This sorcery, which they call Kaha, consists in inflicting a lingering death upon those to whom they bear a grudge, twenty days being however fixed as the term for this. They go to work as follows. Whoever wishes to practise revenge by means of sorcery, seeks to procure either saliva or urine or excrements of his enemy in some way or other. These he mixes with a powder, lays the compound in a bag which is woven in a special manner, and buries it. The most important secret is in the art of weaving the bag in the right way and of preparing the powder. As soon as it is buried, the effects show themselves in the person who is the object of this witchcraft. He sickens, becomes daily weaker, loses at last all his strength, and in twenty days is sure to die. If, on the other hand, he attempts to divert his enemy's revenge from himself by offering up a pig, or making some other valuable present in order to save his life, he may yet be saved, even on the nineteenth day, and no sooner is the bag unburied, than the attacks of illness cease. He recovers gradually, and after a few days is quite restored to health." Reise um die Welt. Ed. in 12mo, 1812, Part i., p. 249 et seq. [Add. to 3rd ed.]
356 THE WILL IN NATURE.
it is said successfully, by the priests of the savage tribes on the island of Nukahiva, the procedure in which is exactly similar to that of our cures by charms. This fact is especially remarkable on account of the identity of the thing, notwithstanding the distance from all European tradition. With it ought to be compared Bende Bendsen's account of a headache he caused in another person by sorcery, through the medium of some of that person's hair which had been cut off. He concludes with the following words: "As far as I can learn, what is called witchcraft consists simply in preparing and applying noxious magnetic charms combined with a maleficent influence of the will: this is the detestable league with Satan." l
The agreement of all these writers, not only among themselves, but with the convictions to which Animal Magnetism has led in latter years, and finally even with what might be concluded from my speculative doctrine on this point, is surely a most remarkable phenomenon. This
1 Kieser, Archiv für thierischen Magnetismus, vol. ix. s. i. in the note, pp. 128-132.
ANIMAL
