162 TRINIDAD. 



charms to lucrative account, pandering to the worst passions of 

 degraded humanity, by the secret exercise of pretended arts and 

 the performance of revolting ceremonies. 



" In December, 1848, the police vidahn of Vannerpoone, in 

 the suburbs of Jaffna, came to the magistrate in much mental 

 agitation and distress, to complain that the remains of his son, a 

 boy of about eight years of age, which had been buried the day 

 before, had been disinterred during the night, and that the head had 

 been severed from the body, to be used for the purposes of witch- 

 craft. Suspicion fell on a native doctor of the village, who was exten- 

 sively consulted as an adept in the occult sciences ; but no evidence 

 could be produced sufficient to connect him with the transaction. 



" The vidahn stated to the magistrate that a general belief 

 existed among the Tamils in the fatal effects of a ceremony per- 

 formed with the skull of a child, with the design of producing the 

 death of an individual against whom the incantation was directe( 



" In this instance a watch was kept upon the proceedings 

 the suspected doctor, and it was ascertained that he and hi 

 family were engaged in the most infamous practices. His soi 

 were his assistants in operations similar to that which has 

 described, and in the preparation of philters to facilitate seduc- 

 tions, and medicines for procuring abortion The skulls of 



infants were applied, as occasion required, for the composition of 

 love potions and the performance of incantations. 



" In the course of the following month, a second complaint 

 against the same individual was brought before the magistrate of 

 Jaffna, to the effect that, on a stated morning, he had murdered 

 an infant, in order to possess himself of his head, and that at the 

 moment of bringing the charge a second child was detained in 

 his dwelling, and destined for a similar fate Unfortu- 

 nately the criminal was permitted to escape. His papers were 

 seized by a magistrate, among which was a volume of recipes 

 for compounding nefarious preparations and poisons ; and along 

 with these a manuscript book containing the necessary diagrams 

 and forms of invocations to f Siva the Destroyer/ for every 

 imaginable purpose : ' to seduce the affections of a female/ to 

 effect a separation between a husband and wife, to procure abor- 

 tion, to possess with a devil, to afflict with sickness, and innu- 

 merable directions for procuring the death of an enemy. In 

 this remarkable treatise on domestic medicine there was not 

 one single recipe for the cure of disease amongst the numerous 



