Note 76.1 — Chapter IX · WITCHCRAFT: SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.

When a shaman among the Cherokees wishes to destroy a man, he hides, and follows his victim about until the latter spits upon the ground. Then he collects on the end of a stick a little of the dust moistened with the saliva. “The possession of the man’s spittle gives him power over the life of the man himself.” He puts it into a tube consisting of a joint of the wild parsnip, “a poisonous plant of considerable importance in life-conjuring ceremonies,” together with seven earthworms beaten into a paste, and some splinters from a tree struck by lightning. With the tube thus prepared he goes to a tree which has been lightning-struck. At its base he digs a hole, in the bottom of which he lays a large yellow stone slab. Upon this he places the tube and seven yellow pebbles. Then, filling up the hole with earth, he builds a fire over it. The fire, we are told, is for the purpose of destroying all trace of his work; but it may well be done with another object. The yellow stones are said to represent trouble, and to be substitutes for black stones, not so easily found, which represent death. The shaman and his employer fast until after the ceremony. The victim is expected to feel the effects at once: “his soul begins to shrivel up and dwindle, and within seven days he is dead.”76.1 A traveller in Oregon relates how some Kwakiutl who were exasperated against him took up his saliva when he spat, intending, as they subsequently told him, to give it to the medicine-man, who would charm his life away.76.2 The custom, everywhere practised, of obliterating all trace of the saliva after spitting, doubtless originated in the desire to prevent such use of it.76.3