132 Timehri. 



portions of the globe. Speaking generally, there is Sir J. G. Frazer's, 

 one of our leading anthropologist's statement, that we must distinguish 

 at least two uses of nails or pins in their application to spirits or spiritual 

 influences. In one set of cases they act as spurs or goads to refresh his 



memory and stimulate his activity Sickness and trouble can 



be transferred to trees and bushes. In Africa the knocking of nails 

 into idols is a means of attracting the attention of the deity or 



spirit Like pinching a man or running a pin into his leg 



as a him that you desire to speak with him. And so in India there is 

 tne same old English sorcerer's device of moulding an image of his doomed 

 victim and piercing it with pins. While finally in the Guianas there 

 is the common practice of extracting the nail or bone splinter 

 from out of the doomed and sickly victim. In my opinion there 

 was no necessity, from the obeah-man's point of view, for nailing up the 

 actual skin or eyes ; the obeah was already sufficiently strong, the nails 

 and perhaps the hair being quite sufficient for the medicine-man's pur- 

 pose. The blood found on the nail of the table could be satisfactorily 

 accounted for by the blood on the hand that fixed it there, 



I am of opinion that the gouging out of little Molly's eyes can be 

 explained on the principle of blinding her and so preventing her retaliat- 

 ing on her murderer. I cannot find any traces of the practice of using the 

 eye-ball, etc., for witchcraft, throughout the literature. Frazer says that 

 the custom of putting out the eyes of slaughtered animals appears to be 

 not uncommon among primitive peoples, and we may suspect that even 

 where a different reason is alleged for it, the true original motive was to 

 blind the dangerous ghost of the injured creature and so to incapacitate 

 it from retaliating on the slayer. 



"X" 



