This ceremony, accompanied by
a prayer to the fish to come, will cause them to arrive at once. The
islanders of Torres Straits use models of dugong and turtles to
charm dugong and turtle to their destruction. The Toradjas of
Central Celebes believe that things of the same sort attract each
other by means of their indwelling spirits or vital ether. Hence
they hang up the jawbones of deer and wild pigs in their houses, in
order that the spirits which animate these bones may draw the living
creatures of the same kind into the path of the hunter. In the
island of Nias, when a wild pig has fallen into the pit prepared for
it, the animal is taken out and its back is rubbed with nine fallen
leaves, in the belief that this will make nine more wild pigs fall
into the pit, just as the nine leaves fell from the tree. In the
East Indian islands of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, when a
fisherman is about to set a trap for fish in the sea, he looks out
for a tree, of which the fruit has been much pecked at by birds.
From such a tree he cuts a stout branch and makes of it the
principal post in his fish-trap; for he believes that, just as the
tree lured many birds to its fruit, so the branch cut from that tree
will lure many fish to the trap.
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