The same superstition is turned to account by hunters in many parts of the world for the purpose of running down the game. Thus a German huntsman will stick a nail taken from a coffin into the fresh spoor of the quarry, {p212} believing that this will hinder the animal from escaping.​[788] The aborigines of Victoria put hot embers in the tracks of the animals they were pursuing.​[789] Hottentot hunters throw into the air a handful of sand taken from the footprints of the game, believing that this will bring the animal down.​[790] Thompson Indians used to lay charms on the tracks of wounded deer; after that they deemed it superfluous to pursue the animal any further that day, for being thus charmed it could not travel far and would soon die.​[791] Similarly, Ojebway Indians placed “medicine” on the track of the first deer or bear they met with, supposing that this would soon bring the animal into sight, even if it were two or three days’ journey off; for this charm had power to compress a journey of several days into a few hours.​[792] Ewe hunters of West Africa stab the footprints of game with a sharp-pointed stick in order to maim the quarry and allow them to come up with it.​[793] If Esthonian peasants find a wolf’s dung on a beast’s tracks, they burn it and scatter the ashes to the wind. This gives the wolf a pain in his stomach and makes him lose his way.​[794] The Aino think that hares bewitch people. Hence if one of them sees the track of a hare in the snow near his hut, he should carefully scoop it up with a water-ladle and then turn it upside down, saying as he does so that he buries the soul of the hare under the snow, and expressing a wish that the animal may sicken and die.​[795] In order to recover strayed cattle, the Zulus take the animals’ dung and earth from their footprints and place both in the chief’s vessel, round which a magic circle is drawn. Then the chief says: “I have now conquered them. Those cattle are now here; I am now sitting upon them. I do not know in what way they will escape.”​[796] {p213} [Sidenote: Contagious magic wrought through the impressions of other parts of the body. Contagious magic of imprints.]