Incantations May Be Divided Into Two Classes, Supplications
Analogous To Our Idea Of Prayers, And Certain Cabalistic Words And
Phrases.
The supplications are addresses to the higher spirits.
Some are made even to Anzam himself, but the spirit of the new moon
is that most commonly addressed to keep the lower spirits from
molesting.
Dr. Nassau gave me many instances out of the wealth of his
knowledge. One night when he was stopping at a village, he saw
standing out in the open street a venerable chief who addressed the
spirits of the air and begged them, "Come ye not into my town;" he
then recounted his good deeds, praising himself as good, just,
honest, kind to his neighbours, and so on. I must remark that this
man had not been in touch with Europeans, so his ideal of goodness
was the native one - which you will find everywhere among the most
remote West Coast natives. He urged these things as a reason why no
evil should befall him, and closed with an impassioned appeal to the
spirits to stay away. At another time, in another village, when a
man's son had been wounded and a bleeding artery which the Doctor
had closed had broken out again and the haemorrhage seemed likely to
prove fatal, the father rushed out into the street wildly
gesticulating towards the sky, saying, "Go away, go away, go away,
ye spirits, why do you come to kill my son?" In another case a
woman rushed into the street, alternately objurgating and pleading
with the spirits, who, she said, were vexing her child which had
convulsions.
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