Polynesia
Magic in Polynesia is the preserve of the priestly and upper classes, although lesser sorcery is practised by individuals not of these castes. There is a prevailing belief in what is known as mana, or supernatural power, which is resident in certain individuals. The method of using this power is twofold. One of these is practised by a society known as the Iniat, where certain rites are carried out which are supposed to bring calamity upon the enemies of the tribe. The ability to exercise magic is known as agagara, and the magician or wizard is tena agagara. If the wizard desires to cast magic upon another man, he usually tries to secure something that that person has touched with his mouth, and to guard against this, the natives are careful to destroy all food-refuse that they do not consume, and they carefully gather up even a single drop of blood when they receive a cut or scratch, and burn it or throw it into the sea, so that the wizard may not obtain it. The wizard having obtained something belonging to the person whom he wishes to injure, buries it in a deep hole, together with leaves of poisonous plants and sharp-pointed pieces of bamboo, accompanying the action by suitable incantations. If he chances to be a member of the Iniat society, he will place on the top of the whole one of their sacred stones, as they believe that so long as the stone is pressing down the article which has been buried in the hole the man to whom it belonged will remain sick. Immediately a man falls sick, he sets enquiries on foot as to who has bewitched him, and there is always someone to acknowledge the soft impeachment. If he does not succeed in having the spell removed he will almost certainly succumb, but if he succeeds in having it taken away, he begins to recover almost immediately; and the strange thing is that he evinces no enmity towards the person or persons who "bewitched" him, indeed it is taken as a matter of course, and he quietly waits the time when he will be able to return the compliment !
These remarks apply for the most part to New Britain, and its system of magic is practically the same as that known in Fiji as vakadraunikau concerning which very little is known. In his work Melanesians and Polynesians the Rev. Dr. George Brown, the well-known pioneer missionary and explorer, gives an interesting account of the magical systems of these people, in which he incorporates several informative letters from brother missionaries, which are well worth quotation. For example, the Rev. W. E. Bromilow says that at Dobu in south-eastern New Guinea :- 66
Werabana (evil spirits) are those which inhabit dark places, and wander in the night, and give witches their power to smite all round. Barau is the wizardry of men, who look with angry eyes out of dark places, and throw small stones, first spitting on them, at men, women, and even children, thus causing death. A tree falls, it is a witch who caused it to do so, though the tree may be quite rotten, or a gust of wind may break it off. A man meets with an accident, it is the werabana. He is getting better through the influence of the medicine-man, but has a relapse; this is the barau at work, as we have ascertained from the terrified shouts of our workmen, as some sleeper has called out in a horrid dream. These medicine-men, too, have great power, and no wonder, when one of our girls gets a little dust in her eye, and the doctor takes a big stone out of it; and when a chief has a pain in the chest, and to obaoba takes therefrom a two-inch nail. 66
The people here will have it that all evil spirits are female. Werabana is the great word, but the term is applied to witches as well, who are called the vesses of the werabana, but more often the single word is used. I have the names of spirits inhabiting the glens and forests, but they are all women or enter into women, giving them terrible powers. Whenever any one is sick, it is the werabana who has caused the illness, and any old woman who happened to be at enmity with the sick person is set down as the cause. A child died the other day, and the friends were quite angry because the witches had not heeded the words of the lotu, i.e., the Christian religion Taparoro, and given up smiting the little ones. These are times of peace,' said they, 'why should the child die then?' We, of course, took the opportunity and tried to teach them that -sickness caused death without the influence of poor old women. 6 6 "Sorcerers are barau, men whose powers are more terrible than those of all the witches. I was talking to a to obaoba-medicine-man-the other day, and I asked him why his taking a stone out of a man's chest did not cure him. Oh,' said he, 'he must have been smitten by a barau. A very logical statement this. Cases the to obaoba cannot cure are under the fell stroke of the barau, from which there is no escape, except by the sorcerer's own incantations. "The Fijian sorcery of drau-ni-kau appears here in another form called sumana or rubbish. The sorcerer obtains possession of a small portion of his victim's hair, or skin, or food left after a meal, and carefully wraps it up in a parcel, which he sends off to as great a distance as is possible. In the meantime he very cunningly causes a Polynesia report of the sumana to be made known to the man whom he wishes to kill, and the poor fellow is put into a great fright and dies."
The Rev. S. B. Fellows gives the following account of the beliefs of the people of Kiriwina (Trobiands group) :- "The sorcerers, who are very numerous, are credited with the power of creating the wind and rain, of making the gardens to be either fruitful or barren, and of causing sickness which leads to death. Their methods of operation are legion. The great chief, who is also the principal sorcerer, claims the sole right to secure a bountiful harvest every year. This function is considered of transcendent importance by the people. "
Our big chief, Bulitara, was asking me one day if I had these occult powers. When I told him that I made no such claim, he said, 'Who makes the wind and the rain and the harvest in your land? I answered, "God.' 'Ah,' said he, 'that's it. God does this work for your people, and I do it for our people. God and I are equal.' He delivered this dictum very quietly, and with the air of a man who had given a most satisfactory explanation. "But the one great dread that darkens the life of every native is the fear of the bogau, the sorcerer who has the power to cause sickness and death, who, in the darkness of the night, steals to the house of his unsuspecting victim, and places near the doorstep a few leaves from a certain tree, containing the mystic power which he, by his evil arts, has imparted to them. The doomed man, on going out of his house next morning, unwittingly steps over the fatal leaves and is at once stricken down by a mortal sickness. Internal disease of every kind is set down to this agency. Bulitara told me the mode of his witchcraft. He boils his decoctions, containing numerous ingredients, in a special cooking-pot on a small fire, in the secret recesses of his own house, at the dead of night; and while the pot is boiling he speaks into it an incantation known only to a few persons. The bunch of leaves dipped in this is at once ready for use. Passing through the villages the other day, I came across a woman, apparently middle-aged, who was evidently suffering from a wasting disease, she was so thin and worn. I asked if she had any pain, and her friends said 'No.' Then they explained that some bogau was sucking her blood. I said, 'How does he do it?' Oh,' they said, 'that is known only to herself. He manages to get her blood which makes him strong, while she gets weaker every day, and if he goes on much longer she will die.' 6 "Deformities at birth, and being born dumb or blind, are attributed to the evil influence of disembodied spirits, who inhabit a lower region called Tuma. Once a year the spirits of the ancestors visit their native village in a body after the harvest is gathered. At this time the men perform special dances, the people openly display their valuables, spread out on platforms, and great feasts are made for the spirits. On a certain night, when the moon named Namarama is at the full, all the people-men, women and children-join in raising a great shout, and so drive the spirits back to Tuma. "
A peculiar custom prevails of wearing, as charms, various parts of the body of a deceased relative. On her breast, suspended by a piece of string round her neck, a widow wears her late husband's lower jaw, the full set of teeth looking ghastly and grim. The small bones of the arms and legs are taken out soon after death, and formed into spoons, which are used to put lime into the mouth when eating betel-nut. Only this week a chief died in a village three miles from us, and a leg and an arm, for the above purpose, were brought to our village by some relatives as their portion of their dead friend. "An evidence of the passionate nature of this people is seen in the comparatively frequent attempts at suicide. Their method is to climb into the top branches of a high tree, and, after tying the ankles together, to throw themselves down. During the last twelve months two attempts near our home were successful, and several others were prevented. In some cases the causes were trivial. One young man allowed his anger to master him because his wife had smoked a small piece of tobacco belonging to him ; he fell from the tree across a piece of root, which was above ground and broke his neck. A woman, middle-aged and childless, who had become jealous, climbed into a tree near her house, and calling out "Good-bye' to her brother in the village, instantly threw herself down. Falling on her head she died in a few hours; the thick skin on the scalp was cut, but so far as I could see the skull was not broken."
Some of the minor magical customs of Polynesia are worthy of note. Natives of the Duke of York group believe that by persistent calling upon a man whom they wish to get hold of he will by their call be drawn to them, even from a great distance. The natives will not eat or drink when at sea. In New Guinea and Fiji the custom prevails of cutting off a finger joint in token of mourning for a near relative, as do the bushmen of South Africa. (See Magic, Prehistoric.) They firmly believe in mermaids, tailed men and dwarfs; and regarding these they are most positive in their assertions. The natives of the Duke of York group in fact declared to a missionary that they had caught a mermaid, who had married a certain native, and that the pair had several of a family; "but unfortunately," says the relater of this story, “I could never get to see them." Like many other races, the Polynesians work themselves into a great state of terror whenever an eclipse takes place, and during the phenomenon they beat drums, shout and invoke their gods.
In Samoa magic is not practised to such an extent as in other Melanesian groups, although the sorcerer still exists. He is, however, much more sophisticated, and instead of asking merely for any trifling object connected with the person whom he desires to bewitch, he demands property, such as valuable mats and other things which are of use to him. His modus operandi was to get into communication with his god, who entered the sorcerer's body, which became violently contorted and convulsed. The assembled natives would then hear a voice speaking from behind a screen, probably a ventriloquial effort, which asserted the presence of the god invoked. Sickness was generally believed to be caused by the anger of some god, who could thus be concealed by the priest or wizard and duly placated. The "god" invariably required some present of substantial value, such as a piece of land, a canoe, or other property, and if the priest happens to know of a particularly valuable object belonging to the person who supposed himself bewitched, he stipulates that it shall be given up to him.
This caste of priests is known as taula-aitu, and also act as medicine-men.