Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/138

128 banana he had eaten, wrapped it in a leaf like a cigar, and burnt it slowly at one end. As it burnt, the owner got worse and worse, and if it was burnt to the end, he died. When a man fell ill, he knew that some sorcerer was burning his rubbish, and shell-trumpets, which could be heard for miles, were blown to signal to the sorcerers to stop, and wait for the presents which would be sent next morning. Night after night, Mr. Turner used to hear the melancholy too-tooing of the shells, entreating the wizards to stop plaguing their victims. And when a disease-maker fell sick himself, he believed that some one was burning his rubbish, and had his shells too blown for mercy. It is not needful to give another description after this, the process is so perfectly the same in principle wherever it is found, all over Polynesia, in Africa, in India, in North and South America, in Australia. Superstitions of this kind as to hair and nails belong to Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Moslem lore. They are alive to this day in Europe, where, for instance, the German who walks over nails hurts their former owner, and the Italian does not like to trust a lock of his hair in the hands of any one, lest he should be bewitched or enamoured against his will.

One of the best accounts we have of the art of procuring death by sorcery, is given in Sir James Emerson Tennent's work on Ceylon. It is not that there is much that is peculiar in the processes it describes, but just the contrary; its importance lies in its presenting, among a somewhat isolated race, a system of sorcery, which is quite a little museum of the arts practised among the most dissimilar tribes in the remotest regions of the world. The account is as follows:—"The vidahu