Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/551

Rh remainder in the ala (helix). The former is artificially widened, and a long string of ornaments of beautiful manufacture suspended to it. As strict Sunnis of the Shafi school, the boring of the nose is prohibited."

I have in my possession five charm cylinders, which were worn round the waist by a notorious Māppilla dacoit, who was shot by the police, and whom his co-religionists tried to turn into a saint. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of Malabar, that, though magic is condemned by the Korān, the Māppilla is very superstitious, and witchcraft is not by any means unknown. Many Tangals pretend to cure diseases by writing selections from the Korān on a plate with ink or on a coating of ashes, and then giving the ink or ashes mixed with water to the patient to swallow. They also dispense scrolls for elassus, and small fiags inscribed with sacred verses, which are set up to avert pestilence or misfortune. The Māppilla jins and shaitāns correspond to the Hindu demons, and are propitiated in much the same way. One of their methods of witchcraft is to make a wooden figure to represent the enemy, drive nails into all the vital parts, and throw it into sea, after curses in due form. A belief in love philtres and talismans is very common, and precautions against the evil eye are universal. In 1903, a life-size nude female human figure, with feet everted and turned backwards, carved out of the wood of Alstonia scholaris, was washed ashore at Calicut. Long nails had been driven in all over the head, body and limbs, and a large square hole cut out above the navel. Inscriptions in Arabic characters were scrawled over it. By a coincidence, the corpse of a man was washed ashore close to the figure. Quite recently, another interesting example of sympathetic magic, in