Note 12 — IX Magic and Magicians

“At cross-roads in the South Arcot district may be sometimes seen pieces of broken pot, saffron (turmeric), etc. These are traces of the following method of getting rid of an obstinate disease. A new pot is washed clean, and filled with a number of objects (the prescription differs in different localities), such as turmeric, coloured grains of rice, chillies, cotton-seed, and so forth, and sometimes a light made of a few threads dipped in a little dish of oil, and taken at dead of night to the cross-roads, and broken there. The disease will then disappear. In some places it is believed that it passes to the first person who sees the débris of the ceremony the next morning, and the performer has to be careful to carry it out unknown to his neighbours, or the consequences are unpleasant for him.”12