The Huichol Indians of Mexico admire the beautiful markings on the backs of serpents. Hence when a Huichol woman is about to weave or embroider, her husband catches a large serpent and holds it in a cleft stick, while the woman strokes the reptile with one hand down the whole length of its back; then she passes the same hand over her forehead {p155} and eyes, that she may be able to work as beautiful patterns in the web as the markings on the back of the serpent.​[557] Among the Tarahumares of Mexico men who run races tie deer-hoofs to their backs in the belief that this will make them swift-footed like the deer.​[558] Cherokee ball-players rub their bodies with eel-skins in order to make themselves as slippery and hard to hold as eels; and they also apply land-tortoises to their legs in the hope of making them as thick and strong as the legs of these animals. But they are careful not to eat frogs, lest the brittleness of the frog’s bones should infect their own bones. Moreover, they will not eat the flesh of the sluggish hog-sucker, lest they should lose their speed, nor the flesh of rabbits, lest, like the rabbit, they should become confused in running. On the other hand, their friends sprinkle a soup made of rabbit hamstrings along the path to be taken by their rivals, in order to make these rivals timorous in action. Moreover, the ball-players will not wear the feathers of the bald-headed buzzard, for fear of themselves becoming bald, nor turkey feathers, lest they should suffer from a goitrous growth on the throat like the red appendage on the throat of a turkey.​[559] The flesh of the common grey squirrel is forbidden to Cherokees who suffer from rheumatism, because the squirrel eats in a cramped position, which would clearly aggravate the pangs of the rheumatic patient.​[560] And a Cherokee woman who is with child may not eat the flesh of the ruffed grouse, because that bird hatches a large brood, but loses most of them before maturity. Strict people, indeed, will not allow a woman to taste of the bird till she is past child-bearing.​[561] When a Cherokee is starting on a journey on a cold winter morning he rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and sings four verses by means of which he can set the cold at defiance, like the wolf, the deer, the fox, and the opossum, whose feet, so the Indians think, are never frost-bitten. After each verse he imitates the cry and action of the animal, thus homoeopathically identifying himself with the creature. The {p156} song he sings may be rendered, “I become a real wolf, a real deer, a real fox, and a real opossum.” After stating that he has become a real wolf, the songster utters a prolonged howl and paws the ground like a wolf with his feet. After giving notice that he has become a real deer, he imitates the call and jumping of a deer. And after announcing his identification, for all practical purposes, with a fox and an opossum, he mimicks the barking