The Lushai {120} of North-Eastern India believe that if a man kills an enemy the ghost of his victim will haunt him and he will go mad, unless he performs a certain ceremony which will make him master of the dead man’s soul in the other world. The ceremony includes the sacrifice of an animal, whether a pig, a goat, or a mithan.[120.1] Among the Awemba of Northern Rhodesia, “according to a superstition common among Central African tribes, unless the slayers were purified from blood-guiltiness they would become mad. On the night of return no warrior might sleep in his own hut, but lay in the open _nsaka_ in the village. The next day, after bathing in the stream and being anointed with lustral medicine by the doctor, he could return to his own hearth, and resume intercourse with his wife.”[120.2] In all such cases the madness of the slayer is probably attributed to the ghost of the slain, which has taken possession of him. [Sidenote: The custom of secluding and purifying homicides is intended to protect them against the angry spirits of the slain, which are thought to madden their slayers.] That the Greek practice of secluding and purifying a homicide was essentially an exorcism, in other words, that its aim was to ban the dangerous ghost of his victim, is rendered practically certain by the similar rites of seclusion and purification which among many savage tribes have to be observed by victorious warriors with the avowed intention of securing them against the spirits of the men whom they have slain in battle. These rites I have illustrated elsewhere,[120.3] but a few cases may be quoted here by way of example. Thus among the Basutos “ablution is especially performed on return from battle. It is absolutely necessary that the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers. They go in a procession, and in full armour, to the nearest stream. At the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current.”[120.4] According to another account of the Basuto custom, “warriors {121} who have killed an enemy are purified. The chief has to wash them, sacrificing an ox in the presence of the whole army. They are also anointed with the gall of the animal, which prevents the ghost of the enemy from pursuing them any farther.”[121.1] Among the Thonga, a Bantu tribe of South Africa, about Delagoa Bay, “to have killed an enemy on the battle-field entails an immense glory for the slayers; but that glory is fraught with great danger. They have killed.… So they are exposed to the mysterious and deadly influence of the _nuru_ and must consequently undergo a medical treatment. What is the _nuru_? _Nuru_, the spirit of the slain which tries to take its revenge on the slayer. It haunts him and may drive him into insanity: his eyes swell, protrude and become inflamed.