Note 83.1 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

Among the various instruments of witchcraft I have mentioned the refuse of food. In the South Sea Islands this has been noted over and over again by missionaries and travellers. In New Britain a native, seized with fever, complained to Mr. Powell that one of his enemies had bewitched him by obtaining the skins of some bananas he had eaten, “making magic” over them and then burning them. For fear of this, Mr. Powell explains, the natives are very careful to burn or hide the refuse of anything they have been eating.83.1 In the New Hebrides a bit of a certain stone, taken with a prayer, is pounded up with a fragment of food of the person to whom mischief is to be wrought; or the refuse of his food, such as a banana-skin or a piece of sugar-cane he has chewed, is simply burnt. An amphibious sea-snake called mae is credited with supernatural power. It will do harm to men by taking away morsels of their food into a sacred place, whereupon their lips will swell and their bodies break out with ulcers.83.2 In one of the Solomon Islands there is a sacred pool haunted by a Tindalo, or disembodied spirit, much resorted to for a similar purpose by persons who know the place and the spirit. If the scraps of food thrown into the pool are quickly devoured by a fish or a snake the thrower’s object is accomplished: the man whose food has been pilfered for the purpose will die. If otherwise, the Tindalo is unwilling to do the mischief desired of him.84.1 Without pausing to enumerate any other cases it may be said in general terms that the superstition which is the subject of this paragraph is found everywhere in Australasia, Polynesia and Melanesia.84.2