we would ask even the most intelligent informant some such concretely framed questions as: “Where has your magic been made? How do you imagine its invention?”—they would necessarily remain unanswered. Not even a warped and half-suggested reply would be forthcoming. Yet there is an answer to this question, or rather to its generalised equivalent. Examining the mythology of one form of magic after the other, we find that there are in every one either explicitly stated or implied views about how magic has become known to man. As we register these views, compare them, and arrive at a generalisation, we easily see, why our imaginary question, put to the natives, would have to remain unanswered. For, according to native belief, embedded in all traditions and all institutions, magic is never conceived as having been made or invented. Magic has been handed on as a thing which has always been there. It is conceived as an intrinsic ingredient of everything that vitally affects man. The words, by which a magician exercises his power over a thing or a process, are believed to be co-existent with them. The magical formula and its subject matter were born together.
In some cases, tradition represents them literally as being ‘born’ by the same woman. Thus, rain was brought forth by a woman of Kasana’i, and the magic came with it, and has been handed on ever since in this woman’s sub-clan. Again, the mythical mother of the Kultur-hero Tudava gave birth, among other plants and animals, also to the kalala fish. The magic of this fish is also due to her. In the short myth about the origin of kayga’u magic—the one to protect drowning sailors from witches and other dangers—we saw that the mother, who gave birth to the Tokulubweydoga dog, also handed the magic over to him. In all these cases, however, the myth does not point to these women’s inventing or composing the magic; indeed, it is explicitly stated by some natives that the women had learned the magic from their matrilineal ancestors. In the last case, the woman is said in the myth to have known the magic by tradition.