 Section 6 of Volume 1 of the Golden Bow by James Fraser This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Volume 1 of the Golden Bow, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, Volume 1 Chapter 3, Sub-Chapter 2, Part 5 Homoeopathic magic applied to make plants grow. Magic at sowing and planting Among the beneficial uses to which a mistaken ingenuity has applied, the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic is that of causing trees and plants to bear fruit in due season. In Thuringen, the man who sows flax carries a seed in a long bag which reaches from his shoulders to his knees, and he walks of long strides, set the bag sways to and fro on his back. It is believed that this will cause the flax to wave in the wind. In the interior of Sumatra, rice is sown by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down their back in order that the rice may grow luxuriously and have long stalks. Similarly, in ancient Mexico, a festival was held in honour of the goddess of maize, or the long-haired mother, as she was called. It began at the time when a plant attained its full growth, and five as shooting forth from the top of the grain ear indicated that the grain was fully formed. During this festival, the women wore their long hair unbound, shaking and tossing it in the dances, which were the chief feature in the ceremonial, in order that the tassel of the maize might grow in the profusion, that the grain might be correspondingly large and flat, and that the people might have abundance. Here's a Malay maxim to plant maize when your stomach is full, and to see that your dibble is thick, for this will swell the ear of the maize, and they say that you should sow rice also with a full stomach, for then the ears will be full. The eminent novelist, Mr. Thomas Hardy, was once told that the reason why certain trees in front of his house near way mouth did not thrive was that he looked at them for breakfast on an empty stomach. More elaborate still are the measures taken by an Estonian peasant woman to make her cabbages thrive. On the day when they are sown, she begs great pancakes in order that the cabbages may have great broad leaves. And she wears a dazzling white hood in the belief this will cause the cabbages to have fine white heads. Moreover, as soon as the cabbages are transplanted, a small round stone is wrapped up tightly in a white line and rag, and set at the end of the cabbage bed, because in this way the cabbage heads will grow very white and firm. Among the huzzles of the Carpathians, when a woman is planting cabbages, she winds many cloths about her head in order that the heads of the cabbages may also be thick, and as soon as she has sown, obviously, she grasps the calf of the leg with both hands saying, may it be as thick as that. Among the cowers of East Prussia, who would have a long sandy tongue of land known as the nirang, which parts a Baltic from a lagoon, when a farmer sows his fields in spring, he carries an axe and chops youth with it in order that the corn stalks may be so sturdy that an axe will be needed to hew them down. For much the same reason, a Bavarian sower in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring in order that the corn may have a fine yellow colour. The Malagasy think that only people with a good, even set of teeth should plant maize, for otherwise there will be empty spaces in the maize cob corresponding to the empty spaces in the planter's teeth. Dancing and leaping high as a charm to make the crops grow high. In many parts of Europe, dancing or leaping high in the air are proved homeopathic modes of making the crops grow high, thus in Franz Komte, they say that you should dance at the carnival in order to make the hemp grow tall. In the Vosges Mountains, the sower of hemp pulls his nether garments up as far as he can, because he imagines that the hemp he sowing will attain the precise height to which he has succeeded in hitching up his bridges, and in the same region another way of ensuring a good crop of hemp is to dance on the roof of the house on 12th day in Swabia. Among the Transylvanian Saxons is a common custom for a man who has sown hemp to leap high on the field, in the belief that this will make the hemp grow tall. All over Baden, till recently, there was a custom for the farmer's wife to give the sower a dish of eggs or a cake baked with eggs either before or after sowing in order that he might leap as high as possible. This was deemed the best way of making the hemp grow high. At the same purpose, some people who had sown hemp used to dance the hemp dance, as it was called, on Shrove Tuesday, and in this dance also, the dancers jumped as high as they could. In some parts of Baden, the hemp seed is thrown in the air as high as possible, and in Katztal, the urchins leap over fire as in order that the hemp make grow tall. Similarly, in many parts of Germany and Austria, the peasant imagines that he makes the flex grow tall by dancing or leaping high, all by jumping backwards from a table. By the leap, the taller will the flex be that year. A special season for thus promoting the growth of the flex is Shrove Tuesday, but in some places it is candle-mass or well-purchased night, either May Day. The scene of the performance is the flex field, the farmhouse or the village tavern. In some parts of Eastern Prussia, the girls dance one by one in a large hoop at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The hoop is endured with leaves, flowers and ribbons, and in the next to it are a small bell and some flax. Strictly speaking, the hoop should be wrapped in white linen handkerchiefs, but the place of these often taken by many coloured bits of cloth all and so forth. While dancing with the hoop, each girl was to wave her arms vigorously and cry flax growl, or words to that effect. When she has done, she leaps out of the hoop, or is lifted out of it by her partner. In our halts, when the sewer has sown the flax, he leaps up and flung the seedbag high in the air, saying, Grow and turn green, you have nothing else to do. He hoped that the flax would grow as high as he flung the seedbag in the air. At Quellendorf, in Enhald, when the first bushel of seed corn had to be taped up high in order that the corn stalks would grow tall and bear plenty of grain. When Macadonian farmers had done digging their fields, they threw their spades up into the air and catching them again, and made the crop grow as high as the spade has gone. Plants and trees influenced homeopathically by a person's actual state. The notion that a person can influence a plant homeopathically, where his actual condition comes out clearly in a remark made by a Malay woman, being asked why she stripped the upper part of her body naked in ripping the rice. She explained that she did it to make the rice husks thinner. She was tired of pounding thick husked rice. Clearly she thought that the less clothing she wore, the less husked there would be on the rice. Fertilizing influence supposed to be exercised on plants by pregnant women or by women who have borne many children. Among the meneng kobos of Sumatra, when a rice barn is being built, a feast is held, of which a woman, far advanced in pregnancy, must partake. Her condition will obviously help the rice to be fruitful and multiply. Among the zulus, a pregnant woman sometimes plants corn, which is afterwards burned among the half-grown crops in order to fertilize them. For a similar reason in Syria, when a fruit tree does not bear a guy or a girl gets a pregnant woman too fast in a stone to one of its branches, then the tree will be sure to bear fruit, but the woman will run a risk of miscarriage, having transferred her fertility or part of it to the tree. The practice of loading with stones, a tree, which casts fruit, is mentioned by Mayamanites, though the rabbis apparently did not understand it. The proceeding was most probably a homeopathic charm designed to load the tree with fruit. In Swabia they say if a fruit tree does not bear, it should keep it loaded with a heavy stone all summer, and next year it will be sure to bear. The custom of trying stones to fruit trees in order to ensure a crop of fruit is followed up also in Sicily. The magic virtue of a pregnant woman to communicate fertility is known to Bavarian and Austrian peasants, who think that if you give the first fruit of a tree to a woman a child to eat, the tree will bring forth abundantly next year. In Bohemia, for a similar purpose, the first apple of a young tree is sometimes plucked and eaten by a woman who has born many children, for then the tree will be sure to bear many apples. In the Zuko Oberland, Switzerland, they think that a cherry tree will bear abundantly if its first fruit is eaten by a woman who has just given birth to her first child. In Macedonia, the first fruit of a tree should not be eaten by a Bavarian woman, but by one who has many children. The Nicobar Islanders think it lucky to get a pregnant woman and her husband to plant seeds in gardens. The Greeks and Romans sacrificed perfect victims to the goddess of the corn and of the earth, doubtless in order that the earth might tame with the corn swell in the air. When a Catholic priest demonstrated that the Indians of the Orinoco are allowing their women to sow the fields in a blazing sun with infants at their breasts, the men answered, Father, you don't understand these things, and that is why they vix you. You know that women are accustomed to bear children, and that we men are not. When the women sow the stalk of the maize bears two or three years, the root of the Yulka yields two or three basketballs, and everything multiplies in proportion. Now why is that? Simply because women know how to bring forth and know how to make the seed which they sow bring forth also. Let them sow then. We men don't know as much about it as they do, for the same reason probably. The Topinamas of Brazil thought that if it was certain earth-armen were planted by the men, it would not grow. Among the Ilocans of Luzon, the men sow bananas, but the sower must have a young child on his shoulder, or the bananas will not bear fruit. When a tree bears no fruit, the Galilees think it is a male, and that remedy is simple. They put a woman's petticoat on the tree, which being thus converted into a female will naturally prove prolific. Baron women supposed to make the fruit trees barren. On the other hand, Uganda believe that a barren wife infects her husband's garden with her own stability and prevents the trees from bearing fruit. Hence a child's woman is generally divorced. For a low reason, probably, the Wejaka of East Africa throw away the corpse of a child's woman with all her belongings in the forest, or in any other place where the land is never cultivated. Moreover, her body is not carried out of the door of the hut, but a special passage is broken for her through the wall. No doubt to prevent her dangerous ghost from finding its way back. Taboo is based on the belief that persons can influence vegetation homeopathically by their axle states. Thus, on the theory of homeopathic magic, a person can influence vegetation either for good or for evil, according to the good or the bad character of his axle states. For example, a fruitful one makes plants fruitful. A barren woman makes them barren. Hence a belief in the noxious and infectious nature of certain person qualities or accidents has given rise to a number of prohibitions or rules of avoidance. People abstain from doing certain things lest they should homeopathically infect the fruits of the earth with their own undesirable state or condition. Or such customs of abstentation or rules of avoidance are examples of negative magical taboo. That's for example, arguing from what may be called the infectiousness of personal axle states. The Galilei say that you ought not to shoot with a bow and arrows under a fruit tree, or the tree will cast its fruit even as arrows fall to the ground. And that when you are eating watermelon, you ought not to mix the peps that you spit out of your mouth with the peps which you have put aside to serve your seed. But if you do, though the peps you spit out may certainly sprang up a blossom, the blossoms will keep falling off just as the peps fell from your mouth and thus these peps will never bear fruit. Precisely the same trend of thought leaves the Bavarian peasant to believe that if he allows the graft of a fruit tree to fall on the ground, the tree that springs from the graft will let its fruit fall untimely. The Indians of San Diego, Tepihilcan suppose that in a certain grain of the maize which they are about to sow were eaten by an animal, the birds and the wild boars would come and devour all the rest and nothing would grow. And if any of these Indians has ever in his life buried a corpse, he will never be allowed to plant a fruit tree, for they say that the fruit would wither and they will not let such a man go fishing with him for the fish would flee from him. These Indians imagine that anybody who is buried a corpse is thereby tainted so to say with an affection of death which might prove fatal to fruits and fish. In Nias, the day after man is made preparations for planting rice he may not use fire or the crop would be pieced and he may not spread his mats on the ground or the young plants would droop towards the earth. When the chams of Conchinchina are sowing their dry rice fields and desire that no range to fall, they eat their rice dry instead of moistening it as they usually do with the water in which vegetables and fish have been boiled that prevents rain from spilling the rice. Persons influenced homeopathically by plants. In the foregoing cases, a person is supposed to influence vegetation homeopathically. He infects trees or plants with qualities or accidents good or bad resembling and derived from his own. But on the principle of homeopathic magic the influence is mutual. The plant can affect the man just as much as the man can affect the plant. In magic, as I believe in physics action and reaction are equal and opposite. The Cherokee idioms are adepts in practical pony of the homeopathic sword. Thus, wiry roots of the cat-gut plant or devil's shoestring, tephrosia are so tough they can almost stop a cloud share in the photo. Hence Cherokee women wash their heads for the decoction of the roots to make the hair strong. And Cherokee ball players wash themselves with tap on their muscles. To help them to spring quickly to their feet or air thrown to the ground these Indian ball players also bathe their limbs with a deep coction of the small rush, junkus tennis, which they say always recovers as a wrecked position no matter how often it has trampled down. To improve a child's memory the Cherokees beat up burrows in water which had been fetched from a roaring waterfall. The virtue of this portion is three fold. The voice of the long man or river god is heard in the roar of the cataract. The stream seizes and holds scenes cast upon the surface and there is nothing that sticks like a burrow. Hence, it seems clear that with the portion of the child we'll drink in the lessons taught by the voice of the waters we'll seize them like the stream and stick faster than like a burrow. For a like reason the Cherokee fishermen ties the plant called Venus fly trap, donaea to ease fish trap and he chews the plant and spits it that we'll be sure to make the trap and the bait catch fish just as Venus fly trap catches and odors the insect which are lights on it. The key islanders think that certain creepers which adhere firmly to the trunks of trees prevent voyages at sea from being wafted hither and thither at the mercy of the wind and the waves. The adhesive power of the plants enables their mariners to go straight to their destination. It is a gallery's belief that if you eat a fruit which has fallen to the ground you will yourself contract a disposition to stumble and fall. And to that if you partake of something which has been forgotten such as a sweet potato left in the pot or a banana in the fire you will become forgetful. The gay laris are also of opinion that if a woman were to consume two bananas growing from a single head she would give birth to twins. The Garani Indians of South America thought that a woman would become a mother of twins if she ate a double grain of millet. In Vedic times a curious application of this principle supplied a charm by which a banished prince might be restored to his kingdom. He had to eat food cooked on a fire which was fed with wood which had grown out of the stump of a tree which had been cut down. The recuperative power manifested by such a tree would in due course be communicated through the fire to the food and so to the prince. To eat the food which was cooked on the fire which was fed with the wood which grew out of the tree. Among the Lakundan Indians of Vancouver Island an infallible means of making your hair grow long is to rub it with fish oil and the vulvarized fruit of a particular kind of poplar populous trichocarpata. As the fruit grows a long way up the tree it cannot fail to make your hair grow long too. At a lumber in Central Australia there is a tree to which the son in the shape of a woman is so to have traveled from the east. The natives believed that if the tree were destroyed they would all be burned up and that were any man to kill and eat and or possible from this tree. The food would burn up all his inward parts so that he would die. People supposed to be influenced homeopathically by the nature of the timber of which their houses are built. The Sudanese of the Indian Archipelago regard certain kinds of wood as unsuitable for use of house building especially such trees as have prickles or thorns on their trunks. They think that the life of people who lived in a house made of such timber would be thorny and full of trouble. Again their houses built of trees that have fallen or lost their leaves through age. The inmates would die soon or it would be hard to put it to earn their bread. Again wood from a house that has been burned down should never be used in building or it would cause a fire to break out in the new house. In Java some people would not build a house with the wood of a tree that had been uprooted by a storm. These houses should fall down in like manner and they take care not to construct the upright and the horizontal parts the standing and lying parts as they call them of the edifice out of the same tree. The reason for this precaution is a belief that if the standing and lying woodwork was made out of the same tree the inmates of the house would constantly suffer from ill health. No sooner had one of them got up from a bed of sickness than another would have to lie down on it and so would go on one up and another down perpetually. Before Cherokee Braeus went forth to war the medicine man used to give each man a small charmed root which made him absolutely invulnerable. On the eve of battle the warrior bathed in a running stream chewed a portion of the root and spat the juice in his body in order that the bullets might slide off his skin like the drops of water. Some of my readers perhaps doubt wherever this really made the men bomb proof. There was a barren and paralyzing spirit of skepticism abroad at the present day which is almost deplorable. However the efficiency of this particular charm was proved in the Civil War where 300 Cherokees served in the army of the South and they were never or hardly ever wounded in action. Near Charlotte Waters in Central Australia there was a tree which sprang up to mark the spot where a blind man died. It is called a blind tree by the natives who think that if it were cut down all the people of the neighborhood would become blind. A man who wishes to deprive his enemy of sight need only go to the tree by himself muttering his wish and exhorting the magic virtue to go forth and do his baleful work. In this last example the infectious quality that would emanate directly from a tree is derived originally from a man, namely the blind man who is buried at the place where the tree grew. Similarly the Central Australians believe there is certain group of stones at Andiara are the petrified boils of an old man who long ago plucked them from his body and left them there hence any man who wishes to infect his enemy with boils will go to these stones and throw a miniature spear at them taking care that the points of the spear strike the stones. Then the spears are picked up and thrown one by one in the direction of the person whom it is intended to endure. The spears carry with them the magic virtue from the stones and the result is an eruption of painful boils on the body of the victim. Sometimes a whole group of people can be inflicted in this way by a skillful magician. These examples introduce us to a fruitful branch of homeopathic magic namely to that departure of it which works by means of the dead or just as the dead can neither see nor hear nor speak so you may on homeopathic principles render people blind deaf and dumb by the use of dead man's bones or anything else that is tainted by the infection of death. Thus along the galleries when a young man goes a-willing at night he takes a little earth on the grave and screws it on the roof of his house just by the place where her parents sleep. These he fancies will prevent them from waking while he converses with his beloved since the earth from the grave will make them sleep as sound as the dead. Homeopathic magic of the dead employed by burglars for the purpose of a concealment. Burglars in all ages and many lands have been patrons of this species of magic which is very useful to them in the exercise of their profession. Thus the south Slovenian housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead man's bone over a house same with pungent sarcasm as this bone may weaken so may these people weaken. After that not a soul in the house can keep him or her eyes open. Similarly in Java the burglar takes earth from a grave and sprinkles it around the house which he intends to rob. This throws the inmates into a deep sleep. With the same intention a hindu will strew ashes of a pyre at the door of the house. It is a true scatter dust of dead men's bones. The ruthenian burglars remove the marrow from a human shin bone, pour a tello into it, and having killed the tello, March thrives around the house with this candle burning which causes the inmates to sleep with death like sleep. Or the ruthenian will make a flute out of a human leg bone and play upon it where upon all persons within hearing are overcome with drowsiness. The Indians of Mexico employed for this mouth and purpose the left fallen hour woman who had died in giving birth to her first child. But the arm had to be stolen. With it they beat the ground before they entered the house which they designed to plunder. This caused everyone in the house to lose all power of speech and motion. They were as dead hearing and saying everything but perfectly powerless. Some of them however really slept and even snored. In Europe similar properties were ascribed to the hand of Glory which was the dried and pickled hand of a man who had been hanged. The ever candle made of the fat of a mouth factor would also be lit on the gallows was lighted and placed in the hand of Glory as in a candlestick in red and motionless all persons to whom it was presented. They could not stir a finger anymore than if they were dead. Sometimes a dead man's hand is itself the candle or rather bunches of candles or it's withered fingers being set on fire. But should any member of the household be awake one of the fingers will not kindle. Such nefarious lights can only be extinguished with milk. Often it is prescribed that thief's candle should be made of the finger of a newborn or a still better unborn child. Sometimes it is thought needful that thief should have one such candle for every person in the house or if he has one candle too little somebody in the house will wake and catch him. Once these tapers begin to burn there is nothing but milk that will put them out. In the 17th century robbers used to murder pregnant women in order thus to extract candles from their wombs. An ancient Greek robber or burglar thought he could silence and put to fight the fiercest of watchdogs by playing with him and brand fucked from a funeral pyre. Homopathic magic of the dead ployed for various purposes. Again, Serbian and Bulgarian women who chave had the restraints of domestic life, brought the copper coins from the eyes of the corpse, washed them in wine or water and gave the liquid to their husbands to drink. After swallowing it the husband will be as blind to his twice beccadillios as a dead man was on whose eyes the coins were laid. When a Blackfoot Indian went out eagle hunting he used to take a skull with him because he believed that the skull would make him invisible like the dead person to whom it had belonged and so the eagles would not be able to see and attack him. The Taruhumaras of Mexico are great runners and parties and engage in races with each other. They believe that human burns induce fatigue. Hence before a race the friends of one side will bury dead men's bones in the track where the other runners of the other side will pass over them and so be weakened. Naturally they warn their own men to shun the spot where the bones are buried. The Bilep of New Caledonia think that they can disable an enemy from flight by means of the leg burn up a dead foe. They stick certain plants into the bone and then smash between stones before the skulls of their ancestors. It is easy to see that this breaks the leg of the living enemy and so it is him from running away. Hence in time of war men fortify themselves with amulets of this sort. The ancient Greeks seem to have thought that to set a young male child on a tomb would be to rob him of his manhood by infecting him with the impotence of the dead. And as there is no memory in the grave the eagles think that earth from a grave can make a man forget his brutes and sorrows especially the sorrow of an unhappy love. Homeopathic magic of animals Again animals are often conceded to possess qualities or properties which might be useful to man. And homeopathic or imitated magic sticks to communicate these properties to human beings in various ways. Thus some Bokanas wear a ferret as a charm because being very tenacious to life it would make them difficult to kill. Others wear a certain insect mutilated but living for a similar purpose. Yet other Bikawana warriors wear the hair of a horn of socks among their own hair and the skin of a frog on their mantle because the frog is slippery and the ox having no horns is hard to catch. So the man who is provided with these charms believes that he will be as hard to hold as the ox and the frog. Again it seems plain that a South African warrior who twists stuffs of rat's hair among his own curly black locks will have just as many chances of avoiding the enemy's spear as a nimble rat as of avoiding things thrown at it. Hence in these regions rat's hair is in great demand from warriors expected. In Morocco a foul or a pigeon may sometimes be seen with a red bundle tied to its foot. The bundle contains a charm and it is believed that as a charm is kept in constant motion by the bird a corresponding recesses kept up in the mind of him or her against whom the charm is directed. When Agala sees a tortoise he will take off his sandals and step on it believing that the souls he feed are thereby made hard and strong like the shell of the animal. The Wajakas of Eastern Africa think that if they wear a piece of the wing bone of a vulture tied around their leg they will be able to run and not grow weary just as a vulture flies unweary through the sky. The Eskimos of Batham land fancy that if part of the intestines of a fox is placed under the feet of a baby boy it will become active and skillful in walking over thin ice like fox. One of the ancient books of India prescribes that when a sacrifice is offered for victory the earth out of which the altar is to be made should be taken from a space where a boar has been glowing since the strength of the boar will be in that earth. Homeopathic magic of insects When you are playing the one string loot and your fingers are stiff the thing to do is to catch some long-legged filled spiders and roast them and then rub your fingers with the ashes that will make your fingers as light and nimble as the spider's legs at least so think their galales the eagle is very expert at seizing fish and its talons the key islanders use its claws as a charm to enable them to make great gain on their trading voyages the children of the baronga on Dela Goa bay are much troubled by a small worm which bores under the skin where its mandrings are visible to the eye to guard her little one against this insect pest a baronga mother will attach to its wrist the skin of the mole which bores just under the surface of the ground exactly as the worm bores under the infant's skin to bring back a one-way slave an araba north africa will trace a magic circle on the ground stick a nail in the middle of it and attach a beetle by a thread to the nail taking care how the sex of the beetle is that of the fugitive as the beetle crawls round and round it will quarrel and thread about the nail thus shortening its tether and drawing nearer to the center of every circuit so by virtue of homeopathic magic the one-way slave will be drawn back to his master that agonian indians kill a mare and put a newborn boy in its body believing that this will make him a good horseman the lukundian indians of vancu res islands believe that the ashes of wasps rubbed on the faces of warriors going to battle will render the men as magnatious as wasps and that a decoction of wasps nests or of flies administered internally to baron women will make them prolific life insects among the western tribes a british newkini was killed a snake called bernet and smeary's legs with the ashes when he goes into the forest for no snake will bite him for some days afterwards homeopathic agic of snakes and other animals the barongo of delagoa bay carry the powdered ashes of a serpent in a little bag as a talisman in which gauze him from snake bites among the arabs of moab a woman will give her infant daughter the ashes of a scorpion mixed with milk to drink in order to protect her against the stings of scorpions the chalons of eastern paru think they have to carry the poison tooth of a serpent is a protection against the bite of the serpent and that to rub the cheek with the tooth of an ounce is an infallible remedy for toothache and faceache in order to strengthen a teeth some brazilian indians used to hang around a girl's neck and puberty the teeth of an animal which they called capaguerre that is grass eating when a thoroughbred mare has drunk and a trough an arable woman will hasten to drink any water that remains in order that she may give birth to strong children if a self-servonian has a mind to pilfer and steal a market he is not to do but to burn a blind cat and throw a pinch of its ashes over the person with whom he is equaling after that he can take what he likes from the booth and only will not be a bit wiser and become as blind as a deceased cat with whose ashes he has been sprinkled the thief may even ask boldly did I pay for it and the deluded huckster will apply white certainly equally simple and official is the expedient adopted by natives of central Australia who desire to cultivate their beards they prick the chin all over with a pointed bone and then stroke it carefully with a magic stick or stone which represents a kind of rat that has very long whiskers the virtue of these whiskers naturally passes into the representative stick or stone and thence by an easy transition to the chin which consequently is soon adorned with a rich growth of beard when a party of these same natives has returned from killing a foe and they fear to be attacked by the ghost of the dead man in their sleep every one of them takes care to wear the tip of the tail of a rabbit kangaroo in his hair why? because a rabbit kangaroo being an octonal animal does not sleep up nights and therefore a man who wears the tip of its tail in his hair will clearly be wakeful in the hours of darkness if you're in a mature tribe of central Australia use the tip of the tail of the same animal for the same purpose but they draw out the sympathetic chain one link further from among them when a boy has undergone subsidence and is leading a solitary life in the bush it is not he but his mother who wears the tip of an octonal creature's tail in order that he may be watchful at nights as harm should befall him from snakes and so forth the ancient Greeks thought that to eat the flesh to the wakeful nightgown would prevent a man from sleeping that to smear the eyes of a blearest sighted person with her gall of an eagle would give him the eagle's vision and that a raven's eggs would restore the blackness of the raven to a silvery hair only the person would doubt that this last mode of constaining the raveners of time had to be most careful to keep his mouth full of oil all the time he applied his eggs to his vulnerable rocks else his teeth as well as his hair would be dyed raven black and no amount of scrubbing and scouring would avail to whiten them again the hair restorer was in fact a shade too powerful and applying it you might get more than you bargained for homeopathic magic of animals among the Cherokees and other American Indians the we call Indians of Mexico admire the beautiful markings on the backs of serpents hence when a we call woman is about to weave an emboider her husband catches a large serpent in a cleft stick while the woman strokes the reptile one hand down the whole length of its back then she passes the same hand over her forehead and eyes that she may be able to work as beautiful patterns in the web as the markings on the back of the serpent among the taro humeiros of Mexico men who run races tie deer hooves on their backs in the belief that this will make them swift footed like the deer Cherokee ball players rub their bodies of eels skins in order to make themselves as slippery and hard to hold as eels and they also apply land tortoises to their legs in the hope of making them as thick and strong as the legs of these animals but they are careful not to eat frogs lest the brittleness or the frog's bones should infect their own bones moreover they will not eat the flesh of the sluggish hogsucker they say should lose their speed or the flesh of rabbits lest like the rabbit they should become confused and running on the other hand their friends sprinkle soup made of rabid hamstrings along the path to be taken by their rivals in order to make these rivals timorous in action moreover the ball players will not wear the feathers or the bald-headed buzzard for fear of themselves becoming bald more turkey feathers lest they should suffer form a goiterous growth of the throat like the red appendage on the throat of a turkey the flesh of the common grey squirrel is forbidden to Cherokees who suffer from rheumatism because the squirrel eats in a crap position which will clearly aggravate the pangs of the rheumatic patient and a Cherokee woman who is with child may not eat the flesh of the ruffled grouse because that bird hatches a large brood but loses most of them before maturity strict people indeed will not allow woman to taste of the bird till she is past childbearing when a Cherokee is starting a journey on a cold winter morning he rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and sings four verses by means of which he can set the cold at defiance like the wolf, the deer, the fox and the opossum his feet, so the Indians think I never frostbitten after each verse he imitates the cry in action of the animal thus homeopathically identifying himself with the creature the song he sings may be rendered I become a real wolf, a real deer a real fox and a real opossum homeopathic magic of animals among the Cherokees after stating that he has become a real wolf the songstowe owes a prolonged tale and pours a ground like a wolf with his feet he knows that he has become a real deer he imitates the call and jumping of a deer and after renouncing his identification for all practical purposes with a fox and an opossum he mimics the barking and scratching of a fox and the cry of an opossum when it is driven to bay also throwing his head back just as an opossum does when it feigns death some Cherokees are said to drink tea and may have crickets in order to become good singers like the insects the eyes of a Cherokee child be bathed with water in which a feather of an owl has been soaked the child will be able, like the owl, to keep awake all night the mole cricket has claws with which it burrows in the earth and among the Cherokees he is reputed to be an excellent singer hence when children are long of learning to speak their tongues are scratched with the claw of a live mole cricket in order that they may soon talk as distinctly as the insect grown persons also who are slow of speech may require a ready flow of eloquence if only the inside of their throat be scratched on four successive mornings with a mole cricket the negroes of the Maroni river in Gwena have a somewhat similar cure of a stammering day and night the shrieks of certain species of ape resound through the forest hence when the negroes kill one of these pests they remove its larynx and make a cup of it if a stammering child drinks out of such a soup for a few months it seizes the samurai Cherokee parents scratch the hands of their children with the pincers of a live red crawfish resembling a lobster in order to give the infants a stronger grip like that of the crawfish this may help us to understand why on the fifth day after birth a Greek child used to receive presents of octopus and cut off fish from its friends and real nations for the numerous arms, legs and tentacles of these creatures seemed well calculated to strengthen the grip of a baby's hand and to apart the power of toddling to its little toes homeopathic magic of inanimate things on the principle of homeopathic magic inanimate things as well as plants and animals may diffuse, blessing or bane among them according to the rodentrinsic nature and the skill of the wizard to tap or dan as the case may be the stream of wheel or woe thus for example the galaderies think that when your teeth are being filed you should keep spitting on a pebble for this establishes a homeopathic connection between you and the pebble by virtue of which your teeth will henceforth be as hard and durable as a stone on the other hand you're not to comb a child before it has teeth or if you do its teeth will afterwards be separated from each other like the teeth of a comb nor should children look at a sieve otherwise they will suffer from a skin disease and will have as many swords in their bodies as there are holes in the sieve in saroma canned women give a baby sugar candy to suck and put glue in the pile of its hand in order that when the child grows up his words may be sweet and precious things may stick to his hands as if they were glued the greeks thought that a garment made of the fleece of a sheep that had been torn by a wolf would hurt the wearer setting up an itch or irritation in his skin there were also opinion that if a stone which had been bitten by a dog were dropped in wine it would make all who drank of that wine to fall out among themselves lung the Arabs of Moab a childless woman often borrows a rope of a woman who has had many children hurt beaten with the rope to acquire the frivolous of its owner the caphras of Safala in East Africa had a great dread of being struck with anything hollow such as a reed or a straw and greatly preferred being thrashed with a good thick cudgel or an iron bar even though it hurt very much for they thought that if a man were beaten with anything hollow his inside would waste away till he died in eastern seas there is a large shell which the bulganese of celebs call the old man cadgewell on Friday's they turn these old men upside down and place them on the thresholds of their houses believing that whoever then steps over the threshold of the house will live to be old again the Galeridis think that if you are imprudent enough to eat while somebody is sharpening a knife the throat will be cut that same evening or next morning at latest the disastrous influence thus attributed under certain circumstances to a knife in the East Indies blinds his counterpart in a curious old Greek story a certain king had no child and he asked a wise man how he could get one the wise man himself did not know but he thought that if the birds there might and he undertook to inquire of them before he must know that the sage understood the language of birds having learned it through some serpents whose life he had saved and who out of gratitude had cleansed his ears as he slept so he sacrificed two bulls and cut them up and prayed the fowls to come and feast on the flesh only the vulture he did not invite when the birds came the wise man asked them what the king must do to get a son but none of them knew at last up came the vulture and he knew all about it he said that once when the king was a child his royal father was gilding rams in the field and laid down the bloody knife beside his little son nay he threatened the boy with it the child was afraid to man away and the father stuck the knife at a tree either a sacred oak or a wild pear tree meanwhile the bark of the tree had grown round the knife and hidden it the vulture said that if they found the knife scraped the rust off it and gave the rust mixed with wine to the king to drink for ten days it would be get a son they did so and it felt that exactly as the vulture had said in this story a knife which had gilded rams was supposed to have deprived a boy of his virility merely by being brought near his person through simple proximity it infected him so to say with the same disability which it had already inflicted on the rams and a loss he thus sustained was afterwards repaired by administering to him in a potion the rust which having been left out on the blade by the bloody animals might be supposed to be still imputed with their generative faculty homeopathic magic of iron the strengthening virtue of iron is highly appreciated by the torturgers of central salibs only they apply it externally not internally as we do in Europe this purpose the people of a village assemble once a year in the smithy the master of the ceremonies opens the proceedings by carrying a little pig and a white fowl round the smithy after which he kills him and smears a little of their blood on the forehead of every person present next he takes a doit a choppy knife and a bunch of leaves in his hand and strikes with them the palm of the right hand of every man woman and child and ties a leaf of the dressena to him and nuns to every wrist then a little fire is made in the furnace and blown up with the bellows everyone who feels sicker unwell now steps up to the anvil and the master of the ceremonies sprinkles a mixture of pigs blood water and herbs on the joints of his body and finally on his head wishing him a long life the magician takes the choppy knife heats it in the furnace lays it on the anvil and strikes it 7 times with the hammer after that he is only to cool with the knife in water and the iron cure is complete again on the 7th day after a birth the torredgers hold a little feast in which the child is carried down the house letter and its feet set on a piece of iron in order to strengthen its feeble soul with a strong soul of the iron at critical times by biting on an old sword were setting their feet upon it homeopathic magic of stones at initiation a brahmin boy is made to tread with his right foot on a stone while the words are repeated tread on this stone like a stone bit firm and the same ceremonies performed were the same words by a brahmin bride at her marriage in Madagascar a mode of counteracting the liberty of fortune is to bury a stone at the foot of the heavy house post oath upon stones the common customer swearing upon a stone may be passed partially on belief that the strength and stability of the stone lend confirmation to an oath thus the old Danish historian Saxo Grammatigas tells us that the ancients when they were to choose a king were want to stand on stones planted in the ground and to proclaim their votes or to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting there was a stone at Athens on which the nine archons stood when they swore to rule justly and according to the laws a little to the west of the cynical numbers termed in Iona by the black stones which are so called not for their colour for that is grey but for the effects that tradition says ensured upon poetry if anyone became guilty of it after swearing on these stones in the usual manner for an oath made on them was decisive in all controversies McDonald king of the isles delivered the rites of the lands through his vassals on the isles with uplifted hands and bended knees on the black stones and in this posture before many witnesses he suddenly swore that he would never recall those rites which he then granted and this was instead of his great seal hence it is that when one was certain of what he affirmed he said positively I afraid must swear this matter upon the black stones again in the island of Iran there was a green globular stone at the size of a goose's egg on which oaves were taken it was also endowed with healing virtue for the cured stitches in the size of sick people if only it was laid on the affected part they say that McDonald the lord of the isles carried this stone about with him and that victory was always on his side when he threw it among the enemy once more in the island of flat up there was a round blue stone on which people swore decisive oaths and it too healed stitches in the side of the green stone of Iran when two bogos of eastern Africa have a dispute they will somehow settle it at a certain stone which one of them mounts his adversary calls down the most dreadful curses on him if he forcewares himself and that every cursed man on the stone answers amen in Laconia an unwarded stone was shown which according to the legend relieved the matricide oristers of his madness as soon as he had set it down and Zeus is said to have often cured himself of his love for herda by sitting down on a certain rock in the island of Lukaedia in these cases it may have been thought that the wayward and likely impulses of love and madness were counteracted by the studying influence of a heavy stone homeopathic magic of special kinds of stones but while a general magical efficiency may be supposed to reside in all stones by reason of their common properties of weight and solidity special magical virtues are attributed to particular stones all kinds of stone in accordance with their more specific qualities of shape and colour for example a pothole in a rocky gorge of central Australia contains many rounded boulders which in the opinion of the one among the tribe represent the kidneys, heart, tail, intestines and so forth of an old euro a species of kangaroo hence the natives jump into the pool and after splashing the water all over their bodies rub one another with the stones believing this would enable them to catch euros again not very far from Alice Springs in central Australia there is a heap of stones supposed to be the vomit of two men of the eagle hawk totem who had dined two copiously on eagle hawk men for men and children the natives think that if any person caught sight of these stones it would be taken very sick on the spot hence the heap is covered with sticks to which every pass or by adds one order to prevent the evil magic from coming out and turning his stomach the Indians of Peru employed certain stones for the increase of maize others for the increase of potatoes and others who came for the increase of cattle the stones used to make maize grow were fashioned into the likeness of cobs of maize and the stones destined to a waterplied cattle had the shape of sheep homeopathic magic of stones in New Caledonia nobile perhaps employ stones more freely for the purposes of homeopathic magic that the natives of New Caledonia they have stones of the most diverse shapes and colors to serve the most diverse ends stones for sunshine rain, famine war, madness, death fishing, sailing and so forth thus in order to make a plantation of taro thrive they bury in the field certain stones resembling taro praying to their ancestors at the same time a stone marked with black lines like the leaves of the coconut palm helps to produce a good crop of coconuts to make breadfruit grow they used to stones of different sizes representing the young ripe and the ripe fruit respectively as soon as the fruit begins to form they bury the small stone at the foot of the tree and later on when the fruit of proto's maturity they replace the small stone by the large one the am is the chief crop of the New Caledonians hence the number of stones used to foster its growth is correspondingly great different families have different kinds of stones which according to their diverse shapes and colors are supposed to promote the cultivation of the various species of yams before the stones are buried in the yam field they are deposited beside the ancestral skulls wetted with water and wiped with the leaves of certain trees sacrifices two of yams and fish are offered to the dead with the words here are your offerings in order that the crop of yams may be good again a stone carved in the shape of a canoe can make a voyage prosperous or the reverse according as it is placed before the ancestral skulls with the opening upwards or downwards the ceremony being accompanied with prayers and offerings to the dead again fish is a very important article of diet with the New Caledonians and every kind of fish has a sacred stone which is enclosed in a large shell and kept in the graveyard in performing the right to secure a good catch the wizard swathes the stone in bandages of various colors spits some chute leaves in it and setting it up before the skulls says help us to be lucky at the fishing in these many similar practices of the New Caledonians the magical efficiency of the stones appears to be deemed insufficient of itself to accomplish the end in view it has to be reinforced by the spirits of the dead whose help was sought by prayer and sacrifice moreover the stones are regularly kept in the burial grounds as you desaturate them with the powerful influence of the ancestors they are built from the cemetery buried in the fields with the fruit trees for the sake of quickening the fruits of the earth and they are restored to the cemetery where they have discharges duty thus in New Caledonia magic is blend with the worship of the dead homeopathic magic of stones in Melanesia in other parts of Melanesia unlike belief prevails that certain sacred stones are endowed with miraculous powers which corresponded in nature to the shape of the stone thus the piece of water-worn coral on the beach often bears a surprising likeness to a red fruit hence the banks islands such a coral will lay it at the root of one of his breadfruit trees in the expectation that it will make the tree bear well if the result answers his expectation it will then for a proper renumeration take stones of less smart character from other men and let them lie near his in order to imbue hit them with the magic virtue which resides in it similarly a stone with little discs upon it is good to bring in money and if a man found a large stone with a number of small ones under it like a sow among her litter he was sure that to offer money upon it would bring him pigs in these and similar cases the Melanesians ascribe the marvellous power not to the stone itself but to its indwelling spirit and sometimes as we have just seen a man endeavors to propitiate the spirit by laying down offerings on the stone but the conception of spirits that must be propitiated lies outside the sphere of magic and within that religion where such a conception is found as here in conjunction with purely magical ideas and practices the latter may generally be assumed to be the original stock which the religious conception has been a some later time engrafted but there are strong grounds for thinking that in the evolution of thought magic has preceded religion but at this point we shall return presently homeopathic magic of precious stones the ancients set great store on the magical properties of precious stones indeed it has been maintained with great sure reason that such stones were used as amulets long before they were worn as mere ornaments thus the Greeks gave the name of tree a gate to a stone which exhibits tree like markings and they thought that if two of these gems were tied to the horns or neck of oxen at the plough the crop would be sure to be plentiful again they recognised a milk stone which produced in a bonnet supply of milk and women if only they drank it dissolved in honeymead milk stones are used for the same purpose by Greek women in Crete and Melos at the present day in Albania nursing mothers where the stones in order to ensure a bonnet flow of milk in the crane down to modern times German women have attempted to increase their milk by stroking their breasts with a kind of alum which they call a milk stone again the Greeks believed in a stone which cured snake bites and hence was named the snake stone to test its efficiency he would only to grind the stone to powder and sprinkle the powder on the wound the wine coloured a methiest preceded his name which means not drunken and was supposed to keep the wearer of its sober and two brothers who desired to live at unity were advised to carry matters about with them which by drawing together would clearly prevent them from falling out in Albania people think that if the blood stone is laid on a wound it will stop the flow of blood homeopathic magic of the sun the moon the stars and the sea amongst the things which homeopathic magic seeks to turn to account are the great powers of nature such as the waxing and the waning moon the rising and the setting sun the stars and the sea elsewhere I have illustrated the homeopathic virtues described the waxing and the waning moon here I'll give an Arab charm of the setting sun homeopathic magic of the setting sun when a husband is far away and his wife would bring him home to her she procures pepper and coriander seed from a shop that faces the east and throws them into a lighted brazier at sunset then turning into the east she waved in napkin with which she has wiped herself and says that the setting sun returned having found such and such a one son of such and such a woman in grief and pain may the grief that my absence causes him make him weep may the grief that my absence causes him make him lament may the grief that my absence causes him and bring him back to me if the charm is unsuccessful she repeats it one day at sunrise burning the same perfumes clearly she imagines that as the sun goes away in the west and hives back to the east it should at its return bring the absent one home homeopathic magic of the pool star the ancient books of the Hindus lay down a rule that after sunset on his marriage night a man should sit silent with his wife till the stars begin to twinkle in the sky when the pool star appears he should point it out to her and dressing the stars say firm up thou I see thee the firm one firm be thou with me O thriving one then in turn to his wife he should say to me Buryas Bhatti has given thee obtaining offering through me thy husband live with me a hundred octums the intention of the ceremony is planning to guard against the fickleness of fortune and the incitability of earthy piss by the steadfast influence of the constant star it is the wise and expressed in Kate's last sonnet bright star what I wear steadfast as thou art not in lone splendour hung aloft to the night homeopathic magic of the tides dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow and are apt on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance which here engages our attention to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony between its tides and the life of man of animals and of plants in the flowing tide they see not merely a symbol but a cause of exuberance of prosperity in life while in the ebbing tide they discern a real agent as well as a melancholy emblem of failure of weakness and of death the Breton peasant fantasies that clover is sown when the tide is coming will grow well but that if the plant be sown at low water or when the tide is going out it will never reach maturity and the cows which feed on it will burst. His wife believes that the best butter is made when the tide is just turned and is beginning to flow. That the milk which foams in the churn will go on foaming till the hour of high water is passed and that water drawn from the well or milk extracted from the cow while the tide is rising will boil up in the pot or saucepan and overflow into the fire the galleries say that if you wish to make oil you should do it when the tide is high for then you will get plenty of oil according to some of the ancients the skins of seals even after they have been parted from their bodies remain in secret sympathy with the sea and were observed to ruffle when the tide was on the end. Another ancient belief attributed to Aristotle was that no creature can die except at ebb tide The belief, if we can trust plenty was confirmed by experience so far as regards human beings on the coast of France Phyllis Stratus also assures us that ebb cat is dying people never yielded up the coast while the water was high a like fancy storm leaders in some parts of Europe on the canter brain coast of Spain they think that persons who die of chronic or acute disease expire the moment when the tide begins to recede. Homoeopathic magic of the tides In Portugal oil on the coast of Wales and on some parts of the coast of Brittany a belief is said to prevail that people are born when the tide comes in and die when it goes out Dickens attests the existence of the same superstition in England People can't die along the coast said Mr. Piketty except when the tides pretty nigh out they can't be born unless it's pretty nigh in not probably born till flood The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held among these coast of England from November land to Kent Shakespeare must have been familiar with it for he makes full staff to die even just between 12 and 1 a.m. at the turning of tide. We meet the belief again on the Pacific coast of North America among the haters of the Queen Charlotte islands Whenever a good hater is about to die he sees a canoe man by some of his dead friends who come with the tide to bid him welcome to the spirit land. Come with us now they say. But the tide is about to ebb and we must depart. At the other extremity of America the same fancy has been noted among the Indians of southern Chile. That chill old dindian in the late stage of consumption after preparing to die like a good Catholic was heard to ask how the tide was running when his sister told him that it was still coming in he smiled and said that he had yet a little while to live and was his first conviction that with the ebb in tide the soul would pass to the ocean of eternity At Port Stephens in New South Wales the natives always buried their dead at flood tide. Never at ebb lest the retiring water should bear the soul that departed to some distant country Homipathic magic of grave clothes in China To ensure a long life the Chinese every course do certain complicated charms which concentrate in themselves the magical essence emanating on homipathic principles from times and seasons, from persons and from things The vehicles employed to transmit these happy influences are no other than grave clothes These are provided by many Chinese in their lifetime and most people have them cut out and sewn by an unmarried girl or a very young woman wisely calculating that since such a person is likely to live a great many years to come a part of her capacity to live long must surely pass to the close and thus stave off for many years the time when they shall be important to their proper use Further the garments are made by preference in a year which has an intercalary months. For the Chinese mind it seems plain that grave clothes made in a year which is unusually long will possess the capacity of prolonging life in an unusually high degree. Amongst the clothes there is one robe in particular which special pains have been lavished to imbue it with this priceless quality is a long silken gown of the deepest blue colour with the word longevity imported all over it in thread of gold. To present an aged parent with one of these costly and splitted mantles known as longevity garments is esteemed by the Chinese as an act of filial piety and a delicate mark of attention. As a garment proputes to prolong the life of its owner he often wears it especially on festivations in order to allow the influence of longevity created by the many total thinners with which it is bespangled to work their full effect upon his person. On his birthday above all he hardly ever fails to don it for in China common sense bids man lay in a large stock of vital energy on his birthday to be expended in the form of health and vigor during the rest of the year. Atired in the gorgeous pole absorbing its blessed influence at every poor the happy owner receives complacently the congratulations of friends and relations who warmly express their admiration of these magnificent sermons and of the filial piety which prompted the children to bestow so beautiful and useful of present on the author of their being. Homeopathic magic applied to the sights of cities in China. Another application of the maxim that like producers like is seen in the Chinese belief that the fortunes of a town are deeply affected by its shape and that they must vary according to the character of the thing which that shape most nearly resembles. Thus it is related that long ago the town of the Sun Chunfu the outlines of which I like those of a carp frequently fell prey to the depredations of the neighboring city of Yongchun which is shaped like a fishing net until the habitants of the former town considered the plan of erecting two small pagodas in their midst. These pagodas which still tower above the city of Sun Chunfu have ever since exercised a happiest influence over its destiny by intercepting the imaginary net to descend and entangle in its measures the imaginary carp. Some 30 years ago the wise men of Shanghai were much exercised to discover the cause of a local rebellion. On careful enquiry they ascertained that the rebellion was due to the shape of a large new temple which had most unfortunately built in the shape of a tortoise, an animal of the very worst character. The difficulty was serious, the danger was pressing or to pull down a temple would have been impious and to let it stand as it was would be to court a succession of similar or worse disasters. However the genius of the local professors of Geomancy rising to the occasion trampledly as some mounted the difficulty and unviated the danger. By filling up two wells which represented the eyes of the tortoise they once blighted the disreputable animal and bred it in a cable by doing further mischief. Homeopathic magic to avert threatened misfortune Sometimes homeopathic or imitative magic is called into a null and evil omen by accomplishing it in mimicry. The effect is to circumvent destiny by substituting a mock calamity for a real one. At Kampot, a small sea port of Cambodia, a French official saw one morning a troop of armed guards escorting a man who was loaded with chains. They passed his house and went away towards the country, preceded by a man who drew legubrious sounds from a gong and followed by a score of idlers. The official thought it must be an execution was a prize to have heard and nothing about it. Afterwards, he received from his interpreter the following lucid explanation of the affair. In our country it sometimes happens that a man walking in his fields has nothing but the upper part of his body visible to people at a distance. Such an appearance is a sign that he will certainly die soon and that is what happened last evening to the man he saw. Going home was across the plain, he carried over his shoulder palms with long send of stems ending in fan-like tufts of leaves. His family returning from their work followed him at a distance and so they saw his head, shoulders and arms moving along the road and carrying the branches while his body and legs were invisible. Struck with consternation at the sight, his mother and wife repaired in all haste to the magistrate and applauded him to proceed against the man after the fashion customary in such cases. The magistrate replied that the custom was ridiculous and that he would still be more ridiculous if he complied with it. However, the two women insisted on it so vehemently saying it was the only way to avert the omen and decided to do as they wished and gave them his word that he would have the man arrested next morning at sunrise. So this morning the guards came to seize the poor man telling him that he was accused of rebelling against the king and without listening to his protestations of innocence they dragged him off to court. His family pretended to be surprised and followed him weeping. The judges had him clapped into irons and ordered him to do his own execution his own treaties and the prayers of his family being all in vain he'd beg for the priests of the Beggoda might come and bear witness to his innocence and join the supplications to those of his friends. They came in haste by receiving a hint how the wind lay. They advised the condemned man to submit to his fate and departed to pray for his soul at the temple. Then the man was led away to a vice-field in the middle of which a banana tree stood to its leaves having set up as a stake. To this he was tired and while his friends took their last leave of him the sword of the executioner flashed for the air and at a single stroke swept off the top of the banana tree above the head of the pretended victim. The man had given himself up for dead his friends while they knocked off his irons explained to him the meaning of it all and then in a way to thank the magistrates and priests for what they had done to save him the threatened catastrophe. The writer who reports the case says that if the magistrates had not good naturally led themselves to the pious fraud the man's family would have contrived in some other way to impress him that the terror of death in order to save his life. Homeopathic magic to avert threatened misfortune. Again two missionaries were journeying not long ago through central celebs accompanied by some twirled edges. Unfortunately the note of a certain bird called the tiger was heard to the left this birded ill and the natives insisted that they must either return back or pass the night on the spot. When the missionaries refused to do either the expedient was hit upon which allowed them to continue the journey in safety. A miniature hut was made out of a leafy branch and in it were deposited a leaf moistened with spittle and a hair from the head of one of the party. Then one of the twirled edges said we shall pass the night here and addressing the hair he spoke thus If any misfortune should happen through the cry of that bird may it fall on you. In this way the evil urn was diverted from the real men and directed against their substitute the hair and perhaps also the spittle in the tie hut. When a Cherokee has dreamed of being stung by a snake he is treated just the same way as if he had really been stung otherwise a place would swell and ulcerate in the usual manner though perhaps use my past before it did so. It is the ghost of a snake that has bitten him in the sleep. One night a Huron Indian dreamed that he had been taken and burned alive by his irregulatory pose Iroquois. Next morning a council was held on the affair and the following measures were adopted to save the man's life. 12 or 13 fires were kenneled in the large hut where they usually burned at their prisoners to death. Every man seized a flaming brand and applied it to the naked body the dreamer who shrieked with pain. After this he ran round the hut escaping from one fire and it fell into another as each man thrust his blazing torch and the suffering said courage my brother is thus that we have pity on you. Alas he was allowed to escape passing out the hut he caught up with a dog which was held ready for the purpose and threw it over his shoulder carried it through the wingwams as a sacred offering to the war god praying him to accept the animal instead of himself who was killed roasted and eaten exactly as the Indians were wont to roast and eat their captives. Homeopathic magic to avert misfortune in Madagascar. In Madagascar this mode of cheating the face is reduced to a regular system. Here every man's fortune is determined by the day or hour of his birth and if that happens to be an unlucky one his fate is sealed unless the mischief can be extracted as the phrase goes by means of a substitute. The ways of extracting the mischief are various, for example if a man is born on the first day of the second month February, his house will be burnt down when he comes of age. To take time by the forelock and avoid this cast off the friends of the infant will set upon a shed in the field or in the cattlefold and burn it. If the ceremony is to be really effective the child and his mother should be placed in the shed and only plucked like brands from the burning hut before it is too late. Again, dripping November is the month of tears and he who is born it is born to sorrow. But in order to disperse the clouds that thus gather over his future he has nothing to do but to take the litter for boiling pot and wave it about. The drops that fall from it will accomplish his destiny and so prevent the tears from trickling from his eyes. Again if the fate has to creed that a young girl still in bed should see her children still unborn descend before her with sorrow to the grave she can avert the calamity as follows she kills a grasshopper wraps it in rag to represent her shroud and mourns over it a gradual weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. Moreover, she takes a dozen or more or other grasshoppers having to move some of their super first legs and wings she lays them about dead and shrouded fellow the bars of the torch it insects and the agitated motions they mutilate limbs represent the shrieks and condortions of the mourners at a funeral after burying the deceased grasshopper she leaves the rest to continue the mourning till death releases them from their pain and having bound up her disheveled hair she retires from the grave with this step and carriage of a person plunged in grief thenceforth she looks carefully forward to seeing her children survive her for it cannot be that she should mourn and bury her twice over. Once more a fortune was frowned on a man at his birth and pennery has marked him for own. He can easily erase the marking question by purchasing a couple of cheap pearls priced 3.5p and burying them for who but the rich of this world can thus serve forward to fleeing pearls away End of section 6