its being used by witches.[1] Spitting as a protective charm is well known.
Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the power of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians and some of the Victorian tribes.[2] The Makololo of South Africa either burn it or bury it secretly,[3] and the same alternative is sometimes adopted by the Tirolese.[4] Cut and combed out hair is burned in Pomerania and sometimes at Liége.[5] In Norway the parings of nails are either burned or buried, lest the elves or the Finns should find them and make them into bullets wherewith to shoot the cattle.[6] This destruction of the hair or nails plainly involves an inconsistency of thought. The object of the destruction is avowedly to prevent these severed portions of the body from being used by sorcerers. But the possibility of their being so used depends upon the supposed sympathetic connection between them and the man from whom they were severed. And if this sympathetic connection still exists, clearly these severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury to the man.
Before leaving this subject, on which I have perhaps dwelt too long, it may be well to call attention to the motive assigned for cutting a young child’s hair in Roti.[7] In that island the first hair is regarded as a danger to the child, and its removal is intended to avert the danger. The reason of this may be that as a
- ↑ Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes,2 Nos. 176, 580; Mélusine, 1878, c. 79.
- ↑ Musters, “On the Races of Patagonia,” in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. i. 197; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 36.
- ↑ David Livingstone, Narrative of Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 46 sq.
- ↑ Zingerle, op. cit. Nos. 177, 179, 180.
- ↑ M. Jahn, Hexenwesen und Zauberei in Pommern, p. 15; Mélusine, 1878, c. 79.
- ↑ E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische Mythen, ii. Achilleis (Berlin, 1887), p. 523.
- ↑ Above, p. 201.
