The hoof of the elk is used by the Indians and Norwegians and other northern nations as a cure for epilepsy. The patient must apply it to his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.[546] “Medicine” amongst primitive folk is a synonym for fetich; anything wonderful, mysterious, or unaccountable, is called “medicine” by the North American Indians. The medicine-bag is a mystery bag, a charm. In fetiches primitive man recognises something which has a power of a sort he cannot understand straightway; therefore it becomes to him a religious object. “Why are any herbs or roots magical?” asks Mr. Lang; and he correctly answers the question, not by any far-fetched explanations, but by the observation that herbs really do possess medicinal properties (some of them indeed of extreme potency), and the ignorant invariably confound medicine with magic.[547] On this theory it is, of course, not necessary to swallow the medicine or apply it as we apply lotions and liniments; it is enough to carry it about as an amulet or charm, for it is the _life_ of the thing which is efficacious, the _spirit_, which resides in the outward form, which possesses the virtue, not the material object itself. Of course, it may be necessary to take the charm internally; but then it is not the physiological action which is looked for, but the magical. Dapper, in his _Description of Africa_ (p. 621), tells of savages who wear roots round their necks as amulets when they sleep out; they chew the roots, and spit the juice round the camp to keep off the wild beasts. At other times they burn the roots, and blow the smoke about for the same purpose. The Korannas carry roots as charms against bullets and wild animals. If successful in war, and obtaining much booty, they say, “We thank thee, our grandfather’s root, that thou hast given us cattle to eat.” The Bongoes and Niam-Niams have similar customs.[548] General Forlong, referring to the serpent Buddhism of Kambodia, says, that “Fetish worship was the first worship, and to a great extent is still the _real_ faith of the great mass of the ignorant, especially about these parts.”[549] “Probably one-quarter of the world yet deifies, or at least reverences, sticks and stones, ram-horns and charms.”[550] The Abyssinians are sunk in the grossest superstition; their medical practice is, to a large extent, based on the use of amulets and charms. Even leprosy and syphilis are treated by these means, and eye diseases by spitting in the affected organs.[551] “Fetiches” are claws, fangs, roots, or stones, which the Africans believe to be inhabited by spirits, and so powerful for good or evil. The word is derived from the Portuguese _feitiço_, a charm or amulet. The Tibetans wear amulets upon their necks and arms; they contain nail-parings, teeth, or other reliques of some sainted Lama, with musk, written prayers, and other charms.[552]