Another piece of historical evidence against Schmidt’s theory is that the Callicantzaros of the present day appears to be identical with the ‘baboutzicarios’ whereof Michael Psellus[580]discoursed in the eleventh century. He himself indeed, with his usual passion for explaining away popular superstitions, affirms that ‘baboutzicarios’is the same as ‘ephialtes,’ the demon who punishes gluttony with nocturnal discomfort and a feeling of oppression; and in that view he was followed by Suidas[581]and other lexicographers; but he states two important points in the popular superstition which he combats: the ‘baboutzicarios’ appears only in the octave of Christmas; and it is at night that he meets and terrifies men. Moreover the name itself is, I suspect, derived from the Low-Latinbabuztus[582]meaning ‘mad,’ and indicates the existence then of the belief which is so largely held to-day, that the monstrous apparitions of Christmastide are really men smitten with a peculiar kind of madness. Thus all the information which Psellus gives about the ‘baboutzicarios’ tallies with modern beliefs concerning the Callicantzaros, and militates against the supposition that the Greeks are indebted for this superstition to the Turks.
Finally there is positive evidence that the Turks borrowed the word in question from the Greeks; for the time at which they used to fear the advent of thekarakondjolos—whether the superstition still remains the same, I do not know—was fixed not by their own calendar but by that of the Christians. An article written on the subject of the Turkish calendar early in last century contains this statement: ‘The Turks have received this fabulous belief from the Greeks, and they say that this demon, whom the former call Kara Kondjolos and the latter Cali Cangheros, exercises his sway of maleficence and mischief from Christmas-day until that of the Epiphany[583].’ Clearly the Turks would not have fixed the time for the appearance of thekarakondjolosby the Christian festivals if they had not borrowed the whole superstition from the Greeks; and indeed the very termination in-οςof the Turkish form of the word betrays its Hellenic origin.
The proposed Turkish derivation of the wordκαλλικάντζαροςmust therefore be rejected as finally as Oeconomos’ Latin derivation, and it remains only to deal with those which treat the word as genuinely Greek.
The first of these is that proposed by Coraës[584], who made the word a compound ofκαλόςandκάνθαρος. The formation, as might be expected of so great a scholar, is irreproachable; for the phonetic change ofθtoτζ; is seen in the development of the modern wordκαντζόχοιρος(a hedgehog) from the ancientἀκανθόχοιρος. But the meaning obtained is less satisfactory. What has a ‘good’ or ‘beautiful beetle’ to do with a Callicantzaros such as I have described? The question remains without an answer. And yet some of Coraës’ followers in recent times have thought triumphantly to vindicate his view by pointing out that in the dialect of Thessaly ‘a species of large horned beetle’ is known asκαλλικάτζαροι. Now I am aware that elsewhere in Greece stag-beetles are calledκατζαρίδες, which is undoubtedly a modern form of the ancientκάνθαροςand illustrates once more the phonetic change involved in Coraës’ derivation; and I can believe that the Thessalian peasantry with a certain rustic humour sometimes call themκαλλικάτζαροιinstead. But what light does this throw on the supposed development of meaning? The view which these disciples of Coraës appear to hold, namely that the Callicantzari, who are known and feared throughout Greek lands and even beyond them in Turkey and in Albania, were called after an alleged Thessalian species of Coleoptera, would be fitly matched by a theory that the Devil was so named after a species of fish or a printer’s assistant or a patent fire-lighter.
The same objection holds good as against Polites’ first view[585]. Taking the wordλυκοκάντζαροςas his starting-point, instead of the common and central formκαλλικάντζαρος, he proposed to derive the word fromλύκος, ‘wolf,’ andκάνθαρος, ‘beetle.’ But though the resulting hybrid might be a monster as hideous as the worst of Callicantzari, these creatures so far as I know show no traits suggestive of entomological parentage. But since Polites himself has long abandoned this view, there is no need to criticize it further.
His next pronouncement on the subject[586]banished both wolf and beetle and seemed to recognise the necessity of keeping the main formκαλλικάντζαροςto the fore. But while he naturallyassumedκαλόςto be the first half of the compound, he could only set downκάντζαροςas an unknown foreign, perhaps Slavonic, word.
But in his latest publication[587]he relinquishes this position and falls back once more on a dialectic formκαλιτσάγγαροςwhich is reported to be in use at the village of Pyrgos in Tenos and at some places on the western shores of the Black Sea. This word he believes to be a compound, of which the second half is connected with a Byzantine wordτσαγγίον, meaning a kind of boot, and the still existing, if somewhat rare, word,τσαγγάρης, ‘a boot-maker,’ while the first half is to be eitherκαλός, ‘fine,’ orκαλίκι, ‘a hoof[588].’ The former alternative provides easily the formκαλοτσάγγαροςor, as would be almost more likely,καλλιτσάγγαρος, meaning ‘one who wears fine boots’; while in the other alternative there results a supposed original formκαλικοτσάγγαρος, meaning ‘one who has hoofs instead of boots,’ whence, by suppression of the third syllable, comes the existing wordκαλιτσάγγαρος, or again, by loss of the first syllable, a supposed formλικοτσάγγαροςwhich developed intoλυκοκάντζαρος.
On the score of formation the former alternative is unassailable; but the latter, with its supposed loss of syllables, is more questionable. The loss of a first syllable is common enough in modern Greek, where it consists of a vowel only (e.g.βρίσκω[589]forεὑρίσκω,μέραforἡμέρα, etc.), but the supposed loss of the syllableκαwould, I think, be hard to parallel. Again the loss of a syllable in the middle of a word is fairly common either through the suppression of the vowelι(orη, which is not distinguished fromιin sound) as inκαλκάντζαροςforκαλλικάντζαρος,ἔρμοςforἔρημος, etc., or else when two concurrent syllables begin with the same consonant, as inἀστροπελέκι, ‘a thunderbolt,’ forἀστραποπελέκι, but the loss of the syllableκοfrom the formκαλικοτσάγγαροςis a bold hypothesis.
But on the score of meaning both alternatives are alikeunconvincing. Polites indeed cites one or two popular traditions in which the Callicantzari are represented as wearing wooden or iron shoes—wherewith no doubt the better to kick and to trample their victims; and such footgear might, I suppose, be described ironically as ‘nice boots.’ But to find in this occasional trait the origin of the word Callicantzaros[590]appears to me a counsel of despair. Nor does the other alternative commend itself to me any more. It is of course a widely accepted belief—and one by the way which contradicts the traditions just mentioned—that the Callicantzari have feet like those of an ass or a goat. But in describing such a creature no one surely would be likely to say that it had hoofs ‘instead of boots’—‘instead of feet’ would be the natural and reasonable expression. To suppose that the Callicantzari (or rather, to use the hypothetical form, theκαλικοτσάγγαροι) are so named because their boot-maker provides them with hoofs instead of detachable foot-gear, is little short of ludicrous.
But though neither of the proposed derivations will, I think, win much acceptance, the historical evidence which Polites adduces in support of his views forms a valuable contribution to the study of this subject. The inferences which he draws therefrom may not be correct; but the material which he has collected is of high interest.
Singling out of the many traditions concerning the Callicantzari the widely, and perhaps universally, prevalent belief that their activities are confined to the Twelve Days between Christmas and Epiphany, he argues that if we can discover the origin of this limitation, we shall be in a fair way to discover also whence came the conception of the Callicantzari themselves.
Accordingly he traces the history of winter festivals in Greece, starting from the period in which the Greeks, in deference to their Roman masters, adopted the festivals known as the Saturnalia, the Brumalia, and the Kalándae (for so the celebration of the Kalends of January was called by the Greeks) in place of their own old festivals such as the Kronia and some of the festivals of Dionysus. The change however was more one of name than ofmethod of observance[591]. The pagan orgies which marked these festal days were strongly denounced by the Fathers of the Church from the very earliest times. In the first century of our era, Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, met with his martyrdom in an attempt to suppress such a festival. At the end of the fourth century S. John Chrysostom and, after him, Asterios, bishop of Amasea, loudly inveighed against the celebration of the Kalandae. At the end of the seventh century the sixth Oecumenical Council of the Church promulgated a canon forbidding all these pagan winter-festivals. But still in the twelfth century, as Balsamon testifies[592], the old abuses continued unabated; and there are local survivals of such festivals at the present day.
The most prominent feature of these celebrations was that men dressed themselves up in various characters, to represent women, soldiers, or animals, and thus disguised gave themselves up to the wildest orgies. At Ephesus it is clear that these orgies included human sacrifice, and that Bishop Timothy was on one occasion the victim; for we are told by Photius that he met with his death in trying to suppress ‘the polluted and blood-stained rites of the Greeks[593]’; and the same writer speaks ofτὸ καταγώγιον—so this particular ceremony was called—as a ‘devilish and abominable festival[594]’ in which men ‘took delight in unholy things as if they were pious deeds[595].’ And again another account of the same celebration tells how men with masks on their faces and with clubs in their hands went about ‘assaulting without restraint free men and respectable women, perpetrating murders of no common sort and shedding endless blood in the best parts of the city, as if they were performing a religious duty (ὡσανεὶ ἀναγκαῖόν τι καὶ ψυχωφελὲς πράττοντες)[596].’
At Amasea, according to Asterios, at the beginning of the fifth century, things were not much better. The peasants, he says, who come into the town during the festival ‘are beaten and outraged by drunken revellers, they are robbed of anything they are carrying, they have war waged upon them in a time of peace,they are mocked and insulted in word and in deed[597].’ Here too the custom of dressing up was in vogue among those who took part in the festival—women’s dress being especially affected.
Again in the seventh century the points specially emphasized by the canon of the Church are that ‘no man is to put on feminine dress, nor any woman the dress proper to men, nor yet are masks, whether comic, satyric, or tragic, to be worn’; and the penalty for disregard of this ordinance was to be excommunication. Yet for all these fulminations the old custom continued. The author of ‘the Martyrdom of S. Dasius[598],’ writing perhaps as late as the tenth century, speaks of the festival of the Kronia as still observed in the old way: ‘on the Kalends of January foolish men, following the custom of the (pagan) Greeks, though they call themselves Christians, hold a great procession, changing their own appearance and character, and assuming the guise of the devil; clothed in goat-skins and with their faces disguised,’ they reject their baptismal vows and again serve in the devil’s ranks. And still in the twelfth century these practices obtained not only among the laity but even among the clergy, some of whom, in the words of Balsamon[599], ‘assume various masks and dresses, and appear in the open nave of the church, sometimes with swords girt on and in military uniform, other times as monks or even as quadrupeds.’
Several instances of the continuance of this custom in modern times have been collected by Polites[600]and others; the savage orgies of old time have indeed dwindled into harmless mummery; but their most constant feature, the wearing of strange disguises, remains unchanged; and the occasion too is still a winter-festival, either some part of the Twelve Days or the carnival preceding Lent. From certain facts concerning these modern festivals it will be manifest that some relation exists between the mummers who celebrate them and the Callicantzari.
In Crete, where the New Year is thus celebrated, the mummers are calledκαμπουχέροι, while in Achaia a fuller form of the same word,κατσιμπουχέροι, is a by-name of the Callicantzari.At Portariá on Mount Pelion, each night of the Twelve Days, a man is dressed up as an ‘Arab,’ wearing an old cloak and having bells affixed to his clothes. He goes the round of the streets with a lantern; and the villagers explicitly state that this is doneγιὰ τὰ καρκαντζέλια, ‘because of the Callicantzari,’ i.e., says Polites, as a means of getting rid of them. At Pharsala there is a sort of play at the Epiphany, in which the mummers represent bride, bridegroom, and ‘Arab’; the Arab tries to carry off the bride, and the bridegroom defends her. In some parts of Macedonia similar mumming takes place at the New Year; in Belbentós the men who take part in it are called ‘Arabs’; at Palaeogratsana they have the nameῥουκατζιάρια(evidently another compound ofκάντζαρος, but one which I cannot interpret); formerly also ‘at Kozane and in many other parts of Greece,’ according to a Greek writer in the early part of the nineteenth century, throughout the Twelve Days boys carrying bells used to go round the houses, singing songs and having ‘one or more of their company dressed up with masks and bells and foxes’ brushes and other such things to give them a weird and monstrous look.’
This custom is evidently identical with one which I myself saw enacted in Scyros at the carnival preceding Lent. The young men of the town array themselves in huge capes made of goat-skin, reaching to the hips or lower, and provided with holes for the arms. These capes are sometimes made with hoods of the same material which cover the whole head and face, small holes being cut for the eyes but none for purposes of respiration. In other cases the cape covers the shoulders only, leaving the head free, and the young man contents himself with the blue and white kerchief, which is the usual head-gear in Scyros, and a roughly made domino. A third variety of cape is provided with a hood to cover the back of the head, while the mask for the face is made of the skin of some small animal such as a weasel, of which the hind legs and tail are attached to the hood, while the head and forelegs hang down to the breast of the wearer; eye-holes are cut in these as in the other forms of mask. These capes are girt tightly about the waist with a stout cord or strap, from which are hung all round the body a large number of bronze goat-bells, of the ordinary shape but of extraordinary dimensions, some measuring as much as ten inches for the greatestdiameter. The method by which these bells are attached to the belt is remarkable, and is designed to permit a large number of them to be worn without being in any way muffled by contact with the cape. Each bell is fastened to one end of a curved and springy stick of about a foot in length, and the other end is inserted behind the belt from above; the curve and elasticity of the stick thus cause the bell to hang at some few inches distance from the body, free to jangle with every motion of the dancer. Some sixty or seventy of these bells, of various sizes, are worn by the best-equipped, and the weight of such a number was estimated by the people of the place as approximately a hundredweight—no easy load with which to dance over the narrow, roughly-paved alleys of ‘steep Scyros.’ Those however who lack either the prowess or the accoutrements to share in the glorious fatigue do not abstain altogether from the festivities; even the small boys beg, borrow, or steal a goat-bell and attach it to the hinder part of their person in lieu of a tail, or, at the worst, make good the caudal deficiency with a branch from the nearest tree.
Thus in various grades of goat-like attire the young men and boys traverse the town, stopping here and there, where the steep and tortuous paths offer a wider and more level space, to leap and dance, or anon at some friendly door to imbibe spirituous encouragement to further efforts. In the dancing itself there is nothing peculiar to this festival; the swinging amble, which is the gait of the more heavily equipped, is prescribed by the burden of bells and the roughness of roads. The purpose of the leaping and dancing is solely to evoke as much din as possible from the bells; and prodigious indeed is the jarring and jangling in those narrow alleys when the troupe of dancers leap together into the air, as high as their burdens allow, and come down with one crash.
Since I first published[601]an account of these festivities in Scyros, similar celebrations of carnival-time have been reported from other places; at Sochos in Macedonia[602]the scene is almost identical with that which I have described; in the district of Viza in Thrace a primitive dramatic performance was recently observed in which the two chief actors wore similar goat-skins, masks, andbells, and had their hands blackened[603]; and again at Kostí in the extreme north of Thrace there is mummery of the same kind[604].
A scene of the same sort was formerly enacted in Athens also during the carnival, and was known by the expressive nameτὰ ταράματα(i.e.ταράγματα), ‘The Riotings.’ A man dressed up as a bear used to rush through the streets followed by a crowd of youths howling and clashing any noisy instruments that came to hand. That this ceremony was originally of a religious character is shown not only by its association with the season of Lent, but by an accessory rite performed on the same occasion. Wooden statues, actually calledξόαναas late as the time of the Greek War of Independence, were carried out in procession; and the well-being of the people was believed to be so bound up with the due performance of these rites, that even during the Revolution, when Athens was in the hands of the Turks, a native of the place is said to have returned from Aegina, whither he had fled for safety, in order to play the part of the bear and to carry out thexoanafor the general good[605].
The close connexion of these several modern customs, whether the occasion of them is the Twelve Days or Carnival-time, cannot be doubted. The variation of date is of old standing; for the canon of the Church, on which Balsamon[606]comments, condemns certain pagan festivals on March 1st (approximately the carnival time) along with theKalandaeandBrumalia; and the similarity of the dresses, masks, bells, and other accoutrements proper to both occasions proves the substantial identity of the festivals.
A comparison of these allied modern customs can only lead to one conclusion. The use of the same word to denote the mummers in Crete and the Callicantzari in Achaia; the nameῥουκατζιάριαfor these mummers at Palaeogratsana; the custom of blackening the face, which is clearly indicated by the employment of the name ‘Arab’ in this connexion; the monstrous and half-animal appearance produced by masks, foxes’ brushes, goat-skins, and suchlike adornments; the attempted rape of the bride by the‘Arab’ in the play at Pharsala—all furnish contributory evidence that the mummers themselves represent Callicantzari. Only at Portariá is the significance of the custom somewhat confused; there the ‘Arab’ in his old cloak and bells has long ceased to represent a Callicantzaros, and has actually been provided with a lantern with which to scare the Callicantzari away.
The mummers then represent Callicantzari; the question which remains to be answered is whether the mumming was the cause or the effect of the belief in Callicantzari.
Polites, in support of his theory that the name Callicantzari, in its earliest form, meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or ‘possessors of hoofs instead of boots,’ claims that the mummers first suggested to the Greek imagination the conception of the Callicantzari (it is not indeed anywhere mentioned in the above traditions that the feet or the footgear of the mummers were in any way remarkable, but we may let that pass), and that the fear which their riotous conduct inspired in earlier times gradually elevated them in men’s minds to the rank of demons. This, he urges, is the reason why these demons are feared only during the Twelve Days, the period when such mumming was in vogue.
In confirmation of his view Polites cites some of the evidence concerning the human origin of the Callicantzari, mentioning both the fairly common belief that men turn into Callicantzari, and the rarer traditions that a Callicantzaros resumes his human shape if a torch be thrust in his face and that the transformation of men into Callicantzari can be prevented by certain means. With this evidence I have already dealt, and I agree with Polites that in it there survives a genuine record of the human origin of the Callicantzari. But of course on the further question, whether the particular men thus elevated to the dignity of demons were the mummers of Christmastide, it has no immediate bearing.
As a second piece of corroboration, he adduces another derivation hardly more felicitous than those with which I have already dealt. The word on which he tries his hand this time isκαμπουχέροιorκατσιμπουχέροι—the name of the mummers in Crete and of the Callicantzari in Achaia. Here again, with a certain perversity, he selects the worse form of the two,καμπουχέροι, which is evidently a syncopated form of the other, and proceeds to derive it from the Spanishgambujo, ‘a mask,’ leaving the subsequent developmentofκατσιμπουχέροιtotally inexplicable. For my own part I consider it far more probable that the wordκατσιμπουχέροιis a humorously compounded name, of which the second half is the wordμπουχαρί[607](an Arabic word which has passed, probably through Turkish, into Greek) meaning ‘chimney,’ and that the whole by-name has reference simply to the common belief that Callicantzari try to extinguish the fire on the hearth and thus to gain access to the house by the chimney. As to the meaning ofκατσι-, the first half of the compound, I can only hazard the conjecture that it is connected with the verbκατσιάζω, which ordinarily means to blight, to wither, to dry up, and so forth, though its passive participle,κατσιασμένος, is said by Skarlatos[608]to be applied to clothes which are ‘difficult to wash.’ If then the compoundκατσιμπουχέροιis a descriptive title of the Callicantzari, meaning those who render the chimney difficult to wash, the coarse and eminently rustic humour of the allusion to their habits needs no further explanation; and it is the mummers of Crete who owe their name to the Callicantzari, notvice versa.
While therefore I acknowledge and appreciate to the full the value of Polites’ researches into the history of the Twelve Days, the inferences which he draws from the material collected seem to me no more sound than the derivations which they are designed to corroborate. My own interpretation of the historical facts which Polites has brought together is as follows.
The superstitions and customs connected by the modern folk with the Twelve Days are undoubtedly an inheritance from ancestors who celebrated the Brumalia and other pagan festivals at the same season of the year. These ancient festivals, though Roman in name, probably differed very little in the manner of their observance from certain old Greek festivals, chief among which was some festival of Dionysus. This is rendered probable both by the date of these festivals and by the manner of their celebration. For the worship of Dionysus was practically confined to the winter-time; at Delphi his cult superseded that of Apollo during the threewinter months[609]; and at Athens the four festivals of Dionysus fell within about the same period—the rural Dionysia at the end of November or beginning of December, the Lenaea about a month later, the Anthesteria at the end of January, and the Great Dionysia at the end of February. As for the manner of conducting the Latin-named festivals, Asterios’ description of the Kalándae in the fifth century plainly attests the Dionysiac character of the orgies, and Balsamon, in the twelfth, was so convinced, from what he himself witnessed, of their Bacchanalian origin, that he actually proposed to derive the nameBrumaliafromΒροῦμος[610](by which he meantΒρόμιος) a surname of Dionysus.
The mumming then, which is still customary in some parts of Greece during the Twelve Days, is a survival apparently of festivals in honour of Dionysus. Further the mummers dress themselves up to resemble Callicantzari. But the worship of Dionysus presented a similar scene; ‘those who made processions in honour of Dionysus,’ says Ulpian, ‘used to dress themselves up for that purpose to resemble his companions, some in the guise of Satyrs, others as Bacchae, and others as Sileni[611].’ The mummers therefore of the present day have, it appears, inherited the custom of dressing up from the ancient worshippers of Dionysus and are their modern representatives; and from this it follows that the Callicantzari whom the modern mummers strive to resemble are to be identified with those motley companions of Dionysus whom his worshippers imitated of old.
The more closely these two identifications are examined, the more certain they will appear. Take for example Müller’s general description[612]of the celebration of Dionysus’ festivals. ‘The swarm of subordinate beings—Satyrs, Panes, and Nymphs—by whom Bacchus was surrounded, and through whom life seemed to pass from the god of outward nature into vegetation and the animal world, and branch off into a variety of beautiful or grotesque forms, were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks; it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary course of ideas, to imagine that dances of fair nymphs and bold satyrs,among the solitary woods and rocks, were visible to human eyes, or even in fancy to take a part in them. The intense desire felt by every worshipper of Bacchus to fight, to conquer, to suffer, in common with him, made them regard these subordinate beings as a convenient step by which they could approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The custom, so prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in this feeling, and not in the mere desire of concealing excesses under the disguise of a mask; otherwise, so serious and pathetic a spectacle as tragedy could never have originated in the choruses of these satyrs. The desire of escaping fromselfinto something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, breaks forth in a thousand instances in these festivals of Bacchus. It is seen in the colouring the body with plaster, soot, vermilion, and different sorts of green and red juices of plants, wearing goats’ and deer skins round the loins, covering the face with large leaves of different plants; and lastly in the wearing masks of wood, bark, and other materials, and of a complete costume belonging to the character.’ To complete this description it may be added that ‘drunkenness, and the boisterous music of flutes, cymbals and drums, were likewise common to all Dionysiac festivals[613].’ Which of all these things is missing in the mediaeval or modern counterpart of the festival? The blackening of the face or the wearing of the masks, the feminine costume or beast-like disguise, the boisterous music of bells, the rioting and drunkenness—all are reproduced in the celebration of Kalandae and Brumalia or in the mumming of the Twelve Days. The mummers are the worshippers of a god, whose name however and existence they and their forefathers have long forgotten.
And again are not the Callicantzari faithful reproductions of the Satyrs and Sileni who ever attended Dionysus? Their semi-bestial form with legs of goat or ass affixed to a human trunk, their grotesque faces and goat-like ears and horns, their boisterous and mischievous merriment, their love of wine, their passion for dancing, above all in company with Nereids, the indecency of their actions and sometimes of their appearance, their wantonness and lust—all these widely acknowledged attributes of the Callicantzari proclaim them lineal descendants of Dionysus’ motley comrades.
Such is my interpretation of the facts collected by Polites, and it differs from that which he has advanced in the reversal of cause and effect. Starting from the fact that dressing up in various disguises was the chief characteristic of the Kalandae and Brumalia and is perpetuated in the mumming of the Twelve Days, but failing to carry his researches far enough back and so to discover the absolute identity of these festivals with the ancient Dionysia, he holds that the generally prevalent custom of dressing up in monstrous and horrible disguises at a given period of the year—a custom which he leaves unexplained—was the cause of the belief in the activity of monstrous and horrible demons at that period; those who had once been simply human mummers were exalted to the ranks of the supernatural, but still betrayed their origin by the possession of a name which meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or else ‘hoofed and not booted.’ In my view on the contrary the identity of the modern mumming with the ancient Dionysia is indisputable; and just as in ancient times the belief in the Satyrs and Sileni was the cause of the adoption of satyr-like disguises in the Dionysia, so in more recent times, when the Satyrs, Sileni, and others came to be included in the more comprehensive term Callicantzari, it was the belief in the Callicantzari which continued to cause the wearing of similar disguises during the Twelve Days.
And this interpretation of the facts explains no less adequately than that of Polites the reason why the activities of the Callicantzari are limited to the Twelve Days. That which was in ancient times the special season for the commemoration of Dionysus and his attendants has now with the very gradual but still real decline of ancient beliefs become the only season. This is natural and intelligible enough in itself; but, if a parallel be required, Greek folklore can provide one. No one will suppose that the Dryads of ancient Greece were feared during the first six days of August only, though it is likely enough that they had a special festival at that time; but in modern folklore these are the only days on which, in many parts of Greece, any survival of the Dryads’ memory can be found[614].
Moreover the identification of the Callicantzari with the Satyrs and other kindred comrades of Dionysus elucidates a modern custom which I noticed earlier in this chapter but did not then explain—the rare, but known, custom of making offerings to the Callicantzari. The sweetmeats, waffles, sausages, and even the pig’s bone which are occasionally placed in the chimney for the Callicantzari correspond, it would seem, with offerings formerly made to Dionysus and shared by his train of Satyrs. Possibly even the choice of pork (usually in the shape of sausages) or, in the more rudimentary form of the survival, of a pig’s bone, dates from the age in which the proper victim for Dionysus at the Anthesteria was a sow; but of course it may only have been determined by the fact that pork is the peasant’s Christmas fare and therefore the most ready offering at that season.
How then, it will be asked, does the conclusion here reached, namely that the Callicantzari are, in many districts, the modern representatives of the Satyrs and other kindred beings, square with that other conclusion previously drawn from another set of facts, namely that the Callicantzari were originally not demons but men who either voluntarily or under the compulsion of a kind of madness assumed the shape and the character of beasts? The reconciliation of these two apparently antagonistic conclusions depends primarily on the derivation of the name Callicantzari.
Now the conditions which in my opinion that derivation should satisfy, have already been indicated in my discussion of dialectic forms and in my criticism of the several derivations proposed by others; but it will be well to summarise them here. They are four in number.
First, the derivation of this word, as of all others, must involve only such phonetic changes as find parallels in other words of the language.
Secondly, it must recognise the commonest formκαλλικάντζαροςas being also the central and original form from which the many dialectic forms in the above table have diverged.
Thirdly, it must explain this form as a compound of a wordκάντζαρος—presumably withκαλός. For, in dialect, there exists a wordσκατζάρι, which is used as a synonym withκαλλικάντζαροςand is evidently in form a diminutive of the wordκάντζαρος, and likewise there exists another synonymλυκοκάντζαρος, which cannot be formed fromκαλλικάντζαροςby an arbitrary shuffling of syllables but is a separate compound ofκάντζαρος—presumably withλύκος.
Fourthly, and consequently on the last-named condition, the wordκάντζαρος, whether alone or in composition with eitherκαλόςorλύκος, must possess a meaning adequate to denote the monsters who have been described.
All these conditions are satisfied in the identification of the wordκάντζαροςwith the ancient wordκένταυρος.
The phonetic change herein involved will, to any who are not familiar with the pronunciation of modern Greek, appear more considerable than it really is. In that pronunciation it must be remembered that the accent, which indicates the syllable on which stress is laid, is everything, and ancient quantity is nothing; and further that the ancient diphthongsauandeuhave come to be pronounced respectively asavorafandevoref. The change of sound in this case may therefore be fairly measured by the difference between kéndăvrŏs and kándzărŏs in British pronunciation[615]. The phonetic modifications therefore which require notice are the substitution ofαforεin the first syllable, the introduction of aζafter theτ, and the loss of thev-sound before theρ.
The change fromεtoαis very common in Greek, especially (by assimilation it would seem) where the following syllable, as in the word before us, has anαfor its vowel. Thusἀλαφρόςis constantly to be heard instead ofἐλαφρός(light),ἀργαλει̯όςforἐργαλειός(a loom),ματα-forμετα-in compound verbs. The insertion ofζ(orσ) afterτis certainly a less common change, but parallels can be found for this also. The ancient wordτέττιγες(grasshoppers) appears in modern Greek asτζίτζικες. A word of Latin origin[616]τεντόνω(I stretch) has an equally common by-formτσιτόνω. The classical wordτύκανον(a chisel) has passed, through a diminutive formτυκάνιον, into the modernτσουκάνι. The wordκεντήματα(embroideries) has a dialectic formκεντζήματα[617]. From the adjectiveμουντός(grey, brown, dusky) areformed substantivesμουντζοῦραandμουντζαλι̯ά(a stain or daub). The substantiveκατσοῦφα(sulkiness, sullenness) is probably to be identified with the ancientκατήφεια. The two most frequently employed equivalents for ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’—τρελλόςandζουρλός—are probably of kindred origin—an insertion ofζin the former having produced firstτζερλόςand thence(τ)ζουρλός. Finally there is some likelihood that the wordκάντζαρος, in a botanical sense in which it is now used, is to be identified with the ancient plant-nameκενταυρεῖονorκενταύριον. The former indeed now denotes a kind of juniper, while the later is of course our ‘centaury’; but this difference in meaning is not, I think, fatal to the identification of the words. At the present day the common-folk are extraordinarily vague in their nomenclature of natural objects. In travelling about I made a practice of asking my guides and others the names of flowers and birds and suchlike; and my general experience might fairly be summed up by saying that the average peasant divides all birds which he does not eat into two classes; the larger ones are hawks, and the smaller are—‘little birds, God knows what’; and an accompanying shrug of the shoulders indicates that the man does not care; while most flowers can be called either violets or gilly-flowers at pleasure. Even therefore when a peasant of superior intelligence knows thatκάντζαροςis now the name of a kind of juniper, it does not follow that that name has always belonged to it, and has not been transferred to it from some plant formerly used, let us say, for a like purpose. In this case it is known that both juniper and some kind of centaury were formerly used for medicating wine[618], and the wine treated with either was prescribed as ‘good for the stomach[619].’ Hence a confusion of the two plants is intelligible enough among a peasantry not distinguished by a love of botanical accuracy. But I place no reliance upon this possible identification; the cases previously cited furnish sufficient analogies.
Further it may be noted that in the first two examples of this insertion ofζorσa certain change in the consonants of the next syllable accompanies it. Theγinτέττιγεςbecomesκ, theντinτεντόνωis reduced toτ. In the same way, it seems, whenζwasinserted after theτofκένταυρος, the sound ofvrwas reduced toronly, though certainly the loss of thev-sound might have occurred, apart from any such predisposing modification, as in the common wordξέρω(I know) forἠξεύρω.
Since then the etymological conditions of the problem are satisfied by the identification of the wordκάντζαροςwith the ancientκένταυρος, it remains only to show that the name of ‘Centaurs’ fitly belongs to the monsters whom I have described; and my contention will be that the simple wordκάντζαρος, ‘Centaur,’ surviving now only in the dialectic diminutive formσκατζάρι, adequately expresses every sort and condition of Callicantzaros that has been depicted; thatκαλλικάντζαρος, the general word, of which so many dialectic varieties occur, being simply an euphemistic compound ofκάντζαροςwithκαλόςsuch as we have previously seen in the titleκαλλικυρᾶδεςgiven to the Nereids, expresses precisely the same meaning as the simple wordκάντζαρος, ‘Centaur’; and thatλυκοκάντζαροςoriginally denoted one species only of the genus Centaur, namely a Callicantzaros whose animal traits were those of a wolf.
What then did the ancients mean by the word ‘centaur’?
The mention of the name is apt to carry away our minds to famous frieze or pediment, where in one splendidly impossible creation of art the excellences of man, his head and his hands, are wed with the horse’s strength and speed. This was the species of Centaur which the great sculptors and painters in the best period of Greek Art chose to depict, and these among educated men became the Centaurspar excellence. Yet even so it was not forgotten that they formed only one species, and were strictly to be calledἱπποκένταυροι, ‘horse-centaurs.’ Moreover two other species of Centaur are named in the ancient language,ἰχθυοκένταυροιor fish-centaurs, andὀνοκένταυροιor ass-centaurs. Of the former nothing seems to be known beyond the mere name, but this matters little inasmuch as they can assuredly have contributed nothing to the popular conception of the wholly terrestrial Callicantzari. The ass-centaurs will prove of more interest.
But the list of ancient species of Centaur does not really stop here. No other compounds of the word Centaur may exist, but none the less there were other Centaurs—other creatures, thatis, of mixed human and animal form. Chief among these were the Satyrs, who as pourtrayed by early Greek art might equally well have been called ‘hippocentaurs,’ and in the presentations of Greco-Roman art deserved the name, if I may coin it, of ‘tragocentaurs.’ And the Greeks themselves recognised this fact. ‘The evidence of the coins of Macedonia,’ says Miss Jane Harrison[620], ‘is instructive. On the coins of Orreskii, a centaur, a horse-man, bears off a woman in his arms. At Lete close at hand, with a coinage closely resembling in style, fabric, weight the money of the Orreskii and other Pangaean tribes, the type is the same incontent, though with an instructive difference of form—a naked Satyr or Seilenos with the hooves, ears and tail of a horse seizes a woman round the waist.... This interchange of types, Satyr and Centaur, is evidence about which there can be no mistake. Satyr and Centaur, slightly diverse types of the horse-man, are in essence one and the same.’ Nor was the recognition of this fact confined to Macedonia. A famous picture by Zeuxis, representing the domestic life of Centaurs, with a female Centaur (a creature about as rare as a female Callicantzaros) suckling her young, pourtrayed her in most respects, apart from her sex, conventionally, but gave her the ears of a Satyr[621]. And reversely Nonnus ventured to describe the ‘shaggy Satyrs’ as being, ‘by blood, of Centaur-stock[622].’ In view then of this close bond between the two types of half-human half-animal creatures, it would be natural that, when the specific name Satyr was lost, as it has been lost, from the popular language, while the generic term Centaur survived in the form Callicantzaros, the Satyrs should have been amalgamated with those who from of old had professed and called themselves Centaurs; and with the Satyrs, I suppose, went also the Sileni.
Thus the word Centaur, in spite of the narrowing tendencies of Greek art which selected the hippocentaur as the ideal type, was always comprehensive in popular use, and perhaps became even wider in scope as time went on and the distinctive appellations of Satyrs and suchlike were forgotten; but it is also possible that from the very earliest times the distinction betweenSatyrs and Centaurs was merely an artistic and literary convention, and that in popular speech the name Centaur was applied to both without discrimination. But it does not really concern us to argue at length the question whether the common-folk in antiquity never distinguished, or, having once distinguished, subsequently confused the Satyrs and the Centaurs. It is just worth noticing that it was in art of the Greco-Roman period, so far as I can discover, that horse-centaurs first began to be represented along with Satyrs and Sileni in theentourageof Dionysus; and if this addition to the conventional treatment of such scenes was made, as seems likely, in deference to popular beliefs, the date by which the close association of the two classes was an accomplished fact and confusion of them therefore likely to ensue is approximately determined.
At some date therefore probably not later than the beginning of our era, the generic name of Centaur comprised several species of half-human, half-animal monsters, of whom the best known were horse-centaurs, ass-centaurs, Satyrs, and Sileni; and each of these species, it will be seen, has contributed something to one or other of the many types of the modern Centaurs, the Callicantzari.
The horse-centaur, which was the favourite species among the artists of ancient times, has curiously enough had least influence upon the modern delineation of Callicantzari. The only attribute which they seem to have received chiefly from this source is the rough shaggy hair with which they are usually said to be covered; ‘shaggy’ is Homer’s epithet for the Centaurs[623], and the hippocentaurs of later art retained the trait; for it is specially noted by Lucian that in Zeuxis’ picture the male hippocentaur was shaggy all over, the human part of him no less than the equine[624].
The ass-centaur on the contrary is rarely mentioned by ancient writers, but has contributed largely to some presentments of the Callicantzari. Aelian mentions the name, in the feminine formὀνοκενταύρα, but the monster to which he applies it, although true to its name in that the upper part of its body is human and the lower part asinine, is not a creation of superstitious fancy, but, as is evident from other facts which he mentions, some species ofape known to him, none too accurately, from some traveller’s tale. Thelocus classicuson the subject of genuine supernatural ass-centaurs is a passage in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah[625]:καὶ συναντήσουσιν δαιμόνια ὀνοκενταύροις καὶ βοηθήσονται ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον, ἐκεῖ ἀναπαύσονται ὀνοκένταυροι εὑρόντες αὑτοῖς ἀνάπαυσιν—‘And demons shall meet with ass-centaurs and they shall bring help one to another; there shall ass-centaurs find rest for themselves and be at rest.’ Here our Revised Version runs:—“The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves (Heb.‘howling creatures’), and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there.” The comparison is instructive. It is clear from the context that the Septuagint translators were minded to give some Greek colouring to their rendering even at the expense of strict accuracy; for in the previous verse, where our Revised Version employs the word ‘jackals,’ the Septuagint introduces beings whose voices are generally supposed to have been more attractive, the Sirens. The use of the word ‘ass-centaurs’ cannot therefore have been prompted by any pedantic notions of literal translation. The creatures, for all the lack of other literary warranty, must have been familiar to the popular imagination. And what may be gleaned from the passage concerning their character? Apparently they are the nearest Greek equivalent for ‘howling creatures’ and for ‘night-monsters’; and such emphasis in the Greek is laid upon the statement that they will ‘find rest for themselves and be at rest,’ that they must surely in general have borne a character for restlessness. These restless noisy monsters of the night, in shape half-human and half-asinine, are clearly in character no less than in form the prototypes of some modern Callicantzari.
Of the many traits inherited by the Callicantzari from the Satyrs and Sileni, the usual comrades of Dionysus, I have already spoken. So far as outward appearance is concerned, the Satyrs as they came to be pourtrayed in the later Greek art are clearly responsible for the goat-type so common in the description of the Callicantzari, while a reminiscence of the Sileni may perhaps be traced in the rarer bald-headed type. But as regards their manner of life, which as I have shown bears many resemblances to that ofthe Satyrs—their boisterous merriment and rioting, their love of wine, their violence, and their lewdness—these traits cannot of course be referred to the Satyrs any more than to the hippocentaurs or for that matter to the onocentaurs who were probably no more sober or chaste than their kindred. Rather it was the common possession of these qualities by the several types of half-human and half-bestial monsters that allowed them to be grouped together under the single name of Callicantzari.
Thus the conclusion drawn from an historical survey of those ancient festivals which are now represented by the Twelve Days, namely that the Callicantzari are the modern representatives of Dionysus’ monstrous comrades, is both corroborated and amplified by the etymological identification of the Callicantzari (or in the simple and unadorned form, theσκατζάρια) with the Centaurs, of whom the Satyrs and the Sileni are species.
The remaining modern name on which I have to touch readily explains itself in the light of what has already been said. If the wordκάντζαροςis the modern form ofκένταυρος, and if by the name ‘Centaur’ was denoted a being half-human and half-animal both in shape and in character, then the nameλυκοκάντζαροςclearly should mean a creature half-man half-wolf, such as the ancients might have called a lycocentaur, but did actually nameλυκάνθρωπος. Lycocantzaros then etymologically should mean the werewolf—a man transformed either by his own power or by some external influence into a wolf.
The idea of lycanthropy has probably been familiar to the peasants of Greece continuously from the earliest ages down to the present day, either surviving traditionally like so many other beliefs, or possibly stimulated by actual experiences; for lycanthropy is not a mere figment of the imagination, but is a very real and terrible form of madness, under the influence of which the sufferer believes himself transformed (and by dress or lack of it tries to transfigure himself) into a wolf or other wild animal, and in that state develops and satisfies a craving for human flesh. Outbreaks of it were terribly frequent in the east of Europe during the Middle Ages, especially among the Slavonic populations; and it is not likely that Greece wholly escaped this scourge. But whether the idea received some such impetus or no, it was certainly known to the ancient Greeks, and is not wholly forgottenat the present day. This was curiously betrayed by some questions put to an American archaeologist by an Arcadian peasant. Among the items of falsehood vended as news by the Greek press he had seen, but owing to the would-be classical style had failed to understand, certain allegations concerning the cannibalistic habits of Red Indians; and the points on which he sought enlightenment were, first, whether they ran on all fours, and, secondly, whether they went naked or wore wolf-skins. In effect the only form of savagery familiar to his mind was that of the werewolf.
Now here, it might be thought, is the clue by which to explain the first conclusion which we reached, namely, that the Callicantzari were originally men capable of transformation into beasts. The nameλυκοκάντζαροςor werewolf, it might be urged, involved the idea of such transformation; and the idea originally associated with the one species was extended to the whole tribe of Callicantzari. At first sight such an explanation is attractive and appears tenable; but maturer consideration compels me to reject it.
In the first place, although the wordλυκοκάντζαροςcannot etymologically have meant anything but werewolf when it was first employed, at the present day in the few districts where the name may be heard, in Cynouria, in Messenia, and, so far as I can ascertain, in Crete, it involves no idea of the transformation of men into beasts; it is merely a variant form forκαλλικάντζαροςand in no way distinguished from it in meaning, and the Callicantzari in those districts are demons of definite hybrid form, not men temporarily transformed into beasts. And conversely in the Cyclades and other places where the belief in this transformation of men is prevalent, the compoundλυκοκάντζαροςseems to be unknown, andκαλλικάντζαρος(or some dialectic form of the same word) is in vogue. Since then in many places where the generic name Callicantzari is alone in use, the human origin of these monsters is maintained, while in those few districts where the specific name Lycocantzari is also used that human origin is denied, it is hard to believe that in this respect the surviving ideas concerning the genus can be the outcome of obsolete ideas concerning the species.
Secondly, if for the sake of argument it be granted that the Callicantzari had always been demons, how came the werewolf, theλυκάνθρωπος, whose very name proved him half-human, to changethat name toλυκοκάντζαρος? How came a man who occasionally turned into a wolf to be classified as one species in a genus of beings whoex hypothesiwere not human even in origin, but demoniacal? We should have to suppose that the peasants of that epoch in which the change of name occurred did not distinguish between men and demons—which, as Euclid puts it, is absurd; wherefore the supposition that the Callicantzari had always been regarded as demons until werewolves were admitted to their ranks cannot be maintained. Rather the point of resemblance between the earliest Callicantzari and werewolves, which made the amalgamation of them possible, must have been the belief that both alike were men transformed into animals.
Since then the belief in the metamorphosis of men into Callicantzari existed before that epoch—a quite indeterminate epoch, I am afraid—in which the wordλυκάνθρωποςfell into desuetude[626]and was replaced byλυκοκάντζαρος, where are we to look for the origin of the idea?
Since the Callicantzari bear the name of the Centaurs, it is obvious that the enquiry must be carried yet further back, and that the ancient ideas concerning the Centaurs’ origin must be investigated. Pindar touches often upon the Centaur-myths; what view did he take of the Centaurs’ nature? Were they divine in origin or human? We shall see that he held no settled view on the subject. Both traditions concerning the origin of the Centaurs were familiar to him just as both traditions still prevail in modern accounts of the Callicantzari; sometimes he follows the one, sometimes the other. On the one hand the Centaur Chiron is consistently described as divine. ‘Fain would I,’ says Pindar[627], ‘that Chiron ... wide-ruling scion of Cronos the son of Ouranos were living and not gone, and that the Beast of the wilds were ruling o’er the glens of Pelion’; and again he names him ‘Chiron son of Cronos[628]’ and ‘the Beast divine[629].’ In Pindar’s view Chiron, be he Beast or God, is certainly not human; and if he is once named by the same poet ‘the Magnesian Centaur[630],’ theepithet need only perhaps declare his habitation. His divinity is plainly asserted, and the legend that he resigned the divine guerdon of immortality in order to deliver Prometheus accords with Pindar’s doctrine.
But on the other hand the story of Ixion as told by Pindar reveals another tradition. Ixion himself was human; for his presumptuous sin of lusting after the wife of Zeus ‘swiftly he suffered as he, mere man, deserved, and won a misery unique[631].’ The son of Ixion therefore by a nebulous mother could not be divine. The cloud wherewith in his delusion he had mated ‘bare unto him, unblest of the Graces, a monstrous son, a thing apart even as she, with no rank either among men or where gods have their portion; him she nurtured and named Centauros; and he in the dales of Pelion did mate with Magnesian mares, and thence there sprang a wondrous warrior-tribe like unto both their parents—like to their dams in their nether parts, and the upper frame their sire’s[632].’ The first Centaur then, the founder of the race, though only half-human in origin, was in no respect divine. How then came Chiron, one of that race, to be divine? The two traditions are inconsistent. Pindar as a poet was not troubled thereby; he chose now the one, now the other, for his art to embroider. But in the science of mythology the discrepancy of the two traditions is important. Once more we must carry our search further back—to Hesiod and to Homer.
The former, in placing the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs among the scenes wrought on the shield of Heracles[633], says never a word to suggest that either set of combatants were other than human; the contrast between them lies wholly in the weapons they use. The Lapithae have their leaders enumerated, Caineus, Dryas, Pirithous, and the rest; the Centaurs in like manner are gathered about their Chieftains, ‘huge Petraeos and Asbolos the augur and Arctos and Oureios and black-haired Mimas and the two sons of Peukeus, Perimedes and Dryalos.’ The account reads like a description of a fight between two tribes, one of them equipped with body-armour and using spears, the other more primitive and armed only with rude wooden weapons.
To this representation of the Centaurs Homer also, in theIliad, consents; for, though he names them Pheres or ‘Beasts,’ it is quite clear that this is the proper name of a tribe of men—men who dwelt on Mount Pelion and were hardly less valiant than the heroes who conquered them. ‘Never saw I,’ says Nestor, ‘nor shall see other such men as were Pirithous and Dryas, shepherd of hosts, and Caineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemus and Theseus, son of Aegeus, like unto the immortals. Mightiest in sooth were they of men upon the earth, and against mightiest fought, even the mountain-haunting Pheres, and fearfully they did destroy them[634].’ And again we hear how Pirithous ‘took vengeance on the shaggy Pheres, and drave them forth from Pelion to dwell nigh unto the Aethices[635].’ Apart from the name ‘Pheres,’ which will shortly be examined, there is nothing in these passages any more than in that of Hesiod to suggest that the conflict of the Lapithae and the Centaurs means anything but the destruction or expulsion of a primitive and wild mountain-tribe by a people who, in the wearing of body-armour, had advanced one important step in material civilisation. Yet in some respects the tribe of Centaurs were, according to Homer, at least the equals of their neighbours; for Chiron, ‘the justest of the Centaurs[636],’ was the teacher both of the greatest warrior, Achilles[637], and of the greatest physician, Asclepios[638]. The only passage of Homer which has been held to imply that the Centaurs were not men comes not from theIliadbut from theOdyssey[639]—ἐξ οὗ Κενταύροισι καὶ ἀνδράσι νεῖκος ἐτύχθη—which Miss Harrison[640]translates ‘Thence ’gan the feud ’twixt Centaurs and mankind,’ inferring therefrom the non-humanity of the Centaurs. It is however legitimate to take the wordἀνδράσιin a stricter sense, and to render the line, ‘Thence arose the feud between Centaurs and heroes,’ to wit, the heroes Pirithous, Dryas, and others; and the inference is then impaired. But in any case theIliad, the earlier authority, consistently depicts both Chiron and the other Centaurs as human. The tradition of a divine origin must have arisen between the date of theIliadand the time of Pindar, and from then until now popular opinion must have been divided on the question whetherthe Centaurs, the Callicantzari, were properly men or demons. But one part of the conclusion at which we first arrived, namely that Callicantzari were originally men, is justified by Homer’s and Hesiod’s testimony.
What then of the other part of that conclusion? There is ancient proof that the Callicantzari were originally men; but what witness is there to the metamorphosis of those men into beasts? The Centaurs’ alternative name, Pheres.
An ethnological explanation of this name has recently been put forward by Prof. Ridgeway[641]. Concluding from the evidence of theIliadthat ‘the Pheres are as yet nothing more than a mountain tribe and are not yet conceived as half-horse half-man,’ he points out, on the authority of Pindar, that Pelion was the country of the Magnetes[642]and that Chiron not only dwelt in a cave on Pelion, but is himself called a Magnete[643]. ‘It is then probable,’ he continues[644], ‘that the Centaur myth originated in the fact that the older race (the Pelasgians) had continued to hold out in the mountains, ever the last refuge of the remnants of conquered races. At first the tribes of Pelion may have been friendly to the (Achaean) invader who was engaged in subjugating other tribes with whom they had old feuds; and as the Norman settlers in Ireland gave their sons to be fostered by the native Irish, so the Achaean Peleus entrusted his son to the old Chiron. Nor must it be forgotten that conquering races frequently regard the conquered both with respect and aversion. They respect them for their skill as wizards, because the older race are familiar with the spirits of the land.... On the other hand, as the older race have been driven into the most barren parts of the land, and are being continually pressed still further back, and have their women carried off, they naturally lose no opportunity of making reprisals on their enemies, and sally forth from their homes in the mountains or forests to plunder and in their turn to carry off women. The conquering race consequently regard the aborigines with hatred, and impute to them every evil quality, though when it is necessary to employ sorcery they will always resort to one of the hated race.’