Book Description

CHAPTER I.THE ORIGIN OF WITCHCRAFT, SHAMANISM, AND SORCERY.--VINDICTIVE ANDMISCHIEVOUS MAGIC.As their peculiar perfume is the chief association with spices, so sorcery is allied in every memory to gypsies. And as it has notescaped many poets that there is something more strangely sweetand mysterious in the scent of cloves than in that of flowers, sothe attribute of inherited magic power adds to the romance of thesepicturesque wanderers. Both the spices and the Romany come from thefar East--the fatherland of divination and enchantment. The latterhave been traced with tolerable accuracy, if we admit their affinitywith the Indian Dom and Domar, back to the threshold of history, orwell-nigh into prehistoric times, and in all ages they, or their women, have been engaged, as if by elvish instinct, in selling enchantments, peddling prophecies and palmistry, and dealing with the devil generallyin a small retail way. As it was of old so it is to-day-- Ki shan i Romani Adoi san' i chov'hani. Wherever gypsies go, There the witches are, we know.It is no great problem in ethnology or anthropology as to how gypsiesbecame fortune-tellers. We may find a very curious illustration ofit in the wren. This is apparently as humble, modest, prosaic littlefowl as exists, and as far from mystery and wickedness as an oldhen. But the ornithologists of the olden time, and the myth-makers, and the gypsies who lurked and lived in the forest, knew better. Theysaw how this bright-eyed, strange little creature in her elvish wayslipped in and out of hollow trees and wood shade into sunlight, and anon was gone, no man knew whither, and so they knew that it wasan uncanny creature, and told wonderful tales of its deeds in humanform, and to-day it is called by gypsies in Germany, as in England, the witch-bird, or more briefly, chorihani, "the witch." Just so thegypsies themselves, with their glittering Indian eyes, slipping likethe wren in and out of the shadow of the Unknown, and anon away andinvisible, won for themselves the name which now they wear. WhereverShamanism, or the sorcery which is based on exorcising or commandingspirits, exists, its professors from leading strange lives, or fromsolitude or wandering, become strange and wild-looking. When men havethis appearance people associate with it mysterious power. This isthe case in Tartary, Africa, among the Eskimo, Lapps, or Red Indians, with all of whom the sorcerer, voodoo or medaolin, has the eye ofthe "fascinator," glittering and cold as that of a serpent. So thegypsies, from the mere fact of being wanderers and out-of-doorslivers in wild places, became wild-looking, and when asked if theydid not associate with the devils who dwell in the desert places, admitted the soft impeachment, and being further questioned as towhether their friends the devils, fairies, elves, and goblins had nottaught them how to tell the future, they pleaded guilty, and findingthat it paid well, went to work in their small way to improve their"science," and particularly their pecuniary resources. It was an easycalling; it required no property or properties, neither capital norcapitol, shiners nor shrines, wherein to work the oracle. And as Ibelieve that a company of children left entirely to themselves wouldform and grow up with a language which in a very few years wouldbe spoken fluently, [2] so I am certain that the shades of night, and fear, pain, and lightning and mystery would produce in the sametime conceptions of dreaded beings, resulting first in demonology andthen in the fancied art of driving devils away. For out of my ownchildish experiences and memories I retain with absolute accuracymaterial enough to declare that without any aid from other peoplethe youthful mind forms for itself strange and seemingly supernaturalphenomena.