" So among the Bhils of
India, when a woman was convicted of witchcraft and had been
subjected to various forms of persuasion, such as hanging head
downwards from a tree and having pepper put into her eyes, a lock of
hair was cut from her head and buried in the ground, "that the last
link between her and her former powers of mischief might be broken."
In like manner among the Aztecs of Mexico, when wizards and witches
"had done their evil deeds, and the time came to put an end to their
detestable life, some one laid hold of them and cropped the hair on
the crown of their heads, which took from them all their power of
sorcery and enchantment, and then it was that by death they put an
end to their odious existence."
2. The External Soul in Plants
FURTHER it has been shown that in folk-tales the life of a person is
sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of
the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the
person. Among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the Gaboon, when
two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of
the same kind and dance round them.
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