WITCHCRAFT IN CHILE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16497, 6 August 1921, Page 3

WITCHCRAFT IN CHILE.

MEDI/EVAL SUPERSTITIONS CURIOUS RURAL BELIEFS. The mediaaval type of witchcraft, with its machinery of malign old women, less well-defined wizards, broomsticks, black tomcats, be-goats, “ Sabbaths,” and compacts signed in blood, belongs, in Great Britain at least, to the past. In countries that lie off the main course of the world’s activities, however, witchcraft still retains something of its former prestige. Ido not refer, says Oswald H. Evans, in “Chambers’s Journal,’’ to peoples of non-European blood among whom magic and religion are almost synonymous terms, but to tlie more isolated communities of European descent, and especially to those of South America. In spite of th© great strides taken of late years in the development of the southern continent, it remains, as a whole, in a backward state as regards education and popular enlightenment. It is an exaggeration to say that the rural population of Chile is saturated with superstititions. Sometimes they are merely laughable, occasionally serious enough. An instance of the first kind occurred when the writer innocently broke a taboo. It seems that a woman must not gather figs. As a lazy gardener had neglected to collect the fruit which was wanted for the dinner-table, I sent a servant-girl up the ladder. There was at once a dismal outcry from the gardener and his wife. The tree is doomed ; it will bear no more fruit; the tigs of this season will wither on the branches.

SEARCH FOR BURIED TREASURE. The belief in buried treasure is very prevalent in Chile, not wholly without justification. Tlie country has suffered so much from “ alarums and excursions’’ that on many occasions families have buried their most valued possessions, and left the locality, sometimes, through .accident of fate, never to return. Now, a treasure thus hidden may for one year be taken up by the fortunate finder without let or hin-

drance, but at the expiration of that time it passes into the custody of the witches, and it is no easy task to obtain possession of it. The deliberate search for buried treasure is beset with extraordinary difficulties. Times and seasons must be taken into consideration; silence, darkness, and solitude are essential. The searcher must steel his heart against unknown perils; he must be prepared to see and hear terrible things. The determined treasure-hunter, however, may avail himself of certain mechanical aids, if we may so call them. These are varied; but the following, I am informed, was tried, without success, in tho locating of treasure supposed to exist on a hillside within half an hour of Valparaiso. The witches who guard the gold can often be seen at night from the public roadway, in the form of flickering lights known as candillos. The midnight hour approaching, the seeker prepares a hollow gourd. Inside this he fixes a candle and a reel of cotton, so arranged as to unroll easily. Arrived at the spot, with his spade and sack to dig up and carry off the gold, ho awaits the propitious moment, repeating appropriate formulas, and supporting as best he may the molestations of the guardians and their familiars. Sometimes ho hears people coming. But this is all illusion. At midnight he lights the candle in the gourd, takes hold of the end of the string, and flings the gourd so that it rolls along the ground, leaving him with a clue of thread with which to track it to its resting place. At the spot where the gourd lies lie must dig. Tho witches redouble their exertions; nolicemen and dogs converge upon him from all sides. When the treasure is revealed at last, a horrid shape is seated on it, the guardian-witch in person, who abuses him with more than tlie eloquence of a Chilian market woman. It is not surprising that the witches generally manage to retain their hoards.

witches generally manage to retain their hoards. FORMS OF WITCHES. It will be seen that the account ! given above falls into line with similar stories in many parts of the world. In , certain respects, however, Chilian witches differ from those of Europe, thanks, possibly, to their having learned a thing or two from the Araucanian uiedicine-women. The Chon-chon, for instance, seems to be peculiar to the country. In its least romantic form the Clionchon is merely a night-bird with a harsh and bodeful cry, auguring evil. Some of the nocturnal birds of Chile have lamentable voices, and the popu- | !ar beliefs concerning them are widely i diffused. This bird, however, is no true bird, but the vehicle of a witch, and is nothing less than tho head of the sorceress, using its ears as wings. A boy who lived not far from Santiago desired, like many another, to learn to fly. His aunt, fortunately, was a witch, so he pestered her with ' requests that she should teach him the art, till at last, in weariness, she consented. The preparations consisted in a veritable “ tarring and feathering,” for she anointed him with certain unguents and scattered feathers all over him. Then, leading him to the brow of a hill at nightfall, she told him to launch out, repeating the phrase. “Sin Dios y sin Santa Maria ” (“Without God .and Mary”). The boy, who began to wish that he had not come, leaped into space and flew for a moment, until, becoming confused with the novelty of his situation, he invert od the formula, saving “ Con Dios v con Santa Maria ” —crashing heavily in consequence. THE CALCHONA. Another form taken by the witches is that of the calchona. This is a mvthical animal, described as a kind of blend between the dog and the goa fc . it has long silvery hair, and is generally inoffensive if left alone, pattering past the affrighted traveller intent upon his own affairs. The witch enters this form by the employment of certain ointments. In the current story, the husband awoke to see his wife rise from bed, apply the ointment, and glide out in the night in the abhorred form of a calchona. Ho takes tho ointments and flings them into the acequia—the open drain that still traverses some country houses, where tho water dissolves and washes away the contents of the pots. At dawn tho witch returns, and, finding her unguents gone, and being unable without their use to return t Q her human form, dashes frantically about tho house, till the growing light drives her forth into the wide world. At night the man hears the pattering footsteps circling the house, and tho poor beast rears up against the window to catch a glimpse

of the children from whom she is parted for ever. This myth, in one form or other, is said to be current all over South America. and to exist also in Mexico. It is probaby, therefore, a Spanish importation. Witches tell the future hv th© aid of a shining stone in which thev gaze. It is called the challanaca. and its use for the same purpose in ancient Peru shows that “crystal-gazing” was not confined to the old world. Of late the spread of education has led them to adopt tho technique of the professional medium, and as such they gain credence among classes that have outgrown the native superstitions of the country. FIGHT AGAINST IGNORANCE. In Chile, too, the golden age of witchcraft is over. Slowly, but surely, the light penetrates. The schoolmasters and mistresses—a class to whom the public owes much and pays verv little—spend their lives in an uphill fight against ignorance and alcohol. Slowly the authorities are awakening to their great resnonsibilities towards their poorer fellow citizens, and the day cannot be far distant when this small population, the raanv virtues of which render it worthv to bo raised both socially and materially, will receive the blessed gift of compulsorv education, and “ witches and other night fear/’ robbed of the potent ointment of ignorance, will fly forth like the fabled calchona.