a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks, leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the blood has dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible light a fire on the spot.(818) The same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of men called _ramanga_ or “blue blood” among the Betsileo of Madagascar. It is their business to eat all the nail-parings and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles. When the nobles pare their nails, the parings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by these _ramanga_. If the parings are too large, they are minced small and so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman wound himself, say in cutting his nails or treading on something, the _ramanga_ lick it up as fast as possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go anywhere without these humble attendants; but if it should happen that there are none of them present, the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully collected to be afterwards swallowed by the _ramanga_. There is scarcely a nobleman of any pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,(819) the intention of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from falling into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious magic could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said never to shed human blood in their villages because they think the sight of it would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children. Hence executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the forest.(820) (M152) The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the blood of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the blood of the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it may fall on the ground.(821) When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their cattle for food, “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the blood.”(822) Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.(823) But like most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly invested with a kind of sanctity.(824) Some of the Ewe-speaking negroes of Togoland, in West Africa, celebrate a festival in honour of the Earth at which it is unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the fowls which are sacrificed on these occasions have their necks wrung, not their throats cut.(825) In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.(826) When the natives of San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground; so they place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.(827) It is said that in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but strangled.(828)