In this volume we are told, too, that even the Fuegians, who in times of scarcity kill and eat their old women for food, are generally affectionate, and until the whites interfered with their social order the old often had considerable authority. They sometimes prepare programs for ceremonials, which are very strictly observed by a hundred younger men. In some Australian tribes, too, a man’s authority generally increases with age; and this is true, though less frequently, of women. The old enforce the strictest marriage rules and have much influence over the thoughts and feelings of the tribes. The old men often sit in a circle and speak on public matters, one after another, the young men standing outside in silence. A few old men may retire to discuss secret matters of importance. Offenders are often brought before them for trial and sentence. The old men of a tribe often band themselves together and by working on the superstitions of the tribe secure for themselves not only comfort but unbounded influence. In the famous Duk-Duk ceremonial they alone were in the secret, and all others were impressed with the supernatural character of the actors in these rites. Ploss and Bartels[42] amplify the great changes senescence brings to women. Age not only obliterates race but sex. It often makes the most beautiful into the most ugly, for handsome old women among primitives are unknown. Children dread them. They often become careless of looks, the hand is claw-like, etc. A widespread German superstition is that if an old woman crosses the path of a hunter he will get nothing. They are ominous for marriages and some neurotics cannot look at them. They are sometimes said to have seven lives. Hans Sachs in poetry and Cranach in painting, in describing the fountains of youth, represent chiefly old women entering on the one side with every sign of decrepitude and coming out on the other beautiful, with wonderful toilets, and sometimes immediately engaging in orgies. Old women in early times sometimes had a guild, devised means of conjuration, made pacts or leagues with the devil, presided over the Walpurgis festivals, conjured with magic words, had evil eyes, knew strange brews, sometimes committed all kinds of lasciviousness with devils, might transform themselves into shapes as attractive as Circe for Ulysses or Medea for Jason, or take the more ominous forms of Hecate and Lamea. These maleficent creatures often allied themselves with black cats, serpents, owls, bats, had their salves and witch sabbaths, etc.