IIOONITAN CHARMS. 



^9 



jet if a demon bring his malign influence to bear upon a man 

 through the agency of Hooniyan charms, no power on earth below 

 or in the sky above can save him, unless he resort to the very art, 

 which in the hands of his enemies has injured him so much. Ge- 

 nerally, if a man often gets sick, especially from rheumatic attacks, 

 and if he frequently feels thirst accompanied by an unusual degree 

 of heat in the blood, especially about the region of the chest, he 

 will attribute it to Hooniyan charms and more so, if he recollects 

 that he has an enemy in one of his neighbours: and even though 

 he has no enemy, yet if his sickness seems to resist the skill of his 

 physician, and if a burning sensation in his body is one effect of 

 his sickness, and if he is often troubled by dreams in which black 

 dogs, monkeys, and horrible looking men try to frighten him, he is 

 sure that his sickness is a Hooniyan. If a man in climbing a tree, 

 or in moving from the top of one tree to that of another on the 

 ropes which connect them together (as is the case with cocoanut 

 trees during the season of distilling Arrack), makes a false step and 

 is thereby precipitated to the ground whereby he dies, the proba- 

 bility is that the calamity will be attributed to a Hooniyan*: and 

 this probability will not be the less strong, because the man may 

 sometimes happen to escape with only a few bruises and fractures; 

 but it will, on the contrary, be much more strengthened by what 

 the man himself relates, which generally amounts to this — that, 

 while he was on the tree, he was thrown down by somebody whom 

 however he did not see, or that he was frightened by some mons- 

 trous-looking being, which appeared and disappeared with the rapi- 

 dity of lightning, or that he suddenly and most unaccountably felt 

 giddy and faint and so lost his footing and fell; all which to the 



* About twelve mouths ago, there was a lawsuit between one of our friends 

 and another man, so they were not on the very best of terms with each other. 

 Before the case was decided, the other man happened to fall from a cocoanut 

 tree and died instantly. It was therefore imputed to a Hooniyan charm prac- 

 tised by our friend, And the two families are now at deadly enmity with each 

 other. 



