The possession by the operator of the hair or nails of his victim adds greatly to the potency of his devices. Hence they are carefully kept by the proper owners and thrown away together in the twelfth month. Another form of witchcraft is represented by the later custom of Inu-gami (dog-deity) thus described by Motoöri: "A hungry dog is tied up in sight of food which he is not allowed to eat. When his desire is keenest, his head is cut off and at once flies to seize the food. This head is put into a vessel and worshipped. A serpent or a weasel will do as well." It constitutes a mighty charm, which evidently owes its power to the keenness of the animal's sufferings.[298] The Fūzoku Gwaho tells a story which was probably invented in order to account for this custom. "An old woman buried her pet dog, leaving only the head above ground. Then she cut him about with a bamboo saw, saying, 'If thou hast a soul, kill such a one, and I will make thee a God.' The man really did die afterwards in strange fashion. From that time the dog-deity dwelt in the old woman's house and wrought many wonderful curses." In Tosa each village has several Inugami-mochi (dog-deity-owners). They are shunned by their neighbours. A matchmaker's very first inquiry is whether there is such a person in the family. Leprosy is the next subject of his questions, sudden death (supposed to be hereditary), riches or poverty, wisdom or foolishness, are of subsidiary importance. The same idea of a materialized emotion is illustrated by a practice common near Yamaguchi. In order to drive away certain destructive insects from the rice-fields a straw figure, made to resemble a cavalry soldier, is led round in stately procession, and finally flung into the sea. This figure represents the leader of some fugitives from a battle who hid in these fields, but were pursued and slain there. The noxious insects are their materialized resentment at this fate. The principles of sympathetic and imitative magic, so copiously illustrated in 'The Golden Bough,' are not applicable to all magical procedures. Many defy specific explanation, and are possibly the result of some chance association of ideas no longer traceable, or of a mistaken empiricism. _Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_ is responsible for much that is called magic. The description of magic in Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible' as a "means of binding superhuman powers, either to restrain them from injuring oneself, or to constrain them to injure others and put them under a spell, or to reveal what to mortal man was unknown," scarcely applies at all to Japanese magic. I have not met with any mention in the older literature of pacts with demons or the coercion of spirits.