The western tribes of British New Guinea employ a charm to aid the
hunter in spearing dugong or turtle. A small beetle, which haunts
coco-nut trees, is placed in the hole of the spear-haft into which
the spear-head fits. This is supposed to make the spear-head stick
fast in the dugong or turtle, just as the beetle sticks fast to a
man's skin when it bites him. When a Cambodian hunter has set his
nets and taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off,
then strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be
caught in it, and cries, "Hillo! what's this? I'm afraid I'm
caught." After that the net is sure to catch game. A pantomime of
the same sort has been acted within the living memory in our
Scottish Highlands. The Rev. James Macdonald, now of Reay in
Caithness, tells us that in his boyhood when he was fishing with
companions about Loch Aline and they had had no bites for a long
time, they used to make a pretence of throwing one of their fellows
overboard and hauling him out of the water, as if he were a fish;
after that the trout or silloch would begin to nibble, according as
the boat was on fresh or salt water.
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