should a broom be chosen for these operations? and Why should it be inverted?
We have already seen that sweeping is applied as a means for preventing the return of an unwelcome visitor, so that we have good reason to infer that the broom has been selected for the driving away of visitors because of its associations with sweeping. The inversion of the broom employed indicates, I think, that compulsion of some kind is being attempted, and, further, that the attempted compulsion is probably concerned with some supernatural being or beings. The Jamaican Negroes' sprinkling of salt—a substance commonly disliked by ghosts and spirits—upon a broom (see footnote 2, p. 187, supra) looks to me as based on a similar idea. Inversion, which is often resorted to in Japanese magic, is, I believe, frequently there applied with the express intention of causing such annoyance to a supernatural being (or of perhaps otherwise obtaining such power over it) that it will be forced to follow the operator's wishes.[1] That the broom is in Japan looked upon as containing a spirit of some kind, peculiar to itself, is to be anticipated, for there are various tools, implements, and the like, the spirits appertaining to which receive generally kindly and respectful treatment, and even, in some cases, devotion. Thus—to take a few examples—the measuring-stick used in cutting clothing is thought to contain a spirit capable of working harm to persons, and a spirit is associated with needles;[2] certain taboos forbidding the ill-treatment of household utensils appear to indicate that these latter are regarded as containing conscious supernatural beings who are able to
- ↑ The European employments, as a protection, of an inverted broom, referred to on p. 193, infra, are attributable, I imagine, to the conceptions according to which a broom is looked upon as a weapon (cf. p. 193, footnote 1, infra) rather than as the seat of a sentient being; I think that the inversion in them is intended mainly, if not entirely, as a means for making the broom more noticeable than if it stood in its ordinary position.
- ↑ Various beliefs connected with these two objects are given in "Some Japanese Charms connected with the Making of Clothing," in Man, 1917, 17.
