there is a possibility that supernatural beings are thought to become enmeshed within the brush of a broom while it is in use,[1] and that these beings are then supposed to be the active agents in the magical operations under discussion; I have not, however, any evidence concerning Japanese beliefs which appears to support a hypothesis of this kind rather than the one previously set forth.
We are now in a position to examine the minor details of those forms of the guest-removing operation in which the broom appears as representing the visitor. In the first of these the placing of the sandals before the broom and the request to it to "please go away quickly" seem to be in full consonance with the conceptions of the broom as representant of the visitor, and completely out of accord with an idea of it as an object having inherent powers capable of direction; we may therefore, I think, take as the probable present intention of the broom's use here the production, in the visitor, of a mental discomfort which shall cause him to put on his sandals (discarded upon entering the house) and depart. Similarly, in the variant in which beckoning is resorted to, a mental discomfort would seem to be aimed at. In the third form, however, where the end resting on the floor is fanned, the intention is, I think, probably that the visitor's feet should be caused to become cold, and that his physical discomfort should lead him to go or, at least, to think of his departure.[2] We may observe, incidentally, that an intention to produce such physical discomfort would bring the operation very closely into line with the many majinai in which actual physical injury of a person is looked for as the result of
- ↑ Cf. p. 171, supra. (Compare also Sainter, op. cit. p. 33, footnote 6, where various harmful results believed to follow striking, etc., with brooms are attributed to the actions of spirits ("geister") caught in the brooms during sweeping and clinging to them.
- ↑ Some other majinai for causing a visitor to leave, based on operations carried out on his clogs or near to his feet, are given in Man, 1915, 80.
