Sometimes the image, dressed as a man or a woman according
to the sex of the patient, is deposited at a cross-road or other
thoroughfare, in the hope that some passer-by, seeing it, may start
and cry out, "Ah! So-and-So is dead"; for such an exclamation is
supposed to delude the demon of disease into a belief that he has
accomplished his fell purpose, so he takes himself off and leaves
the sufferer to get well. The Mai Darat, a Sakai tribe of the Malay
Peninsula, attribute all kinds of diseases to the agency of spirits
which they call _nyani;_ fortunately, however, the magician can
induce these maleficent beings to come out of the sick person and
take up their abode in rude figures of grass, which are hung up
outside the houses in little bell-shaped shrines decorated with
peeled sticks. During an epidemic of small-pox the Ewe negroes will
sometimes clear a space outside of the town, where they erect a
number of low mounds and cover them with as many little clay figures
as there are people in the place. Pots of food and water are also
set out for the refreshment of the spirit of small-pox who, it is
hoped, will take the clay figures and spare the living folk; and to
make assurance doubly sure the road into the town is barricaded
against him.
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