Sometimes, when he applied
the ants too tenderly, they called out "More! more!" and were not
satisfied till their skin was thickly studded with tiny swellings
like what might have been produced by whipping them with nettles.
The object of this ceremony is made plain by the custom observed in
Amboyna and Uliase of sprinkling sick people with pungent spices,
such as ginger and cloves, chewed fine, in order by the prickling
sensation to drive away the demon of disease which may be clinging
to their persons. In Java a popular cure for gout or rheumatism is
to rub Spanish pepper into the nails of the fingers and toes of the
sufferer; the pungency of the pepper is supposed to be too much for
the gout or rheumatism, who accordingly departs in haste. So on the
Slave Coast the mother of a sick child sometimes believes that an
evil spirit has taken possession of the child's body, and in order
to drive him out, she makes small cuts in the body of the little
sufferer and inserts green peppers or spices in the wounds,
believing that she will thereby hurt the evil spirit and force him
to be gone.
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