A pole is set up in front of
the house, and from the top of the pole a rope of palm-leaves is
stretched to the roof of the house. Then the sorcerer mounts the
roof with a pig, which he kills and allows to roll from the roof to
the ground. The devil, anxious to get the pig, lets himself down
hastily from the roof by the rope of palm-leaves, and a good spirit,
invoked by the sorcerer, prevents him from climbing up again. If
this remedy fails, it is believed that other devils must still be
lurking in the house. So a general hunt is made after them. All the
doors and windows in the house are closed, except a single
dormer-window in the roof. The men, shut up in the house, hew and
slash with their swords right and left to the clash of gongs and the
rub-a-dub of drums. Terrified at this onslaught, the devils escape
by the dormer-window, and sliding down the rope of palm-leaves take
themselves off. As all the doors and windows, except the one in the
roof, are shut, the devils cannot get into the house again. In the
case of an epidemic, the proceedings are similar.
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