d to become fat, they put it in a pigsty or
a place where asses have rolled, so that it may acquire by contact
the quality of fatness belonging to the pigs or asses. If they wish to
breed quarrels in an enemy's house, they put the seeds of the _amaltas_
or the quills of the porcupine in the thatch of the roof. The seeds
in the dried pods of this tree rattle in the wind, while the fretful
porcupine raises its quills when angry. Hence the seeds will impart
the quality of noise to the house, so that its inmates will be noisy,
while the quills of the porcupine will similarly breed strife between
them. The effects produced by weapons and instruments are thought of
in the same manner. We say that an arrow is shot from a bow with such
force as to penetrate the body and cause a wound. The savage could not
think or speak in this way, because he had no verbs and could not think
of nouns in the objective case. He thought of the arrow as an animate
thing having a cutting or piercing quality. When placed in a suitable
position to exercise its powers, it flew, of its own volition, through
the air to the target, and communicated to it by contact some of the
above quality. The idea is more easily realised in the case of balls,
pieces of bone or other missiles thrown by magicians. Here the person
whom it is intended to injure may be miles away, so that the object
could not possibly strike him merely through the force imparted to it
by the thrower. But when the magician has said charms over the missile,
communicating to it the power and desire to do his will, he throws it
in the proper direction and savages believe that it will go of its
own accord to the person against whom it is aimed and penetrate his
body. To pretend to suck pieces of bone out of the body, which are
supposed to have been propelled into the victim by an enemy, is one
of the commonest magical methods of curing an illness. The following
instances of this idea are taken from the admirable collection in
_The Golden Bough_ [125]: "(In Suffolk) if a man cuts himself with a
bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the weapon bright,
and oils it to prevent the wound from festering. If he runs a thorn or,
as he calls it, a bush into his hand, he oils or greases the extracted
thorn. A man came to a doctor with an inflamed hand, having run a
thorn into it while he was hedging. On being told that the hand was
festering, he remarked: 'That didn't ought to, for I greased th