Sir James George Frazer (18541941). The Golden Bough. 1922.
sickness, pass over into the image. Then, with some rice, salt,
and tobacco in a little basket, the substitute is carried to the
spot where the evil spirit is supposed to have entered into the
man. There it is set upright on the ground, after the physician
has invoked the spirit as follows: O devil, here is an image
which stands instead of the sick man. Release the soul of the
sick man and plague the image, for it is indeed prettier and
better than he. Batak magicians can conjure the demon of disease
out of the patients body into an image made out of a banana-tree
with a human face and wrapt up in magic herbs; the image is then
hurriedly removed and thrown away or buried beyond the
boundaries of the village. 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 exclam