ts, he "invokes his ancestors and says,
'Sun! I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds
in the sky'" (Frazer, _ib._, 116). Again, amongst the Masai in time of
{154} drought a charm called ol-kora is thrown into a fire; the old men
encircle the fire and sing:--

"God of the rain-cloud, slake our thirst,
We know thy far-extending powers,
As herdsmen lead their kine to drink,
Refresh us with thy cooling showers."
--HOLLIS, p. 348.

If the ol-kora which is thrown into the fire makes it rise in clouds of
smoke, resembling the rain-clouds which are desired, then here too the
ceremony taken as a whole presents the appearance of a magical rite
accompanied by a spoken spell. It is true that in this case the
ceremony is reenforced by an appeal to a god, just as in the New
Caledonian case it is reenforced by an appeal to ancestor worship. But
this may be explained as showing that here we have magic and charms
being gradually superseded by religion and prayer; the old formula and
the old rite are in process of being suffused by a new spirit, the
spirit of religion, which is the very negation and ultimately the
destruction of the old spirit of magic. Before accepting this
interpretation, however, which is intended to show the priority of
magic to religion, we may notice that it is not the only interpretation
of which the facts are susceptible. It is {155} based on the
assumption that the words uttered are intended as an explanation of the
meaning of the acts performed. If that assumption is correct, then the
performer of the ceremony is explaining its meaning and intention to
somebody. To whom? In the case of the New Caledonian ceremony, to the
ancestral spirits; in the case of the Masai old men, to the god. Thus,
the religious aspect of the ceremony appears after all to be an
essential part of the ceremony, and not a new element in an old rite.
And, then, we may consistently argue that the Framin women who sing,
"Our husbands have gone to Ashantee land; may they sweep their enemies
off the face of the earth," are either still conscious that they are
addressing a prayer to their native god; or that, if they are no longer
conscious of the fact, they once were, and what was originally prayer
has become by vain repetition a mere spell. All this is on the
assumption that in these ceremonies, the words are intended to explain
the meaning of the acts performed, and therefore to explain