[271] This seems to be the same as the Hottentot custom (Kolben, Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 157).
[272] These are, I believe, the same ants that are used in the manufacture of the curare poison. They are fairly common. In lingoa-geral they are called tucaudera.
[273] “The Carayas maintain quasi-husbands for widows at the public cost, lest they should be a source of disturbance to the general peace” (Ratzel, ii. 126). Widows are repi, prostitutes among some Melanesians (Codrington, p. 235).
[274] See, for similar belief among the Zaparo, Simson, p. 174.
[275] For example, among the Bororo when the medicine-man has announced that the patient will die in a given time, “if at the end of this time he still lives, the executioner, sent of course by the priest, will suddenly appear in the hut, sit astride his stomach, and strangle him to death” (Cook, p. 55).
[276] See Joyce, p. 249.
[277] See supra, p. 151.
[278] The idea of blood crying for vengeance is familiar enough, and the most universally-known example is that of the fratricide Cain informed that his brother’s blood cried for vengeance from the ground (Gen. iv. 10).
[279] See supra, p. 31.
[280] “A microscopic scarlet Acarus” (Orton, p. 485).