§ 3 Some Signs Conceived of as Magical
Very gradually, we may suppose, a difference came to be felt between two classes of signs: (1) those that are of a usual kind, such as the tracks of game, the return of the swallows, the croaking of frogs, which are almost constantly the antecedents of interesting events, such as the getting of food, the coming of spring, or of rain; sequences that recur again and again, some of them being, like the tracks of game, easily intelligible; all which, accordingly, are accepted as a matter of course and incorporated with common sense. (2) Less usual events, such as strange animals, lightning, eclipses, shooting-stars; which come to be considered as signs by being connected in imagination with interesting events which happen soon after them, such as a failure in hunting, an attack by enemies, a death in the tribe, the wreck of a canoe; though the connexions are irregular and never intelligible, and are accepted not as a matter of course, but as mysterious, magical and portentous: they are Omens. They acquire the hold upon men that belongs to the growing body of superstition. Although irregular, they are classed with the connexions that are believed to be most regular, and failures are overlooked. To these are added and accumulated in tradition, by analogy or caprice, innumerable other signs and warnings.
That Omens obtain an inextricable hold in the tangle of superstitious beliefs results from men’s strong desire to foresee the future, especially in social conditions full of dangers and uncertainties, without the settled organisation which, with us in ordinary times, makes one year so much like another. Upon many people, indeed, this desire has the same effect to this day, and becomes more active in troubled times like the present. Anxious to know whether they are to marry, or to hear of a death, or to come into money or some other advancement, they hope to find out by visiting Mrs. Sludge in a stuffy chamber, or (as you may see in London) by consulting a canary at the street-corner. When a fixed idea of love or ambition or anxiety possesses the mind and leaves it no peace, we are ready to try any device that promises to relieve the strain, and we do things sillier than could have been predicted even by those who knew us best.
Belief in Omens and the practice of observing them having been established, the list of portentous events grows ever larger. (a) In a depressed frame of mind the future looks gloomy; in exhilaration, cheerful. A sensation, such as shivering, or sweating, that accompanies fear is apt to excite fear. In fear or depression one acts feebly and fails; in hope and confidence one acts vigorously and wins: the expectations produced by such moods fulfil themselves, and therefore the moods are ominous. This may be the reason why, when men are at strife and some ambiguous Omen occurs, he who first claims its favour or denounces its menace upon his enemy, gains an advantage;345 for the other may be daunted and unable to rally his forces. But that depends on character.
This subjective value of an Omen, making its virtue a function of the recipient’s disposition, sometimes became so prominent as to obscure its truly magical character; according to which it must be indissolubly connected in some way with the event and can have nothing to do with the recipient’s attitude. Thus it might be held that an Omen, if it deeply affected a man’s imagination, would be fulfilled; but, if neglected, it might not be. Pliny says346 that, according to the augurs, auspices had no import for one who in any enterprise declared that he would not regard them. Or, again, the bearing of an Omen may be determined by the way in which it is accepted: Julius Cæsar, landing in Africa, fell; and that must have seemed a very bad Omen; but he, having the presence of mind (though not exempt from superstition) to exclaim: “Africa, I lay hold of thee!” changed its significance;347 and, doubtless, greatly altered its effect upon the minds of his officers and soldiers and of all who heard of it; and that was the important matter. Hope and desire and anxiety created Omens, and they had also the power to direct the incidence and corrupt the interpretation of Omens. In fact, there were conventional formulæ for accepting good Omens and rejecting bad ones: Accipio omen, Absit omen, Tibi in caput redeat; which were counteractive spells; and it is agreed that Magic may be overcome by stronger Magic.
This attitude of mind that makes an Omen subject to its acceptance, may explain the otherwise absurd practice of taking the Omens again and again, when the earlier have been unfavourable, until one is obtained that flatters the inquirer’s hopes. Not only amongst sophisticated peoples, who might be supposed to treat Omens in a formal and perfunctory way, but even in the lower barbarism Omens are thus garbled. The Karens of Borneo, consulting the liver of a pig to authorise an expedition, if with one pig the appearance is forbidding, sacrifice a second, third, or fourth; though without a satisfactory forecast they will not set out. Then, having set out, they try to avoid hearing the cry of the woodpecker (which has two notes, the one of good, the other of evil augury), lest it should be against their plans. And the same simple-minded people believe in the magical efficacy of the sign, no matter how obtained. Vaticinating by the flight of a hawk, a man will try, by shouting and by waving to it, to turn its flight toward the left, that being with them the prosperous direction.348 Imagination-beliefs are saturated with insincerity; their unconscious maxim is, “Believe as you list.”
Although it may be a general principle that savages are more impressed by external than by internal experiences, yet the suggestion of the foregoing paragraphs, that the finding of Omens in one’s own sensations is secondary to, and dependent on, the growth of a belief in Omens presented by physical events, is not one upon which I much rely. Possibly sensations and moods are a distinct and primitive source of this superstition: for it has been noticed in Australia, where the lore of Omens in general has made but little progress. Whilst performing tribal ceremonies under strong emotion, the aborigines think that their entrails sometimes acquire “sight”; so that they know whether their wives have been unfaithful, or they feel the approach of danger.349 In the Western Isles of Torres Straits shivering and uneasy feelings are presentiments; and in the Eastern Isles, a dryness of one’s skin or sneezing:350 in New Guinea, if the right shoulder ache, expect good news; if the left, bad.351 And these simplest of all whims are the longest lived; for amongst ourselves many a woman suddenly has a presentiment, “as if some one were walking over her grave.”
(b) As a mood of elation or depression is itself ominous, so is whatever excites such a mood. Depressing objects are cripples, old women, sick people, timid hares, loathsome toads, a snake coming to meet a war-party, discouraging words, ugly dreams; whereas pleasant dreams, encouraging words, a snake going before us as against the enemy, hawks, wolves and blooming youth are all exhilarating: the list varies from tribe to tribe. Many ominous things promise good or evil according as they appear on the right hand or on the left: the left being generally held inauspicious, because (it is said) the left hand is the clumsier and weaker; and this may be true. But we have seen that in Borneo the left is preferred; and whereas the Greeks followed the general rule, assigning evil to the left hand, the Romans thought the right hand was the direction of danger. And this contrariety has been explained as due to a difference of orientation in the formal taking of Omens; for the Greek then faced northward, and had the place of sunrise upon his right hand; whilst the Roman faced southward and had on his right hand the place of sunset: so that it was not anything to do with his own body, but the direction whence the sun appeared and advanced with growing power and splendour which each of them judged of good hope, in contrast with that whither the sun declined and weakened to his death. To illustrate these fancies would be an endless task, and a superfluous labour, since nothing is better known.
(c) Coincidence, the occurrence near together of two interesting events, is sure to make people think there must be some connexion between them; and the earlier event will be classed, according to circumstances, as either a cause or a sign of the later; and if the connexion is mysterious, it must be either a magical power like that of a talisman, or that special kind of Magic which is an Omen. What circumstances determine this distinction, I will presently try to show. Possibly all Omens that are not derived from subjective moods and sensations, or from things or events that excite such moods, were originally founded upon coincidence. Upon this, apparently, the Egyptians relied in the records they kept (according to Herodotus) of Omens and their fulfilment; and Quintus Cicero is represented352 as believing that the Babylonians kept such records for 470,000 years: so that it was, in their view, an inductive science; but we never hear of their having kept a record of failures and disappointments.
Some Omens having been established by subjective prognostication or by coincidence, many more may be added by analogy, or by a sort of reasoning. An analogy with the contrast of right and left hand may be noticed in all opposites: the woodpecker in Borneo, for example, having two cries, and one of them a warning, must not the other be an encouragement? The belief in Omens having taken hold of the public mind, everybody is on the look-out for signs and wonders; and anything unusual seen, or heard, or rumoured, becomes a possible Omen of anything else, and men ask one another what it portends. The superstitious imagination is greedy of its accustomed food. Under such conditions, too, Omens are discovered by retrospection: a public calamity, such as the death of a king, the defeat of an army, or a pestilence (or in private life some private misfortune), makes us remember some foregoing event or events, which must have forewarned us, had we had the skill to interpret the significance of Time’s progression.