Magic Stones and Electric Gems Kunz: Magic of Jewels Page 18



	6 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS into a vessel and water poured over it ; the pulverized roots of certain herbs and some blood drawn from the veins.of a black goat are then mixed with the water, and the resulting liquid mixture is thrown up into the air by the rain-maker.¹⁰The sorcerers among the Dieri in Central Australia place such trust in the efficacy of these conjurations as to believe that all rainfalls are produced thereby, generally through the intermediate action of ancestral spirits. If rain falls in a locality where no proceedings of the kind have taken place, then it is supposed that they have been initiated in some contiguous territory, a merely spontaneous and natural rainfall being out of the question. The clouds indeed generate the rain, but it will not be brought to the earth except by magic art. In the complicated magic ceremonies of these Dieri rain-makers, two large stones are employed; after a ceremonial, in the course of which the blood drawn from the two chief sorcerers is smeared over the bodies of the others, the stones are borne away by these two sorcerers for a distance of about twenty miles, and there put far up on the highest tree that can be found, the object evidently being to bring them as near to the clouds as possible.¹¹ Bock-crystal as a rain-compeller finds honor among the wizards of the Ta-ta-thi tribe in New South Wales, Australia. To bring down rain from the sky one of them will break off a fragment from a crystal and cast it heavenward, enwrapping the rest of the crystal in feathers. After immersing these with their enclosure in water, and leaving them to soak for a while, the whole is removed and buried "P. Stuhlmann, "Mit Emin Pascha im Herz von Africa," Berlin, 1894, p. 588. ⁿ S. Gason, " The Dieyeric Tribe " in " Native Tribes of South Australia," pp. 276 sqq. ; see also : A. W. Howitt, " The Dieri and Other Kindred Tribes of Central Australia."