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If the
wizard consented to undo the charm, he would give the rug back to
the sick man's friends, bidding them put it in water, "so as to wash
the fire out." When that happened, the sufferer would feel a
refreshing coolness and probably recover. In Tanna, one of the New
Hebrides, a man who had a grudge at another and desired his death
would try to get possession of a cloth which had touched the sweat
of his enemy's body. If he succeeded, he rubbed the cloth carefully
over with the leaves and twigs of a certain tree, rolled and bound
cloth, twigs, and leaves into a long sausage-shaped bundle, and
burned it slowly in the fire. As the bundle was consumed, the victim
fell ill, and when it was reduced to ashes, he died. In this last
form of enchantment, however, the magical sympathy may be supposed
to exist not so much between the man and the cloth as between the
man and the sweat which issued from his body. But in other cases of
the same sort it seems that the garment by itself is enough to give
the sorcerer a hold upon his victim.


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