odoy tut may kámen
Mashurdalo sastyár!"
Fever go away from me,
I give it, water, unto thee
Unto me thou art not dear,
Therefore go away from here
To where they nursed thee,
Where they shelter thee,
Where they love thee,
Mashurdalo--help!"
This is a very remarkable invocation which takes us into true heathenism. Mâshurdálo, or, correctly speaking, Mâshmurdálo (it would be Mâsmérdo in English gypsy), means meat-killer. He is a sylvan giant--he has his hold by wode and wolde as outlawes wont to do, in faraway forests and lonely rocky places, where he lurks to catch beast and men in order to devour them.
It is needless to say to those who are aware that the taste of white people's flesh is like that of very superior chicken, and a negro's something much better than grouse, that Mâshmurdálo prefers, like a simple, unsophisticated savage as he is, men to animals.
Like the German peasant who remarked, "It's all meat, anyhow," when he found a mouse in his soup, Mâshmurdálo is not particular. He is the guardian of great treasures; like most men in the "advance business" he knows where the "money" is to be found--unlike them he is remarkably stupid, and can be easily cheated of his valuables.
But if anybody does this Morgante a service he is very grateful, and aids his benefactor either with a loan or with his enormous strength. In many respects he bears a remarkable resemblance to two giants in the American Algonkin mythology, especially to At-was-kenni ges--the Spirit of the Forest--who is equally powerful, good-natured, and stupid, and to the Chenoo, who is a cannibal giant and yet grateful to friends, and also to several Hindoo gods.
The gypsies have here evidently fused several Oriental beings into one., This is a process which occurs in the decline of mythologies as in languages. In the infancy of a speech, as in its old age, many words expressing different ideas, but which sound somewhat alike, become a single term. In English gypsy I have found as many as eight or ten Hindi words thus concentrated into one.
Another cure for a fever. The sufferer goes in the forest and finds a young tree. When the first rays of the rising sun fall on it the patient shakes it with all his might and exclaims:--
"Shilályi, shilályi prejia
Káthe tu beshá, káthe tu beshá!
"Fever, fever, go away!
Here shalt thou stay. Here shalt thou stay!"
It is here plain that the shaking the sapling is intended to transfer the shakes, as the chill and shuddering of the fever is called in America, to the tree.
"Then the fever passes into the tree." Perhaps it was in this way that the aspen learned to tremble. But among the gypsies in the south of Hungary, among whom the vaccination or inoculation of trees is greatly the fashion, a hole is bored into the wood, into which the patient spits thrice, repeats the spell, and then stops the hole with a plug.
The boring of holes in trees or transferring illness to them is also practised without formulas of speech. Thus, if while a man is lying down or sitting in the spring he hears the song of the cuckoo he believes that he will be ill all the time for a year to come, especially with fevers, unless he goes. nine times to a tree, bores a hole in it, and spits into it three times. Then he is safe.
In German mythology "the cuckoo is a bird which brings bad luck" (FRIEDRICH), and the inhabitants of Haiterbach were so persuaded of this that they introduced a prayer against it into their church service, whence they got the name of cuckoos (WOLF, "Zeitschrift für Deutsche Myth," Vol. i. p. 440). It announces to men the infidelity of wives, and tells listeners how many years they have to live.
It is possible that this is a relic of an old form of sacrifice, or proof that the idea occurs to all men of thus making a casket of a tree. The occasional discovery of stone axe-heads in very old trees in America renders this probable. And where the wood grows up and encloses the object it would very rarely happen that it would ever be discovered. It should be added to the previous instance that when they have closed the hole, the Transylvanian gypsies eat some of the bark of the next tree.
Another cure for fever is effected by going in the morning before sunrise to the bank of a stream, and digging a hole with some object--for instance, a knife--which has never been used. Into this hole the patient makes water, then fills up the hole, saying:--
"Shilályi áč kathe
Ná ává kiyá mánge!
Sutyárá andré čik!
Avá kiyá mánge
Káná káthe ná hin páñi!"
"Fever stay here!
Do not come to me!
Dry up in dust,
Come unto me
When no water is here."
Dr. WLISLOCKI translates this last line, "When there is no more water in the river," which is certainly what is meant. "While water
runs or grass grows," &c. is a formula common to ail countries. Another cure for fever is this: the patient must take a kreutzer, an egg, and a handful of salt, and before sunrise go with them to a cross-road, throw them away backwards, and repeat:--
"Káná ádálá kiyá mánge áven
Âvâ tu kiyâ mánge shilályi."
"When these things again I see,
Fever then return to me."
Or literally, "When these things to me come." For the next three days the invalid must not touch money, eggs, or salt.
There is an old MS. collection of English charms and ceremonies, professedly of "black witchcraft," in which we are told that if a girl will walk stark-naked by the light of the full moon round a field or a house, and cast behind her at every step a handful of salt, she will get the lover whom she desires.
Salt, says MORESINUS, was sacred to the infernal deities, and it was a symbol of the soul, or of life, because it preserved the body while in it (PITISCUS, "Leg. Ant. Rom." ii. p. 675). The devil never eats salt.
Once there was in Germany a peasant who had a witch for a wife, and the devil invited them to supper. But all the dishes were without any seasoning, and the peasant, despite all nudges and hints to hold his tongue kept crying for salt. And when it was brought and he said, "Thank God, here is salt at last!" the whole Spuck, or ghastly scene, vanished (HORST, "Dæmonomagie," Frankfurt, 1818, vol. ii. p. 213). For a great deal of further information and symbolism on and of salt, including all the views of the ancient Rabbis and modern rationalists on the subject of Lot's wife, the reader may consult "Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur," by J. B. FRIEDRICH, Wurzburg, 1859: "Salt is put into love-philtres and charms to ensure the duration of an attachment; in some Eastern countries it is carried in a little bag as an amulet to preserve health."
Another cure for fever. The patient must drink, from a new jug, water from three brooks, and after every drink throw into the running stream a handful of salt. Then he must make water into the first and say--
"Káthe hin t'ro sherro!"
"Here is thy head!"
At the second he repeats the sacred ceremony and murmurs
"Káthe hin t'ro perá!"
"Here is thy belly!"
And again at the third he exclaims:--
"Te kathehin t're punrá.
Já átunci ándre páñi!"
"And here are thy feet.
Go now into the water!"
But while passing from one stream to another he must not look back once, for then he might behold the dread demon of the fever which follows him, neither must he open his mouth, except while uttering the charm, for then the fever would at once enter his body again through the portal thus left unclosed. This walking on in apprehension of beholding the ugly spectre will recall to the reader a passage in the "Ancient Mariner," of the man who walks in fear and dread,
"Nor turns around his head,
For well he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
The wise wives among the gypsies in Hungary have many kinds of miraculous salves for sale to cure different disorders. These they declare are made from the fat of dogs, bears, wolves, frogs, and the like. As in all fetish remedies they are said to be of strange or revolting materials, like those used by Canidia of yore, the witches of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and of Burns in Tam O'Shanter.
When a man has been "struck by a spirit" there results a sore
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swelling or boil, which is cured by a sorceress as follows: The patient is put into a tent by himself, and is given divers drinks by his attendant then she rubs the sufferer with a salve, the secret of which is known only to her, while she chants:--
"Prejiá, prejiá, prejiá,
Kiyá miseçeske, ác odoy;
Trianda sapa the çaven tut,
Trianda jiuklá tut čingeren,
Trianda káçná tut čunáven!"
"Begone, begone, begone
To the Evil One; stay there.
May thirty snakes devour thee,
Thirty dogs tear thee,
Thirty cocks swallow thee!"
After this she slaughters a black hen, splits it open, and lays it on the boil. Then the sufferer must drink water from three springs or rivulets, and throw wood nine times into the fire daily until he is well. But black hens cost money, according to WLISLOCKI; albeit the gypsies, like the children of the Mist in "Waverley," are believed to be acquainted with a far more economical and direct method of obtaining such commodities. Therefore this expensive and high-class cure is not often resorted to, and when it is the sorceress generally substitutes something cheaper than poultry. It may be here observed that the black hen occurs frequently in mediæval witch-lore and legend as a demon-symbol (WOLF, "Niederländische Sagen," pp. 647, 650). Thus the bones of sorcerors turn into black hens and chickens, and it is well if your black hen dies, for if she had not you would have perished in her place. Black hens were walled up in castles as sacrifices to the devil, that the walls might long endure; hence the same fowl occurs in the arms of the family of Henneberg (NORK, "Mythologie der Volksagen," p. 381). The lore on this subject is very extensive.
The following remedy against headache is in general use among Transylvanian gypsies. The patient's head is rubbed, and then washed, with vinegar or hot water while the following charm is repeated:
"Oh duk ándro m'ro shero
The o dád miseçesero,
Adá dikhel ákáná,
Man tu máy dostá, márdyás,
Miro shero tu márdyás!
Tu ná ač tu ándre me.
Já tu, já tu, já kere.
Káy tu miseç čučides,
Odoy, odoy sikoves!
Ko jál pro m'ro ushályin,
Adáleske e duk hin!"
Oh, pain in my head,
The father of all evil,
Look upon thee now!
Thou hast greatly pained me,
Thou tormentest my head,
Remain not in me!
Go thou, go thou, go home,
Whence thou, Evil One, didst suck,
Thither, thither hasten!
Who treads upon my shadow,
To him be the pain!"
It will be seen that the principle of treading on the tail of the coat practised in Ireland is much outdone by the gypsies who give a headache to any one who so much as treads on their shadows. And it is not difficult to understand that, as with children, the rubbing the head, the bathing it with warm water or vinegar, and, finally, the singing a soothing song, may all conduce to a cure.
The readers of "Helen's Babies" will remember the cures habitually wrought on Budge by singing to him, "Charley boy one day." Gypsies are in many respects mere children, or little Budges.
There can be no doubt that where faith is very strong, and imagination is lively, cures which seem to border on the miraculous are often effected--and this is, indeed, the basis of all miracle as applied to relieving bodily afflictions.
All of this may be, if not as yet fully explained by physiology, at least shown to probably rest on a material basis. But no sound system of cure can be founded on it, because there is never any certainty, especially for difficult and serious disorders, that they can ever be healed twice in succession.
The "faith" exacted is sometimes a purely hereditary gift, at other times merely a form of blind ignorance and credulity. It may vividly influence all the body, and it may fail to act altogether. But the "Faith Healer" and "Christian Scientist," or "Metaphysical Doctor," push boldly on, and when they here and there heal a patient once, it is published to the four winds as a proof of invariable infallibility. And as everybody believes that he has "faith," so he hopes to be cured.
In popular custom for a man to say he believes in anything, and to be sure that he really has nothing against it, constitutes as much "faith" as most men understand. A man may be utterly destitute of any moral principle and yet live in a constant state of "faith" and pious conviction. Here the capacity for cure by means of charms is complete.
In connection with these charms for the head we may find not less interesting those in reference to the hair, as given by the same authority, Dr. von WLISLOCKI.
The greatest pains are taken to ensure even for the new-born child what is called a full head, because every one who dies bald is turned into a fish, and must remain in this form till he has collected as many hairs as would make an ordinary wig. But this lasts a long time, since he can find but a single hair every month or moon.
The moon is in many ways connected in gypsy faith with the hair. He who sleeps bare-headed in its light will lose his hair, or else it will become white. To have a heavy growth a man must scoop up with his left hand water from a running brook, against the current, and pour it on his head.
Immediately after the first bathing of a newly-born child, and its anointing, its forehead and neck are marked with a semicircle--perhaps meant to indicate the moon--made with a salve called barcali, intended to promote the growth of the hair. A brew, or mess, is made from beans and the blood of a cow. Hairs are taken from the heads of the father and mother, which hairs are burnt to a powder and mixed with the brew.
It is remarkable that the beans are only used for a boy, their object being to insure for him great virile or sexual power. "The bean," says FRIEDRICH ("Sym. d. N."), "is an erotic symbol, or one signifying sexual pleasure." Hence it was forbidden to the Egyptian priests, the Pythagoreans, the priests of Jupiter in Rome, and to the Jewish high priests on certain festivals. But if the child is a girl, the seeds of the pumpkin or sunflower are substituted for beans, because the latter would make her barren.
It is an old belief, and one widely spread, that if the witches or the devil can get a lock of anybody's hair, they can work him evil. The gypsies have the following articles of faith as regards hairs:--