The Magic of Transgression Laura Makarius Recent anthropological literature in Britain has devoted considerable space to witchcraft and sorcery. Most of the time, lurid accounts of the malefi- cent use to which magic is applied have claimed attention. If ever the writer wanders into the field of explanation, it is to theorise on the significance of the tensions and mediations to which magical practices give rise, or on the personal conflicts which they are supposed to express. As a field worker, his sometimes total absorption in the practical problems they raise is more ger- mane to the preoccupations of the government official which he is not, than to the self-questioning of the scientific inquirer which he is. While for the former the obstinate search for correlations between social function and the various aspects of witchcraft or sorcery is quite understandable, it is apt to blind the latter to the fact that witchcraft and sorcery belong to a cultural complex which, on the whole, is yet most imperfectly understood. Cases of poisoned food, lingering illnesses or sudden death promise to be better understood when viewed from a distance than when subjected to closer scrutiny, surrounded by a wealth of distracting details — provided, of course, that the investigator is theoretically prepared. Would he not be in a better position if already equipped with an explanation of the role of impurity in magic, of the relation between black magic on the one hand, and incest, cannibalism, and necromancy on the other, of the fact that twins are often regarded as sorcerers themselves, and that, in the case of sacrifice, a blood- kin is the preferred victim? Can it be maintained that, because such knowl- edge is acquired through theory, it is therefore irrelevant to a correct inter- pretation of the various aspects which the current practice of witchcraft re- veals? The problems posed by witchcraft cannot be elucidated unless detached from local contingencies, viewed from a higher level of generality than that at which they express themselves in daily practices, and considered in the more general context of magic, as a complex of objectively misguided activi- ties motivated by imaginary beliefs. Thus, the beliefs governing the prepara- tion of love potions or the theft of exuviae cannot be dissociated from those,538 Laura Makarius Anthropos 69. 1974 for instance, governing the magical technique of rain-making; nor the latter from those governing, say, the rituals of kingship. It is only from the study of magical thinking, as it manifests itself in all fields and at all levels, that better insight can be obtained for the understanding of the daily application of magic to ordinary life. Frazer called the force of assimilation, based on resemblance or conti- guity, “sympathetic magic”. While the concepts thus introduced have lost none of their explicative force, they are inadequate to account for all cases of magical thinking. Rain-makers often pour blood, and not water, to produce rain; and medicine men who heal their patients and restore them to health, often do so by manipulating substances associated with death. A “divine” king will not enhance the fertility of his community’s fields by an ordinary sexual act, but by an incestuous union which must remain sterile. Examples of this kind are not lacking. They are opposed in every way to the demands of sympathetic magic, and have so far remained unexplained. Sometimes they are said to exemplify “contrary magic”, in opposition to “imitative magic”. However, while magic based on similarity or imitation is self-explan- atory, the mechanism of so-called “contrary magic” defies explanation '. We shall see, presently, why the latter term is unsatisfactory. Thus it appears that by the side of those practices readily understood on the principles of sympathetic magic, others are not only unexplainable in the same way, but seem to be based on opposite principles. Herein lies the fundamental contradiction of magic which has to be solved if magic is to be adequately understood. In contradistinction to “sympathetic magic”, these opposite manifesta- tions of magic may fitfully be described as “transgressive magic”, because they are based on the violation of fundamental taboos. A whole series of phenomena have therefore to be considered, which, although often recurring in the magical and ritual habits of tribal societies, have not been systemati- cally studied in spite of the interest they arouse. It is a matter of common observation that, while usually the object of scrupulous observance,taboos are sometimes deliberately violated by individ- uals with the intention of thereby obtaining certain benefits. The beliefs on which such conduct rests have not been explained so far, but obviously the explanation has to be sought in the significance to be attached to the violation of taboo. Taboos afford protection, both to the individual and to the community, against all kinds of imaginary dangers. Our thesis is that, directly or indirectly, 1 For Husert and Mauss, “contrary rites” may be compared to “the struggle between properties belonging to the same genus, but specifically opposed: fire is the opposite of water, and for that reason drives away rain” (1902-03: 73). This view accounts for one order of facts, namely rites of “repulsion”; but the term “magic of contraries” makes it possible to put a label on a series of facts that are not understood and which involve the participation of elements and means opposed to the aims pursued.‘The Magic of Transgression 539 they spring from a common source, namely the fear of blood on account of the deadly danger inherent in it. Except when the idea of danger is dissociated from it?, blood when spilt is regarded as a maleficent substance, dangerous and frightful. In association with feminine functions, in particular, such as menstruation, defloration and child-birth, it is the object of acute fear (DURK- HEIM 1897: 41 f., see also R. and L. Maxarius 1961: 50 f.). This fear extends to all substances connected with foetal matters (placentas, umbilical cords, membranes, etc.), to complications accompanying child-birth (multiple births, abnormal presentation, miscarriage, etc.), cadaverous matters, etc. All these substances are placed under taboo: they are not to be touched, too closely approached or even looked at, on account of the threat they represent to the community. The same applies to bleeding persons or those who, have been contaminated, to objects that have been polluted or are associated with blood. Now the maleficent effects ascribed to the impurity inherent in blood, become beneficent and reassuring when directed against hostile elements, evil influences or whatever source of harm that has to be driven away or destroyed. Various authors have reported the efficacious power of blood mani- fested in the case of menstruating women running through the fields to rid them of-pests, or of menstrual cloths attached to the neck of weakly children to keep them out of harm’s way (BRIFFAULT 1952: II, 410 f.; Camzors 1939: 38-39, 52 f., 130; DurKHEIm 1897: 56-57). From this belief in the negative power of blood, which could be summed up by the phrase “blood drives away all that is evil”, we pass on through 2 Blood, of course, is not always considered maleficent, its utilization does not always inspire fear, nor is it always the object of prohibitions. Blood is used to create bonds of brotherhood, or absorbed to acquire the qualities of its owner. The aborigines of Australia use it as a paste when covering their bodies with down for ceremonial pur- poses. The commonest use of blood is in the case of “blood redemption”, when human or animal blood is deliberately spilled as a substitute for the uncontrollable loss of blood anticipated as a result of the violation of the blood taboo, or when one’s blood is expec- ted to be spilled for some reason or other. The free use of blood, at the same time as it is under taboo, the extreme fear it inspires, accompanied by the total absence of such fear under special circumstances, become quite understandable in the light of Huserr’s and Mauss’ remarks. Magical thinking, they observe, leads to the occlusion of all those aspects, even contradictory, of a phenomenon on which attention is not purposefully focused (1902-03: 65-66, 68). In the case of sympathetic magic and blood redemption, the dangerous qualities of blood are totally ignored and forgotten. Conversely, in the case of transgressive magic, they occupy the front-scene. It is precisely this widespread use of blood, unaccompanied by any manifestation of fear, which has hitherto prevented recognition of the fact that fear of blood is at the root of taboo. And yet that most preva- lent use of blood, as divested of all peril, namely in “redemption by blood”, testifies to the fear it inspires and to the power of the taboo which normally invests it. For when the taboo on blood is violated, or threatens to be, blood redemption is the remedy, or preventive measure against the impending consequences. Self scarification and mutila- tion, the sacrifice of animal or human beings even (although not all cases of sacrifice are to be regarded as redemptive measures) indicate that the suffering or loss entailed are preferable to the consequences expected of blood that has been spilled but not redeemed.540 Laura MaKarius Anthropos 69. 1974 insensible graduations to the belief in its positive power: “blood procures all that is good”. However, while the former formulation rests on an apparently logical basis, the latter is due to an extension followed by an “overdetermina- tion” of the power of blood, attributing to it the capacity of producing posi- tive beneficent results. Blood will ensure not only security and health — nega- tive results, because they represent the absence of danger and illness - but also positive results, such as luck, power, wealth, prosperity and success, as well as knowledge, wisdom, second sight and extraordinary creative powers 3. Such a development being abusive — because it involves neglect of the fact that the “beneficent” quality of blood simply emanates from its aptitude to negate evil - and unconscious, blood will come to procure positive bene- ficent results in an unknown, mysterious way. It will procure them magically. To master this magical power, it is necessary to violate the taboo on contact with blood. The force released by the violation of taboo — the force inherent in blood — gives magical power, or mana, which, like blood, is danger- ous, efficacious and ambivalent, and like blood and the power ascribed to it, is both concrete and abstract, localized and unlocalized, visible and invis- ible, possessing at once the properties of a substance and those of a force. The ambivalence that characterizes blood and magical power arises from the “overdetermination” of the latter which, from being hitherto maleficent, can now also be turned to produce beneficent results. This “overdetermina- tion” being an unconscious process, the resulting double capacity of magical power to serve opposite ends, accounts for its ambivalence (independently of the element of danger always inherent in it) (cf. L. Makartus 1969: 20-22). The use of medicines based on blood and organic substances, of magical charms and amulets smeared with blood or bleeding substances, of foetal matters — such as foetuses, blood-clots, umbilical cords, etc. — is thus to be accounted for. Foetal substances are inseparable from lochial blood and give rise to the same fear as blood. Abortions are also associated to another source of fear, namely death, equally inseparable from the fear of blood, whose loss is death-producing. There is indeed a parallel between the magical use of cadaverous substances and the magical use of blood; the former are used in similar conditions and for the same purposes as amulets and talismans based on blood. Both have the same meaning (ibid.). 3 A number of anthropologists have noted the various stages of this process of “overdetermination” in native thought. Thus according to WAGNER, “... it is not always easy to decide whether a particular type of magical substance merely serves the purpose of protecting a person, an object or an undertaking from destructive influences, or whether it is at the same time supposed to possess the positive quality of actively pro- ducing or fostering the desired results ...” (1949: 97). “... the Ila draw a clear distinction between the second and third classes [/iinda, protective amulets ... medicines which prevent witchcraft, masambwe, talismans which effect colwe, which includes good fortune of all kinds}, but a European finds it difficult sometimes to distinguish between fiinda and masambwe, for evidently a medicine which wards off machinations of a warlock is thereby a source of good fortune to the happy possessor” (SmiTH 1935: 473).The Magic of Transgression 541 The significance attached to the violation of taboos explains the belief in the magical effects of incest which is met with in the most various ethnolog- ical areas. A familiar example is that of the African hunter committing incest to enhance his chances of success. The magical power, ensuring efficaciousness, which the breach of the incest taboo confers on the violator, is derived from the force with which the taboo on incest imposes itself, and this has now to be elucidated. That blood, more particularly blood coming from a woman’s sexual organ, and to a higher degree the blood of a consanguine, inspires fear, was demonstrated long ago by DurKHEIM. To commit incest is equivalent to entering into contact with the most dangerous of all blood, the blood of consanguineous women. Thus DuRKHEIM grouped together the elements apt to account for the fear of incest in terms of subjective motivations (1897: 56). Whoever transgresses that law (of exogamy) he writes — places himself in the situation of a murderer. He has come into contact with blood, and the fearful qualities of blood have passed on to him. He has become a menace to himself as well as to others. He has transgressed a taboo (DURKHEIM 1897: 50; transl. by the author). These “fearful qualities” of blood are precisely those which the breaker of the blood taboo is intent on appropriating. To commit incest deliberately, or to handle blood in making charms, are acts of the same order, involving similar dangers, calling for similar precautionary measures and aiming at the same results. In myths, as in rituals of transgression, the two often go together. The author of an incestuous act — says DURKHEIM — is “in the situation of a murderer” ; more exactly, of the murderer of a consanguine. More obvious- ly than in the case of incest, the murderer of a consanguine brings about contact with the most dangerous of all blood, consanguineous blood; but, just as in case of incest, this represents the breach of a fundamental taboo of the community and is supposed to bestow great magical powers. Magical rites involving incest are often accompanied by the murder of consanguines. “The assassination of a near kin, writes KLUcKHOHN, is part of the general pattern of sorcery” (1944: 58) and this applies whenever magic is practised (cf. L. Maxartus 1973a: 665, 671; 19730: 248 f.). Since, according to our thesis, the taboo on blood is the cornerstone on which the social order rests, and the source of the derivative taboos on women and blood-contaminated men, on the spilling of blood, on incest, murder and the murdering of a consanguine in particular, it follows that magic based on the violation of taboo is necessarily regarded as subversive and anti-social. It must therefore be practised in secret and be limited to a few. The power it confers depends on the strict observance of the taboo on blood in a given society. If the taboo is transgressed repeatedly, openly, and by many, its force will fritter away and its violation would become meaningless. The self- contradictory condition that has to be observed, namely, that the violated taboo should be respected, finds its expression in the belief that an act of542 Laura Maxarrus Anthropos 69. 1974 transgression cancels another, and this belief prevents too great repetition of the act. Affording protection against the danger inherent in blood, the taboo on blood, when violated, exposes the transgressor to that danger. It is therefore quite understandable that those about to break a taboo should seek protection against the consequences of their act, taking the same precautions as when normally observing the taboo, but pushing them to an extreme, such as re- fraining from sexual commerce, avoiding women, and also fasting, or eating apart from women, to prevent the creation of alimentary bonds of interde- pendance with them (cf. R. and L. Makartus 1961: 67 f.). Chastity and food observances or fasting are requirements of ritual purity to which all about to engage in impure and dangerous acts commit themselves, and in particular violators of taboo. This accounts for the paradoxical coexistence of elements of purity and impurity often observed in magic and ritual performances. The magical breach of taboos — handling of blood, of blood-smeared matters, of cadaverous substances, incest, homicides, and homicides of con- sanguines in particular — is accomplished in order to acquire the “overdeter- minated” power of blood (magical power) for the purpose of satisfying certain needs or fulfilling certain wishes. These are familiar ethnological stereotypes: victory at war, luck in hunting, fishing and games of chance, happiness in love, success in some professional enterprise, healing powers, etc.‘ More generally, the violation of taboo procures prosperity, wealth and all personal gifts: dexterity, foresight, wisdom, knowledge, etc. Like magical power, its results are “overdeterminated”, but its power is limited in that it cannot confer immortality (L. Makarrus 1969: 28 f., 34, 36, 39). The magical transgression of taboo is therefore above all instrumental. It is the basic condition of efficacious magic. It is the business of the warrior, the hunter, the fisherman, the craftsman, the blacksmith and, of course, the sorcerer. And yet, it has to be an individual act. At times the individual acts as a mediator on behalf of his community (L. Makarrus 1969) but even then the transgression continues to be an anti-social act. Lastly, it is surrounded by dangers. It is not with a light heart that an act defying fundamental laws, beset with perils, inspiring guilt and requiring careful preparation, carried out clandestinely, is undertaken. As an individual act, denoting a heroic exploit, it is at the centre of all mythologies. + CRAWFORD gives good examples of transgressive magic, showing the extent to which it has penetrated current mores in Rhodesia. Thus, a man “who committed a mur- der in order to obtain human flesh as medicine for gambling, was sentenced to death by the High Court” in 1957 (1967: 43). “Some years ago, a bus owner was charged with killing a man and using the flesh in the radiator of his bus to ensure success in business. . Many businessmen pay very high prices to purchase medicines to achieve success. That the ordinary man in the street should suspect that these medicines are bad and that the owner is, therefore, a sorcerer is not surprising” (ibid. 159). Women have con- fessed to killing a new-born child in order to prepare love potions for its mother (ibid. 114). The blood of the child seems in this instance to have been used as a substitute for the menstrual blood which its mother was unable to produce on account of her pregnancy.The Magic of Transgression 543 This brief exposé makes it clear why the term “contrary magic” cannot be regarded as the logical opposite of “magic by analogy”. Transgressive magic results fundamentally from a mental outlook culturally determined, not from a natural disposition of the mind. When the object is to obtain some result, the magic of transgression, in contrast to imitative magic, appears as fraught with danger, but also as invested with a dynamism and power of efficaciousness which give it precedence over the latter. It is synonymous with activity, initiative, boldness, heroism. In magic based on the violation of taboo, the individual sees himself placed in a new relationship with regard to nature: instead of suggesting to natural forces what he expects of them, by relying on imitative acts, he wrests from them the power to coerce them into yielding to his wishes. No sooner does transgression enter the domain of reality, that it reigns supreme and monopo- lizes the entire field of magical activity. The magic of transgression, moreover, seems blatantly to defy the principles of sympathetic magic. When the rain-maker pours water on the ground, his act is performed in accordance with the requirements of sympa- thetic magic; but when he proceeds to manipulate blood, or commit some inces- tuous act, sympathetic magic is contradicted, for such acts are neither imita- tive nor suggestive of any results to be attained. Sympathetic and trans- gressive magic follow opposite ways. However, neither the striking aspects of transgressive magic nor the rebuttal it seems to bring to sympathetic magic should make us overlook that it flows from the latter and would not exist without it. It is in fact with sympathetic magic that the study of magic generally must begin. Described and defined by Frazer to provide a rational explanation of magic, it opened the way to the formulation by Lévy-Bruut of the concept of “participation”, rashly scoffed at today and qualified as “mystical”, on the basis, apparently, of critical fieldwork. The ethnographer in the field discovers that the men and women he meets are quite capable of distinguishing between the real and the imaginary. ‘They realize very well that “they are not araras” — to use a familiar example from French anthropology. The fact remains, nevertheless, that the system of ideas governing their behaviour involves a confusion between the real and the imaginary, which renders the exercise of sympathetic magic possible. Furthermore, it is sympathetic magic which lies at the root of those “rationali- sations” by which customs, springing from motivations no longer remem- ered, are explained. (That this is so follows from the fact that magic based on analogy is readily “understandable”, whereas the magic of transgression is not.) There is scarcely a monograph that does not contain dozens of examples of sympathetic magic. If the fundamental role of analogical thought is ignored, or denied as by the champions of structuralism 5, nothing can be understood concerning 5 For Liivr-Srrauss, in opposition to Liivy-Bruut, this so-called primitive thin-544 Laura MAKARIUS Anthropos 69. 1974 magical phenomena. Without the recourse to sympathetic magic (or at least to its psychological basis) it is doubtful whether the capacity to symbolize would have manifested itself, whether the substitution of an object for an- other, on the basis of a suggested resemblance or proximity or participation in a common character, would have been possible. “Participation” is at once the mode of action and of self-expression of this kind of magic. Without its catalytic intervention, man would doubtless be deprived of the poetical faculty. The magic of transgression is rooted in sympathetic magic, however contrary in its ways and methods. Sympathetic magic provides the machinery that marks its objects — blood, in the first instance — with taboo, and sets the pattern of all other taboos. The sight of blood evokes the ideas of suf- fering and death, and so real suffering and death will follow. If the sight, and contact with blood, are avoided, suffering and death also will be. Taboos are there to avoid these dangers, so that when the blood-taboo is violated, and the danger of blood is released, as it were, and directed against an enemy, it is in order to strike him with the destructive power attributed to blood by sympathetic magic. Nevertheless, if a man seizes a menstrual cloth in order to direct its dangerous properties towards the enemy, the dangerous element threatening him, by sympathetic magic, is rejected and denied. The breaker of taboo has indeed been primarily motivated by an association of ideas, but as far as he is concerned, the implications of this motivation are silenced when, through the violation of taboo, he exposes himself to the very dangers against which the taboo would preserve him. We know, after Husert and Mauss, that those who perform an act of magic are often led to ignore its evil consequences. Were it otherwise, no magical act could be performed. But it is one thing to ignore unpleasant consequences, and quite another deliberately to contravene, as does the breaker of taboos, the common norms of conduct that are respected by all in order to avoid calamities. In this, transgressive magic runs counter to the implications of sympathetic magic, to which, however, it owes its own development. It is at once its offshoot and its negation. The magic of transgression thus carries within itself, and also negates, the active elements of sympathetic magic. It is perhaps this disconcerting contradiction — negating the negative character of taboos — which, attended king is a process of understanding, not an affective process; it proceeds by means of distinctions and oppositions, not by confusion and participation (1962: 355). Nothing could be further from the truth. For if all thinking, even animal thinking, proceeds “by means of distinctions and oppositions”, it is thinking by analogy which builds up human imagination. The amazing statement that “although the term had not yet gained currency, numerous passages in DurKHErm and Mauss show that they had understood that so-called primitive thought was quantified thought” is demonstrably absurd since it runs counter to all their writings (cf. passage on sympathetic magic in HuBERT and Mauss 1902-03: 62f.; for the relationship between analogy and poetry, see BRETON 1970: 52 £,).The Magic of Transgression 545 by the sense of guilt consequent to an act of transgression, has discouraged investigation of the phenomenon. Furthermore, the manifestations of trans- gressive and sympathetic magic are closely intermingled in practice, so that it thus often happens that the motivation of an act of transgressive magic falls into oblivion and is interpreted in terms of sympathetic magic, while the interdictions and prescriptions relative to the maintenance of a state of purity during operations involving the violation of taboo are equally traceable to it. We have therefore to consider first those acts which depend entirely on sympathetic magic and are explainable on the basis of analogy and imita- tion, and, second, those that result from the magic of transgression but which have germinated, as it were, on the ground of sympathetic magic, and cannot be understood without reference to it, although they ignore and deny it. In addition, we have to reckon with those cases where both sympathetic and transgressive magic occur. This agglomerate of intermingling and contradic- tory phenomena has to be sorted out in the first instance, before moving to other problems, and this is possible because transgressive magic is recognizable by its main characteristics as being an instrumental procedure, individual, anti-social and highly dangerous, carried out semi-clandestinely, and accom- panied by a sense of guilt. It belongs to the world of things suppressed, ex- pressing itself in symbols, and these, as such, are invariable. Once transgres- sive magic is identified - as we believe we have identified it in these pages — it becomes possible to grasp its interrelations with sympathetic magic. Ethno- logical accounts, hitherto puzzling or apparently inconsistent, become intel- ligible. Returning to the problems of witches and their performances, we are now in a position to understand the apparently nonsensical use of human flesh and bones, earth dug from a burial ground, and menstrual blood or plood-pads in the preparation of medicines, amulets, and lucky gadgets ensuring success, happiness, and love. It also becomes clear, in the light of our thesis on the incest prohibition and the murder of consanguines, why incest and murder (consanguineous in particular) coincide or alternate with the use of these substances. The obscurity enveloping quite an extensive area is thus dispelled. It thus becomes manifest that the distinction between beneficent or “white” magic and maleficent or “black” magic is in no way determined by the purposes to which the sorcerer uses his magic ®, A paradox of trans- gressive magic is that the desirable and inoffensive results it is meant to achieve, 6 Lucy Mar notes the difficulty of trying to distinguish between good and bad magic in terms of social or asocial aims (1969: 24). CRAWFORD writes: “Medicines, such as divisi, to make crops grow, obtained by murder or through incest are inherently evil; and because their use brings misfortune to the family of the person using them or to other people the user is a sorcerer. However, the object for which this sort of divisi is used is eminently desirable” (1967: 96). Anthropos 69. 1974 35546 Laura Makarius Anthropos 69. 1974 such as to promote plant-growth and ensure plentiful game for the hunter, etc. are obtained by methods that are highly dangerous not only to the magi- cian concerned but to the entire community 7. These methods are by defini- tion anti-social, since they consist in violating those taboos which protect the social order and afford safeguards against mortal dangers. Whatever use it is put to, transgressive magic is in a real sense “black magic”, anti-social, dangerous, secret, and sinister. From this it does not follow that sympathetic magic, by definition, and in contrast, is never maleficent and always to be equated with “white” magic, for it can be directed to serve destructive ends. The difference between the two types of magic lies in their different methods of operation: imitative magic, for instance, can be directed to produce harm without prejudice to either the operator or the rest of society. To burn an image with malicious intent does not in itself bring evil to the performer, as would be the case when forbidden substances are handled. On the purely theoretical level, then, we obtain the following formula- tions: leficent Transgressive magic — methods dangerous — purpose — Sympathetic magic — methods not dangerous — purpose | a Of the four possible cases, one only involves neither danger nor male- ficence, namely, the case of sympathetic magic used for beneficent purposes, as for example, when the rain-maker pours water to produce rain, or when people leap in the air to promote plant-growth. Only in this case may magic be called “white” magic. Consequently, “black” and “white” magic are not symmetrical opposites, in spite of the opposition between transgressive and imitative magic. As soon as the notion of the magical transgression of taboos is clearly formulated, it is at once realized that it coincides with witchcraft, “real”, “specific black magic” ; so deeply engraved is the pattern in the histor- ical and prehistorical traditions of all peoples. 7 The confusion between the evil in the means and the evil in the ends is sometimes made by the natives themselves. Thus the Bemba, after AUDREY RicHarps had se- cured “a complete heap of horns and magical charms”, seemed to have considered the ends only, distinguishing as instruments of “undeniable bad, destructive magic” those pre- pared for the injury of others. To RicHarps, if “... ordinary magic of success, hunting, and agricultural charms, or those for Ick in personal relations ... assume a sinister aspect”, it is in functions of social relations, not on account of the intrinsical nature of the magic involved. Thus, she comes to the conclusion that “all magic of luck and self-protection becomes dangerous, that is to say, just in so far as the success it brings is believed to hurt another” (1935: 457). This cliché is sometimes reversed: “The Shona ... believe there is both good and bad divisi; but once an unfair advantage is thought to have been ob- tained it will be assumed that bad divisi was used” (CRAWFORD 1967: 108; see also Jones 1970: 323).The Magic of Transgression 547 In practice, however, the distinction between maleficent, transgressive magic, and maleficent, imitative magic, does not manifest itself so clearly, and this is quite in accord with the circumstances of the case. An object be- comes taboo on account of the power to cause harm with which it is credited, whether that object is blood in general, menstrual blood in particular, or foetal and cadaverous substances. We have shown that such substances can be used for one of two purposes, either to cause harm or, through their “over- determination”, to secure positive results, and it is only in the latter case that magical power, properly so called, is generated, that is, to fulfill all wishes, namely mana. These two uses of particular substances involve acts of transgression, since the mere handling of blood and its derivatives, some- times the mere act of looking at them, is an infringement of taboo. In practice, when the purpose of magic is to cause harm, it is these substances which are currently used, being of feminine origin and easily procurable. They are even used in sympathetic magic, as when a woman, for instance, will handle the placenta of a co-wife in order to harm her or her child (MrppLeton 1963: 264); or’ place some of her menstrual blood, as an essential part of herself, in the medicine of a man to stir his passion. The utilization of such substances in a context that does not evoke any idea of deliberate violation of taboo may be described as a transgression de facto. Whatever the case, when the purposes are maleficent, imitative and transgressive magic often overlap. The above considerations naturally bring us to a problem that often comes up-in the study of magic, namely the respective position of men and women in this regard. The study of the violation of taboo shows how objects or substances under taboo come to be invested with efficaciousness, owing to the danger they represent and the general dread they inspire. It should be obvious that the female sexual organ and associated substances do not arouse the same fear in women as in men. It is the men in particular who stand in fear of menstrual and lochial blood and other associated substances (although women also are apt to consider themselves vulnerable on account of their own men- strual flow) and it is therefore from the masculine point of view that these substances acquire magical qualities, while they remain more or less harmless, inactive and inert as far as women are concerned. If it is true, as HUBERT and Mauss contend (1902-03: 23), that women produce (magical) agents, properly so called, these “agents” are magical only by virtue of the dangerous character ascribed to them by men. The supposed effect of a menstruating woman, running through the fields to destroy insects, is due to the destructive power which men attribute to menstrual blood; so that it may be said that this magical power springs from the relation between feminine blood and mascu- line fear. It is masculine fear, responsible for the taboo on women’s blood, which endows the latter with the capacity to produce mana, mana whose force will be proportionate to the intensity of the fear which the taboo inspires. The true breakers of taboo must therefore be men, not women. When women violate a taboo, it is only with reference to the fear it inspires in men. They can of course violate the death taboo; but even then, the fact remains548 Laura MaKarius Anthropos 69. 1974 that all the complex of taboos including the death taboo, built up on the blood taboo, is of masculine origin. That is why Husert and Mauss were justified in commenting, albeit intuitively, on that “curious phenomenon” in which “man is the magician and woman is charged with magic” (1902-03: 24). In the sphere of magical activity, men and women find themselves at different levels, corresponding to the two levels, or rather to two successive stages in the formation of magical power. Women are the producers of magical “agents properly so called” (or at least of part of them), they are “charged with magic”, while men are “the magicians”, that is, the breakers of taboo. The former are at the level of the objects under taboo, the latter at the higher level of the “overdetermination” of these objects. Impurity, connatural to woman, is amplified and rendered a magical power by man. The role of both sexes being of equal importance, from the point of view of this development of magic, it is not surprising to find contradictory statements on the preeminence of each sex in the magical domain, some authors asserting that the true adepts are women, while others attribute this privilege to men. Assuming for a moment that the distinction between witchcraft and sorcery, which looms so conspicuously in British anthropology, really means something, it would seem to result from the fact that the role of witches naturally devolves on women, while that of sorcery belongs to men. There is at bottom some justification for this distinction, quite apart from any consideration relative to magic, since women are considered maleficent and harmful to others, independently of any desire to cause harm and simply by virtue of their physiological characteristics as manifested in menstruation and childbirth *. Such is the case among the Abelam of New Guinea, a case of “sorcery being exclusively the province of men and witchcraft of women” (Force 1970: 259) °. In practice, this distinction is blurred by various factors. The magic of efficaciousness for private, professional, and sometimes tribal purposes, is by definition men’s business 1°. Its scope, in the case of women, is limited to * It is for that reason that “apparently women in general, who are feared likely to kill by mystical means” (Goopy 1970: 237). The fear of poisoning from food prepared by a woman, due to contact with feminine blood, assuming among the Gonja the form of fear of horte, is universal and is at the basis of food taboos. ° Mary Dovetas notes the same distribution among the Bushong, the Yoruba and the Azande (1970: xx1x f.). Also, according to CRawrForD, “... witchcraft allegations are made against women and sorcery allegations, which are less serious, are made against men” (1967: 287). 1 Nave writes that among the Nupe “... on the whole he [the man-witch] would devote his power rather to other, less objectionable, and certainly much more purposive, activities” (1935: 426 f.). He further refers to the fact that “woodcutters and welldiggers, farmers and blacksmiths, and of course also hunters, have their special professional magic which is unknown to outsiders ...” He adds that “... this type of witchcraft is not yet something very specific, and something that falls completely out of the framework of normal social life. It is only a sort of extended, though perhaps stronger, general magic” (1935: 428).‘The Magic of Transgression 549 minor day-to-day maleficent acts, for which they are better placed, impurity being their domain. In fact, the dreaded female witch is nothing but the exaggerated representation of the common woman, on account of her physio- logical particularities. However, her use of medicines, although made up of substances cognate to her nature, leads to her being accused not only of witchcraft, but also of sorcery. Conversely, the great sorcerers, such as certain chiefs or kings whom we know to possess extremely potent medicines, and who practise incest and wilful murder for magical ends, are said, for that reason, to be capable, quite unintentionally, of killing with a look, or by rai- sing a finger, and therefore to possess the power of witches. Participation is not an idle word, and sorcery and witchcraft are very hard to disentangle ", even in the light of the above interpretation of the magical violation of taboos, which distinguishes between the natural maleficent power of things taboo (the basis of witchcraft) and that same power raised to a higher level through “overdetermination” and appropriated by a wilful act, the violation of taboo (the basis of sorcery). It is probable that the distinction between witchcraft and sorcery, made by scholars and apparently observed in certain societies, is due to the fact that it corresponds (in theory though not coinciding with real practice) to the pattern described above. The pattern, though shot through by inner contradictions, and half-forgotten, persists in a more or less conscious form, and is transmitted by tradition. Anthropologists speak willingly of witches and sorcerers in terms that would apply much better to breakers of taboo. BEIDELMAN, for instance, (Kaguru) states: “The more violently a witch profanes and rejects the values of society, the greater his power becomes” (1963: 63). To MIDDLETON (Lug- bara), “witches are people who refuse or deny the obligations of authority ...” (1963: 272). To La Fontan (Bugisu), “The witch is an unnatural human being who disregards the basic rules of society ...” (1963: 196). All attempt to describe a reality which they are unable to conceptualize, but which it would be difficult for them to question seriously. It is the same when anthropologists insist on the “inverted character” of witches, coming close to grasp a reality that eludes them. Inversion, in fact, is but the symbolical representation of the violation of taboos, since it represents the contrary of what ought to be done. Evidence is provided by examples from North America, where the violation of taboos is made explicit in the “contrary behaviour” and “backward speech” of native Indians (L. Maxarius 1970: 61-3). Mipperon is therefore right when he writes that among the Lugbara “the inverted and superhuman attributes (of the pre- heroic figures) are significant as indexes of their asocial existence” (1954: 192; 1 Witchcraft and sorcery are in reality two aspects of the same phenomenon. Jones writes that “... in Old Calabar and in the middle Cross River area, where the fear of witchcraft could be said to be endemic, witchcraft and sorcery come together and support each other. Many deaths are believed to be caused by witches who may use sorcery to kill their victims. Wherever witchcraft fears are prevalent there are also fears of sorcery” (1970: 324).550 Laura MaKarrus Anthropos 69, 1974 our italics). The examples of witches suspending themselves from trees upside down, quenching their thirst with salt, and walking on their hands or heads, are indexes of the presence of inversion, namely the condition of the violator of taboo 1%. It would be a reversal of facts to imagine, in typical structuralist fashion, that witches violate social norms in order to comply with an inverted. mental pattern. This symbolical inversion which survives feebly in Africa, whereas in North America it gives rise to ludicrous examples of behaviour, is the same which manifests itself in sorcerers’ sabbaths and in the Feasts of Fools of mediaeval Europe +. It testifies to the fact that these forms of sorcery and of wholesale profanation go back to an ancient and common tradition grounded in history and consisting of the violation of taboos. Although the product of an individual act, the violation of taboos is a collective reality, experienced as such by the group, breeding anxiety and a sense of guilt, posing insoluble riddles to the mind, and setting into motion a world of psychological conflicts and dramatic situations. Of necessity individual, it opposes the violator to his group and to himself as member of the group, providing, at the tribal level, both the model and the mechanism of man’s progressive individuation. Bibliography BErIpeLMan, Tuomas O. 1963 Witchcraft in Ukaguru. In: J. Mipperow and E, H. Wir [edit.], Witch- craft and Sorcery in East Africa. London. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Breton, A, 1970 Perspective cavaliére. Paris. Gallimard. % Certain types of behaviour, characteristic of witches, which anthropologists regard as “inversions” (cf. BEIDELMAN 1963: 67), are due to the system of ideas gover- ning their conduct. That witches are active after dark is necessary to secure secrecy. That they go about naked is due to the idea, related to the system of thought which gives rise to transgressive magic, that nudity and also flowing hair (particularly in the case of women) are regarded as favourable to magical operations. It is for this reason, and not to invert the pattern of normality, that witches go naked. If they treat kin like non-kin (BEIDELMAN 1963: 67), it is to comply with the requirements of transgressive magic; if they treat wild beasts as though they were human (ibid.), it is because they are related to beasts of prey, leopards, hyenas, vultures, etc. through a common impurity. ‘These apparent causes of inversion are due to the fact that witches turn all the ules of conduct upside down because they break the taboos; so that their behaviour is the reverse of that of others. 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