Note 99.1 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

A few illustrations of the identity imputed for magical purposes to arbitrary objects other than effigies may perhaps be interesting as showing how far the imputation may be carried, and on how slender a connection of thought in many cases it rests. On the Slave Coast, Major Ellis reports that an enemy’s death may be compassed by wrapping a tree-stump with palm-leaves and strips of calico, and hanging a string of cowries on it, and then hammering the top with a stone while pronouncing the victim’s name.99.1 In the Congo region, an approved method of bewitching mortally is to put a certain herb or plant into a hole in the ground. As it decays, so the vigour and spirits of the person aimed at will fail and decay.99.2 In Fiji, a cocoa-nut is buried beneath the temple hearth, with the eye upwards. A fire is kept constantly burning on the hearth; and as it destroys the life of the nut, so the health of the person represented by the nut fails, and he ultimately dies.99.3 In the Hervey Islands, the expanded flower of a gardenia was stuck upright—no easy feat—in a cocoa-nut-shell cup of water. The sorcerer would then offer a prayer for the death of the person intended; and if the flower fell his prayer would be successful.99.4 In some districts of Sicily on Christmas Eve, at the moment of the elevation of the host at midnight mass, an orange or a lemon, previously charmed for the purpose by a witch, must be taken from the pocket, a piece of the rind torn off, and the fruit stuck with pins. It is necessary to accompany the act with an imprecation of as many pains and misfortunes on the unhappy victim as the pins in the fruit. At Palermo an egg is used, a ribbon is attached to one of the pins, and the egg is then hidden somewhere in the house of the person to be injured.100.1 In Bosnia, a maiden may be detached from her lover by burying an egg before and another behind her dwelling, saying the while: “It is not eggs I bury; I bury rather her luck; her luck shall be turned to stone.” But the effect of the charm may be dissipated by the maiden’s finding the eggs, throwing them out of the farmyard, and retiring without looking round.100.2