Page:Savage Island.djvu/124

98 blindness. Nowadays no spell can be more fatal than to imprison one of the sacred moko lizards in a bottle and bury it at the foot of a cocoanut tree with an appropriate curse, to destroy any person who may drink the water of the nuts. To ensure the working of this spell it was, of course, essential that the victim should come to know of his impending doom; a hint was enough to lay him on his bed from pure fright. There was one slender hope for him. Curses can be neutralised by counterspells and the voluntary imposition of tabus, such as abstaining from certain acts, or certain kinds of food, much as the ancient Hebrews laid themselves under vows. When other means fail, a knife is run into the nape of the patient's neck. It is not uncommon for medical officers in Fiji, when prescribing medicine for a patient, to be asked what tabu is to be observed, for most native medicine-men of repute insist upon certain prohibitions, such as abstention from all "red food" (i.e. shell fish, red kaile, roots, etc.), or from all food grown under the earth, as essential to the cure. If the victim of the spell believes in his own antidote he does not fall ill; if he is sceptical he sickens from fright; in either case the belief in witchcraft receives a gentle impetus.