Thus in every case of garden magic, a magic which to the natives ranks first among all the other types of beneficent magic, the performer must be genealogically related to the first ancestor, who locally emerged from the hole. Certain exceptions to this rule are to be found only in cases where a family of high rank has come and usurped the headmanship of the group, but these exceptions are rare. In the case of the several systems of local fishing magic, the office of magician is hereditary, and associated with the locality. The important rain and sun magic which have been ‘born’ in Kasana’i, can only be performed by the chiefs of that spot, who have usurped this important privilege from the original local headman. The succession, is of course, always matrilineal. A man may make a gift of such a magic to his son, but this latter may be obliged to relinquish the privilege at his father’s death, and he never will be allowed to hand it over to his son, unless this latter belongs again to the local group, through cross-cousin marriage. Even in transactions where magic is sold or given away from one clan to another, the prestige of certain local groups as main specialists and experts in a branch of magic still remain. For instance, the black magic, though practised all over the place and no more localised, is still believed to be best known in the villages of Ba’u and Bwoytalu, where the original crab fell down from the skies, and brought with him the magic. The Kula magic is also spread over the whole district, yet it is still associated with definite localities.
To summarise these sociological observations, We may say that, where the local character of magic is still maintained, the magician has to belong to the dala (sub-clan or local group) of the mythical ancestor. In all other cases, the local character of magic is still recognised, even though it does not influence the sociology of the magician.
The traditional character of magic and the magical filiation of the performer find their expression in another important feature of the spells. In some of them, as we have seen, references to mythical events are made, or names of mythical ancestors are uttered. Even more often, we find a whole list of names, beginning with the mythical founder of the magic, and ending with the name of the immediate predecessor, that is, of the man from whom the magic was obtained by the actual performer. Such a list links up the present magician by a sort of magical pedigree with all those, who had previously been using this formula. In other formulæ again, the magician identifies himself with some mythical individual, and utters the latter’s name in the first person. Thus, in the spell uttered whilst plucking the mint plant, we found the phrase: > “I, Kwoyregu, with my father, we cut the sulumwoya of Laba’i.” Both the actual genealogical descent of the magician from the mythical ancestors, and the magical filiation expressed in the formulæ show again the paramount importance of tradition, in this case acting on the sociological determination of the performer. He is placed in a definite social group of those, who by birth, or what could be called ‘magical adoption’, have had the right of performing this magic. In the very act of uttering the spell, the magician