Laudator Temporis Acti

William M. Brashear (1946-2000), "The Greek Magical Papyri: an Introduction and Survey; Annotated Bibliography (1928-1994)," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.18.5 (1995) 3380-3684 (at 3410):

The turn of the century witnessed a hotbed of activity in the research on ancient magic, despite the scornful sneers of WILAMOWITZ and his school who repudiated USENER, DIETERICH and their associates as „Verehrer des Aberglaubens“ and their research methods as „Βοtokudenphilologie“.¹¹⁹ DIETERICH, undaunted by WILAMOWITZ' barbs — but also by the great man's almost total neglect of his research (in his 'Glaube der Hellenen' WILAMOWITZ mentions DIETERICH, who after all had produced over 1000 pages of research on Greek religion, only three times) — decided to take a step towards realizing his corpus of magical texts by undertaking a complete re-edition of the great Paris magical papyrus (PGM IV).

¹¹⁹ Quoted by PFISTER in ARW 35 (1938) 183. I have not been able to locate this quote in WILAMOWITZ' œuvre itself, and know it only from PFISTER'S account. The Botocudes are a now extinct tribe of eastern Brazil. Cf. for example, C. NIMUENDAJU, Social Organization and Beliefs of the Botocudes of Eastern Brazil, Southwestern Jnl. of Anthropology 2.1 (1946); ELIADE, Naissances 158.
Cf. the comments made by G. MASPERO, Mémoire sur quelques papyrus du Louvre, Paris 1875, 122, referring to P.Louvre dem. E 3229 (= JOHNSON, Enchoria 7 (1977) 55ff.): «ce qui en reste suffit à montrer qu'il ... renferme des formules magiques sans grand intérêt pour la science». By LENORMANT, Catalogue d'une collection d'antiquités, Paris 1857, no. 1073: «fromage gnostique» (referring to PGM IV). By NILSSON, Religion 155: „elendes Zeug“.

Botocudo is a Portuguese word (from botoque = bung, plug) and refers to the wooden disks worn by tribal members in their lips and ears.