Disease Demons

The other field in which spirits were evil was that of sickness and disease. Just as the sorcerer sent his familiar spirit to attack the vitals of a victim, so the abnormal symptoms that marked a departure from normal health were believed to be caused by disease demons that were evil spirits from the other world. These disease demons were held to be derived from the spirits of those who had never reached maturity in this world: abortions and miscarriages. It would seem that such spirits, having been frustrated in this life by not reaching maturity, sought revenge on human beings by entering their bodies and bringing about the abnormal symptoms that are caused by disease. But even here there had to be some reason page 12for the attack, and the reason generally given was an infringement by the patient of one of the many taboos. The established pattern was that particular disease demons belonged to the family in which the abortion or miscarriage had occurred, and it was the infringement of the taboos of that family that the disease demon punished. The treatment consisted in identifying the disease demon that was present in the patient and then asking the leading member of the family owning the demon to remove it. The removal or casting out of the evil spirit was accomplished by exorcism, the recital of a command, or some ritual phrases. In civilized society, we have an example of exorcism where Christ cast out the evil spirits from a sick man. The evil spirits entered the bodies of swine which dashed over a cliff and so destroyed themselves. The Polynesians could not afford to waste their limited quantity of swine so, during the exorcism, a material object of no economic value, such as a reed or toy canoe, was provided; and, after the disease demon had entered this form of transport, it was floated away on a stream or the ocean back to the unknown. From its wide distribution in Polynesia, this simple form of bedside treatment seems to have been the earlier pattern, but later some of the disease demons were raised to the status of minor gods controlling disease by mediums, who, by a more page 13elaborate ritual, raised their own status to that of minor priests. The elevation of disease demons into minor gods is well exemplified in the religion of Mangareva.^*