surely if he were to scratch with an awl, the eagles would scratch him. The same disastrous consequence would follow if his wives and children at home used an awl while he is out after eagles, and accordingly they are forbidden to handle the tool in his absence for fear of putting him in bodily danger.​[394] [Sidenote: Homoeopathic taboos and contagious taboos.] All the foregoing taboos being based on the law of similarity may be called homoeopathic taboos. The Cholones, an Indian tribe of eastern Peru, make use of poisoned arrows in the chase, but there are some animals, such as armadillos, certain kinds of falcons, and a species of vulture, which they would on no account shoot at with these weapons. For they believe that between the poisoned arrows which they use and the supply of poison at home there exists a sympathetic relation of such a sort that if they shot at any of these creatures with poisoned shafts, all the poison at home would be spoilt, which would be a great loss to them.​[395] Here the exact train of thought is not clear; but we may suppose that the animals in question are believed to possess a power of counteracting and annulling the effect of the poison, and that consequently if they are touched by it, all the poison, including the store of it at home, would be robbed of its virtue. However that may be, it is plain that the superstition rests on the law of contact, on the notion, namely, that things which have once been in contact remain sympathetically in contact with each other always. The poison with which the hunter wounds an animal has once {p117} been in contact with the store of poison at home; hence if the poison in the wound loses its venom, so necessarily will all the poison at home. These may be called contagious taboos. [Sidenote: Foods tabooed on the principle of homoeopathic magic. Malagasy taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic magic. Caffre and Zulu taboos on food based on the principle of homoeopathic magic.]