‘The psychology of the matter,’ writes Marett (51, 143), ‘is up to a certain point simple enough. Just as the savage is a good actor, throwing himself like a child into his mime, so he is a good spectator, entering into the spirit of another’s acting, herein again resembling the child, who can be frightened into fits by the roar of what he knows to be but a “pretended” lion. Even if the =make-believe= is more or less make-believe to the victim, it is hardly less efficacious; for, dominating, as it tends to do, the field of attention, it racks the emotional system, and, taking advantage of the relative abeyance of intelligent thought and will, sets stirring all manner of deep-lying impulses and automatisms.’ All peoples have prohibitions of certain kinds, and most have a firm belief that should these =tabus= be broken dire consequences will befall the offender. Occasionally the punishment is effected by the social executive, through representatives of secret societies or by other means; but usually it is left in the hands, so to speak, of the outraged spiritual powers, and so strong is this belief that it drees its own weird. For example, Father Merolla (54, xvi. 238) tells of a young Congo negro who, being on a journey, lodged at a friend’s house; the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a wild hen. His host replied ‘No.’ Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and his old friend asked him ‘If he would eat a wild hen,’ to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. ‘Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, “What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?” At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four hours after.’ Armit (2, 459) relates that an Australian died of fright within a fortnight after he had discovered his sick wife had lain upon his blanket. Nowhere is the power of taboo greater than among the Polynesians. And examples of its potency in procuring its own fulfilment in the Heroic Age of Ireland have already been given (p. 29). No wonder then that belief in the magical powers of sorcerers can cause the same effects. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (64, 537) state that the Australian natives believe that any bone, stick, spear, etc., which has been ‘sung’ is supposed to be endowed with what the natives call _Arungquiltha_, that is, magical poisonous properties, and any native who believes that he has been struck by, say, a charmed spear, is almost sure to die, whether the wound be slight or severe, unless he be saved by the counter magic of a medicine-man. He simply lies down, refuses food, and pines away. Actual instances are given of men with slight wounds dying in a few days from this belief.