Thus the Kamtchatkans, who stab with knives the eyes of slain bears before they cut the carcases up, allege as their reason for doing so that bears which seem to be dead of their wounds will sometimes revive and kill their would-be killers.(778) (M200) It appears to be a common custom with savage hunters to cut out the tongues of the animals which they kill. On the analogy of the foregoing customs we may conjecture that the removal of the tongues is sometimes a precaution to prevent the ghosts of the creatures from telling their sad fate to their sympathising comrades, the living animals of the same sort, who would naturally be frightened, and so keep out of the hunter’s way. Thus, for example, Omaha hunters remove the tongue of a slain buffalo through an opening made in the animal’s throat. The tongues thus removed are sacred and may not touch any tool or metal except when they are boiling in the kettles at the sacred tent. They are eaten as sacred food.(779) Indian bear-hunters cut out what they call the bear’s little tongue (a fleshy mass under the real tongue) and keep it for good luck in hunting or burn it to determine, from its crackling and so on, whether the soul of the slain bear is angry with them or not.(780) In folk-tales the hero commonly cuts out the tongue of the wild beast which he has slain and preserves it as a token. The incident serves to shew that the custom was a common one, since folk-tales reflect with accuracy the customs and beliefs of a primitive age.(781) On the other hand, the tongues of certain animals, as the otter and the eagle, are torn out and sometimes worn round their necks by Thlinkeet and Haida shamans as a means of conferring superhuman knowledge and power on their possessors.(782) In particular, an otter’s tongue is supposed to convey a knowledge of “the language of all inanimate objects, of birds, animals, and other living creatures” to the shaman, who wears it in a little bag hung round his neck.(783) When a Galla priest sacrifices an animal and decides that the omens are favourable, he cuts out the tongue, sticks his thumb through it, and so flays the animal.(784) In certain cases Gallas cut out the tongues of oxen and wear them on their heads as tokens.(785) In Bohemia a fox’s tongue is worn as an amulet to make a timid person bold;(786) in Oldenburg and Belgium it is a remedy for erysipelas.(787) In Bohemia the tongue of a male snake, if cut from the living animal on St. George’s Eve and placed under a person’s tongue, will confer the gift of eloquence.(788) The Homeric Greeks cut out the tongues of sacrificial victims and burned them.(789) According to some accounts, the tongues of the victims were assigned by the Greeks to Hermes, as the god of speech, or to his human representatives the heralds.(790) On the principles of sympathetic magic we might expect that heralds should taste the tongues of sacrificial victims to strengthen their voices, or to acquire the gift of tongues.(791)