Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/178

 150 The Popular Ritual of

from the front pole of the tent, and are left there for an indefinite time.

In the same tribe a piece of the stomach is hung up in the tent and, when dry, is burned as medicine for headache, the patient inhaling the smoke. The Ait Sddden suspend a certain part of the gut from the roof of the house or tent in order to " make the churn fat." The Sluh of Aglu hang the so-called a?ngar wadan, (" the chief of the gut," caecum }'), over the door of the house, and, if any member of the household gets a boil, a piece of it is put on the boil to promote suppuration. The Igli'wa throw parts of the intestines filled with excrements on cornfields that are in- fested with certain larvae, called tigdg, in order to attract and destroy these vermin. In Andjra beardless men smear their faces with the contents of the gut so as to make the beard grow.

The right shoulder-blade is often preserved at least till the following Great Feast, being sometimes hung up in the tent or house, and sometimes buried among the corn which is kept there ; but there are people who thus preserve it only in case it has been found to contain a good omen. The Sluh of Aglu paint it with hinna and use it for the purpose of stirring the corn in the earthenware saucepan {afellun) in which they dry it over the fire before they begin the grinding. The Ait Yusi bury it in the cornfield when thunder is heard in the spring, in order to prevent the crops from being burned. Among the same tribe it is the custom for a man who has a daughter, sister, or paternal aunt living in another house or tent to send her as a present one of the shoulders of the animal he has sacrificed.

Among the Ait Sadden the larynx is preserved to be used as a charm against the evil eye, either fastened to a stick which is thrust into a stack of corn {ahnin) or hung up in the house ; whilst in Andjra a piece of it is tied round the neck of a child suffering from cough.