Notes on nudity in magic ritual

Note: this text is extracted from Book III, chapter 20.

In many forms of black magic nudity appears to be an essential factor. The reason for this is hard to explain, and many suggestions have been put forward.

The most probable are:

1. Dread of pollution which may arise during a rite, and so spoil the incantation.
2. Clothes used in a sacred or magical rite become taboo and cannot be used again.
3. In order to do abnormal things successfully, the state of the operator should also be abnormal; hence nudity is a great asset.
4. Complete nudity represents total submission to the spirit power whose aid is needed in the particular rite to be carried out.
5. Nudity is supposed to shock the spirits and so force them to grant the desired aid.
6. The belief in the apotropæic powers attributed to the sexual organs.

As will be readily seen, it would be little short of pure guess-work in most cases to pick out a nudity rite and definitely assign to it one or other of the above explanations. We can only be certain of the true reason when actions accompanying the ritual make it obvious. For instance, in many countries ceremonies to obtain rain are often carried out in a state of complete nudity. Here the reasons seem to be twofold. In the first place, as the nature of the rite is usually to produce rain, by drenching the body with water, or standing up to the neck in water, it is obvious that any clothes would be ruined. Secondly, if other methods have failed it is necessary to give the Rain God a shock, to wake him up, to arouse his pity or to make him give what is wanted through fear. Thus some unusual and curious sight would be bound to arrest his attention. A few examples will help to explain these points.

On the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, various methods to produce rain after a drought are employed in many parts of the world. After prayers and sacrifices have proved ineffective, other means are tried. Thus in the Rumanian village of Ploska both girls and women go naked at night to the boundaries of the village, and pour water on the ground, in the hope that the sky will do likewise. Similarly in Serbia a girl is stripped and covered in grass, flowers and herbs. She is then conducted, dancing and singing, to every house, where she has a pail of water thrown over her (Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i, pp. 248, 273). In other cases nude women have recourse to a ploughing rite to procure rain. Thus in Russia they draw a furrow round the village, and bury at the juncture a cock, a cat and a dog. The cat is sacred, and the dog is considered a demonic character, so both sides are thus conciliated (Conway, Demonology, vol. i, p. 267). In Chunār, Mirzapur district, after the drought in 1892 had continued a long time, the following ceremony was performed secretly:—

“Between the hours of nine and ten p.m. a barber’s wife went from door to door and invited all the women to join in ploughing. They all collected in a field from which all males were excluded. Three women from a cultivator's family stripped off all their clothes; two were yoked to a plough like oxen, and a third held the handle.

They then began to imitate the operation of ploughing. The woman who had the plough in her hand shouted:

‘O Mother Earth! bring parched grain, water and chaff. Our bellies are bursting to pieces from hunger and thirst.’

Then the landlord and village accountant approached them and laid down some grain, water and chaffin the field. The women then dressed and went home”

(North Indian Notes and Queries, vol. i, p. 210).

Cf. Russell, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii, p. 563.

In a district of Transylvania the girls take off all their clothes and, led by an older woman, who is also naked, steal a barrow and carry it across the fields to a brook, where they set it afloat. They then sit on the barrow, keeping a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour. Then they leave the barrow in the water and return home (Frazer, op. cit., p. 282, where other examples are also given).

Volleys of abuse and curses often accompany these rites; thus, when rain fails, the Meitheis of Manipur, headed by their Rājā, strip off all their clothes, and stand cursing each other in the streets of Imphāl, the capital town, while women strip themselves at night and throw rice-pounders into the river (T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, p. 108. See also A. E. Crawley, “Dress,” Hastings’ Enci/.Rel. Eth., vol. v, p. 60).

Nudity also enters into fertility-rites practised by women. In the Pañjāb on a Sunday or Tuesday night, or during the Divālī, or Feast of Lights, a barren woman desiring a child sits on a stool, which is then lowered down a well. After divesting herself of her clothes and bathing, she is drawn up again and performs the Chaukpūrnā ceremony with incantations taught by a wizard. Should there be any difficulty about descending the well, the ceremony is performed beneath a sacred pīpal or fig-tree. It is believed that, after such a ceremony is performed, the well runs dry and the tree withers, the Mana of both having been exhausted during the rite (Census Report, Pañjāb, 1901, vol. i, p. 164. For another version see Pañjab Notes and Queries, vol. iv, p. 58). Crooke records an interesting rite, also from the Pañjāb, performed during the Divālī (“The Divālī, the Lamp Festival of the Hindus,” Folk-Lore, vol. xxxiv, Dec. 1923, p. 276. This was a posthumous publication). On the Amāvas, or no-moon night, barren women, and those who have lost several children, go to a place where four roads meet, strip themselves naked, and cover a piece of ground with the leaves of five “royal” trees, the ptpal(Jicusreligiosa), the bar ficus indica ), the siras (acacia speciosa), and the ām or mango. On this they lay a black bead representing the demigod Rāma, and, sitting down, bathe from pitchers containing water drawn from five wells, one in each of the four quarters of the town or village, and one outside it in the direction of the north-east. The water is poured from the pitchers into a vessel with a hole in the bottom, from which it is allowed to drop all over the women’s bodies. The well from which the water has been drawn for this purpose is supposed to lose its fertilising power and runs dry.

Magical powers of healing disease are often practised in a state of nudity. In the Sirsā district a man can cure a horse attacked by a fit by taking off all his clothes and striking the animal seven times with his shoe on its forehead. In the Jālandhar district paralysis in cattle is cured by a man stripping himself naked and walking round the animal with a wisp of burning straw in his hand. The Orāon tribe supplies many instances of similar practices. At the time of the rice harvest they practise a solemn rite for driving fleas out of the village, in the course of which young men strip off their clothes, bathe, wrap themselves in rice-straw, and march round the houses, where they receive doles of food (W. Crooke, “Nudity in India in Custom and Ritual,” Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xlix, 1919, p. 248. See the whole paper for numerous other references, only a few of which are quoted in this note).

Semi-nudity has always been regarded by Brāhmans as a mark of respect when in a holy place or before superiors. Thus they bare their bodies in the more sacred precincts of a temple or in the presence of the Mahārāja. This is still observed at the Darbārs of H.H. the Mahārāja of Mysore (see Crooke, Joum. Anth. Inst., vol. xlix, p. 238).

In circumambulating the Kaaba at Mecca pilgrims at one time used to either strip or borrow other clothes, as their own would become taboo owing to contact with the sacred place or function (W. Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 2nd edition, p. 481).

From the above examples we can see that there is a distinct mystic significance attached to the naked body, an uncanny power which can be utilised for the purposes of producing rain, procuring offspring, etc. But as is the case with all power, it can also be used for less praiseworthy purposes. It can be employed for acquiring magical properties, to gain control over a person or a spirit. Thus, in Gujarāt, to obtain control over a spirit, the Hindu exorcist goes to a burial-ground alone at midnight on the dark fourteenth day of Aso (October), unearths the body of a low-caste Hindu, and bathes in the river. After bathing, while still naked, he carries the body within a circle cut with a knife or formed by sprinkling a line of water; then he goes on muttering charms, and evil spirits of all kinds congregate round him (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix, part i, p. 418).

A strange story is told in the United Provinces of a noted witch, known as Lonā or Nonā Chamārin, a woman of the caste of leather-dressers. One day all the village women were transplanting rice, and it was noticed that Lonā could do as much work as all her companions put together. So they watched her, and when she thought she was unobserved she stripped off her clothes, muttered some spells, and throwing a bundle of seedlings into the air, each settled down into its proper hole (Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh, vol. ii, p. 171).

Finally there is the question of the apotropæic power of the sexual organs themselves to be considered. Hartland points out (see his article, “Phallism,” Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. ix, p. 830) that as the great instruments of reproduction, and consequently the enemies of sterility and death, the sexual organs are in many countries exhibited and employed, actually and by symbol — i.e. magically—to counteract the depredations of mortality. Furthermore, they are regarded as having prophylactic virtue against all sorts of evil influences. Hence their common use of priapic figures and ithyphallic statues. In his article quoted above, Hartland gives numerous references and examples, some of which we have already noticed.