In addition to the ordinary food taboos a ratsen is forbidden to eat bamboo rats, frogs, or king-crows. They are supposed to be able to foretell the future by gazing into “madhu,” or water held in a leaf, but their chief occupation in life is to “extract” foreign bodies from the persons of sick people. This is always done inside a house where the bad light makes sleight of hand easy. The patient is rubbed with a leaf, usually a wild lemon leaf, upon which the ratsen repeatedly spits. Finally he will show the patient a small pebble or a bit of leaf or hair, which he says was causing all the trouble by lodging in the body. In cases of laboured breathing the ratsen says that there is a hole in the lungs. He then by sleight of hand makes a leaf seem to disappear into the patient’s chest, and after a few minutes extracts it and announces that the hole is now stopped up. Coughs are usually cured by pretending to extract a lump of hair from the throat. Usually the foreign body which is extracted is simply thrown away anywhere, but in cases of rheumatism, which is regarded as in some way especially connected with lightning, the ratsen “extracts” bits of wood from the patient’s joints and throws them away near a tree which has been struck by lightning. Into the trunk of the tree he sticks a piece of iron, which he leaves there, and throws down one or two eggs as an offering. Often the ratsen will say that the illness is due not to the presence of a foreign body, but to the capture of the patient’s soul by an evil spirit. He will then announce the whereabouts of the evil spirit in question, and the appropriate ceremonies must be performed. These have been described under the section on private ceremonies.