the fishing magic of certain village communities show to a higher degree even than the cases described, the feature which we found so distinct in canoe magic, namely: that the rites and formulæ are not a mere appendage, running side by side with economic efforts, without exercising any influence over these. On the contrary, it may be said that a belief in magic is one of the main, psychological forces which allow for organisation and systemisation of economic effort in the Trobriands.1 The capacity for art, as well as the inspiration in it, is also ascribed to the influence of magic.
The passions of hatred, envy, and jealousy, besides finding their expression in the all powerful sorcery of the bwaga’u and mulukwausi, are also responsible for many forms of witchery, known by the generic term of bulubwalata.
The classical forms of this magic have as their object the estrangement of the affections of a wife or a sweetheart, or the destruction of the domestic attachment of a pig.
The pig is sent away into the bush, having been made to take a dislike to its master and to its domestic habits; the wife, though the spells used to estrange her are slightly different, can be made also to take a dislike to her domestic life, abandon her husband and return to her parents.
There is a bulubwalata of gardens, of canoes, of Kula, of kaloma, in fact of everything, and a good deal of beneficial magic is taken up with exorcising the results of bulubwalata.
The list of magic is not quite exhausted yet.
- There is the magic of conditional curses, performed in order to guard property from possible harm, inflicted by others;
- there is war-magic;
- there is magic associated with taboos put on coco-nuts and betel-nuts, in order to make them grow and multiply;
- there is magic to avert thunder and resuscitate people who are struck by lightning;
- there is the magic of tooth-ache, and a magic to make food last a long time.
All this shows the wide diffusion of magic, its extreme importance and also the fact that it is always strongest there, where vital interests are concerned; where violent passions or emotions are awakened; when mysterious forces are opposed to man’s endeavours; and when he has to recognise that there is something which eludes his most careful calculations, his most conscientious preparations and efforts.
II
Let us now proceed to formulate some short statement of the essential conception of magic, as it is entertained by the natives. All statement of belief, found among human beings so widely different from us, is full of difficulties and pitfalls, which perhaps beset us most there, where we try to arrive at the very foundation of the belief—that is, at the most general ideas which underlie a series of practices and a body of traditions. In dealing with a native community at the stage of development which we find in the Trobriands, we cannot expect to obtain a definite, precise and abstract statement from a philosopher, belonging to the community itself.