In the first place their beliefs are determined by terror. Everything concerning the creature is fantastic, mysterious, marvellous.
[ Memorial Stone erected to a Tiger. ]
[ An Elephant and his Driver. ]
A fearsome natural power resides in its whiskers, which produce the awful thing known as animal-poison. The right and ability to invoke this phenomenon pertain to the Sorcerer who proceeds in this wise. As soon as a tiger has been killed or captured he pulls out its whiskers and encloses them with the utmost care in a hollow bamboo stick. A hundred watches later a snake emerges from this prison and takes refuge in the garden. The Sorcerer seeks out the place where it lies hidden and once a year on the fifteenth day of the seventh moon he takes it a few grains of maize, which constitute its sole nourishment. The creature rises from its hole, rears itself aloft, swallows the gift, and if it finds it to its taste leaves a few drops of poison on the ground as a sign of gratitude. The Sorcerer collects these carefully in a saucer. According to the rites he must use this poison before the year is over under penalty of himself becoming impotent. His duty is to mingle it with the food of certain persons whom the Spirits will designate.
After a short time disturbing symptoms make their appearance. The patient is seized with a trembling fit which agitates his whole frame. Convulsions follow, or else he loses his sight, or hearing, or sense of smell, while his stomach swells in a manner alarming to behold. The disease soon defies all treatment and the wretched victim expires amidst the most atrocious sufferings.
It is easy to scoff, but every traveller in these regions has known cases of sudden attacks of a particularly virulent form of fever which manifests itself in most alarming forms, such as suicidal mania, epilepsy, pronounced deafness, or swelling of the abdomen.