Note 827 — Chapter IV · MAGIC AND RELIGION

O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde (Strasburg, 1901), pp. 637 sq. In ancient Arabia the kâhin (etymologically equivalent to the Hebrew kôhen, “priest”) seems to have been rather a soothsayer than a priest. See J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums² (Berlin, 1897), pp. 134, 143. The confusion of magic with religion, of spell with prayer, may also be detected in the incantations employed by Toda sorcerers at the present day. See W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, pp. 272 sq.: “The formulae of magic and of the dairy ritual are of the same nature, though the differentiation between the sorcerer and the priest who use them is even clearer than that between the sorcerer and the medicine-man. It is probable that the names of the gods with the characteristic formulae of the prayer are later additions to the magical incantation; that at some time the sorcerer has added the names of the most important of his deities to the spells and charms which at one time were thought to be sufficient for his purpose.”