animal away into the wilderness, whence it might never return.(445) The Battas of Sumatra have a ceremony which they call “making the curse to fly away.” When a woman is childless, a sacrifice is offered to the gods of three grasshoppers, representing a head of cattle, a buffalo, and a horse. Then a swallow is set free, with a prayer that the curse may fall upon the bird and fly away with it.(446) At the cleansing of a leper and of a house suspected of being tainted with leprosy, the Jews let a bird fly away.(447) Amongst the Miaotse of China, when the eldest son of the house attains the age of seven years, a ceremony called “driving away the devil” takes place. The father makes a kite of straw and lets it fly away in the desert, bearing away all evil with it.(448) In Morocco most wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables, in order that the jinn and evil spirits may be diverted from the horses and enter into the boar.(449) The Dyaks believe that certain men possess in themselves the power of neutralising bad omens. So, when evil omens have alarmed a farmer for the safety of his crops, he takes a small portion of his farm produce to one of these wise men, who eats it raw for a small consideration, “and thereby appropriates to himself the evil omen, which in him becomes innocuous, and thus delivers the other from the ban of the _pemali_ or taboo.”(450) In Travancore, when a Rajah is dangerously ill and his life is despaired of, a holy Brahman is brought, who closely embraces the King, and says, “O King! I undertake to bear all your sins and diseases. May your Highness live long and reign happily.” Then the sin-bearer is sent away from the country, and never allowed to return.(451) Amongst the Burghers or Badagas of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, when a death has taken place, the sins of the deceased are laid upon a buffalo calf. A set form of confession of sins, the same for every one, is recited aloud, then the calf is set free, and is never afterwards used for common purposes. “The idea of this ceremony is that the sins of the deceased enter the calf, or that the task of his absolution is laid on it. They say that the calf very soon disappears, and that it is never after heard of.”(452)