with the "like to like" theory, and the magical stones are found where the spirits have been heard twittering and whistling. "A large stone lying with a number of small ones under it, like a sow among her sucklings, was good for a childless woman."[1] It is the savage belief that stones reproduce their species, a belief consonant with the general theory of universal animation and personality. The ancient belief that diamonds gendered diamonds is a survival from these ideas. "A stone with little disks upon it was good to bring in money; any fanciful interpretation of a mark was enough to give a character to the stone and its associated Vui" or spirit in Melanesia. In Scotland, stones shaped like various parts of the human body are expected to cure the diseases with which these members may be afflicted. "These stones were called by the names of the limbs which they represented, as 'eye-stone,' 'head-stone.'" The patient washed the affected part of the body, and rubbed it well with the stone corresponding.[2]
To return from European peasant-magic to that of savages, we find that when the Bushmen want wet weather they light fires, believing that the black smoke clouds will attract black rain clouds; while the Zulus sacrifice black cattle to attract black clouds of rain.[3] Though this magic has its origin in savage ignorance, it survives into civilisation. Thus the sacrifices of the Vedic age were imitations of the natural phenomena which the priests desired to
- ↑ Codrington, Journ. Anth. Soc., x. iii. 276.
- ↑ Gregor, Folk-Lore of North-East Counties, p. 40.
- ↑ Callaway, i. 92.
