[84] Grimm, Teut. Myth. III. 1104: To higher antiquity witches were priestesses, physicians, fabulous _night_-wives, never as yet persecuted. Maidens might turn into swans, heroes into werewolves, and lose nothing in popular estimation. The abuse of a spell was punished. A wise woman, healing sickness and charming wounds, begins to pass for a witch only when with her art she does evil. In course of time, when the Devil’s complicity with every kind of sorcery came to be assumed, the guilt of criminality fell upon all personal relations with him. Ethn. Rep. 1901-2, p. 393: “Though the witch may be regarded as all powerful, none but the poor and unfortunate are condemned. Few others are even brought to trial—their prominence prevents public accusation.” This again reminds us some of our customs; namely, that of overlooking the transgressions of the rich and powerful. See note 91, and for outlaws note 112.
[85] Such artificial frenzies had a serious effect upon the body, and more particularly the eyes, so that many shamans (Siberia, America, etc.) become blind.
Only by instilling in their fellows a firm belief in this superstition and maintaining the sham, could the perpetrators of the outrages hope to escape punishment for their depredations, could they hope to plunder and steal with impunity.[86] So they prowled usually under the cloak of _night_ or of the dark of the forest,[87] howled and acted like the animals they represented, hid the animal skin or blanket, if they used one,[88] in the daytime where they thought no one could find it, whereas the animal skin which was worn for defence, was put on either by day or night,[89] and one story recounts the swallowing of a whole goat, the man bellowing fearfully like a tiger while he did it.[90] Some of the transformed men claimed they could regain human form only by means of a certain medicine or by rubbing. The imposters were the criminal class of society that is still with us to-day,[91] no longer in werewolf form, but after all wolves in human dress, each maintaining his trade by deception and countless artifices, just as did the werewolf of old. Not unlike these shams are those of the American negro, who in church, when “shouting,” that is, when stirred up by religious fervor, inflicts blows on his enemy who happens to be in the church, of course with impunity; for he is supposed to be under some outside control, and when the spell has passed off, like some of the delusionists mentioned,[92] claims not to know what he (or generally she) has done. Similar also are the negro voudoo ceremonies, those of the fire-eaters, or any other sham.