. Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae. Science. 470 Gunnar man, they alvvays brought part of his body to the old munster. A man who vvanted to knovv the ways of crocodiles and other secret matters wculd make a youngster who had not yet learnt to be afraid go and sleep in a place where the crocodile had slept before as shovvn by the impression in the ground. In the night the spirit of the crocodile would appeai- to the bov in a dream, handing him some object, for mstance a pièce of wood, and teaching him hovv to cause people to be taken by crocodiles. On awakening the boy would info
. Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae. Science. 470 Gunnar man, they alvvays brought part of his body to the old munster. A man who vvanted to knovv the ways of crocodiles and other secret matters wculd make a youngster who had not yet learnt to be afraid go and sleep in a place where the crocodile had slept before as shovvn by the impression in the ground. In the night the spirit of the crocodile would appeai- to the bov in a dream, handing him some object, for mstance a pièce of wood, and teaching him hovv to cause people to be taken by crocodiles. On awakening the boy would inform the man of everything the crocodile had said and done. One method imparted in this way was the use of one of the edible roots called åtihi to Impersonale a fictitious crocodile. A crocodiles tooth was inserted in a suitable part of the root to represent its mouth, and after chewing a small quantity of the wood given by the spirit, the man spät the juice at the root, mentioning the name of the great crocodile and saying, „You send devil (spirit) belong you go catch that man," giving his name. This done the åuhi was placed in the water and left there. The root transformcd itself into a rea) crocodile, which went and killed the man indicated and brought his body back to the place. After that it resumed the shape of an åuhi. Some time aftervvards the instigator would come to the place and tind what had been done : „Oh, alligator been catch him now; man there, he dead, åuhi close ; He would take out the tooth from the åuhi and keep it but replace the root in the garden, where in some cases it would begin to grow again. Whenever this method was to be put in practice an duhi from the same garden would be used. In most cases, however, the man would not exécute the scheme himself, but employ some sorcerer ,to do it for him, and vvhen the victim was dead, they, together with some other sorcerers, would eat his body, as is often the habit of such people. Once a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectscience, bookyear1917
