The ancient books of the Hindoos testify to the use of similar enchantments among their remote ancestors. To destroy his foe a man would fashion a figure of him in clay and transfix it with an arrow which had been barbed with a thorn and winged with an owl’s feathers. Or he would mould the figure of wax and melt it in a fire. Sometimes effigies of the soldiers, horses, elephants, and chariots of a hostile army were modelled in dough, and then pulled in pieces.​[216] Again, to destroy an enemy the magician might kill a red-headed lizard with the words, “I am killing So-and-so,” smear it with blood, wrap it in a black cloth, and having pronounced an incantation burn it.​[217] Another way was to grind up mustard into meal, with which a figure was made of the person who was to be overcome or destroyed. Then having muttered certain spells to give efficacy to the rite, the enchanter chopped up the image, anointed it with melted butter, curds, or some such thing, and finally burnt it in a sacred pot.​[218] In the so-called “sanguinary chapter” of the _Calica Puran_ there occurs the following passage: “On {p64} the autumnal _Maha-Navami_, or when the month is in the lunar mansion _Scanda_, or _Bishácá_, let a figure be made, either of barley-meal or earth, representing the person with whom the sacrificer is at variance, and the head of the figure be struck off; after the usual texts have been used, the following text is to be used in invoking an axe on the occasion: ‘Effuse, effuse blood; be terrific, be terrific; seize, destroy, for the love of _Ambica_, the head of this enemy.’”​[219] [Sidenote: Magical images in modern India.]