The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

78 THE EVIL EYE chap.
they never utter the names of the dead, lest their
spirits should hear the voices of the living and thus
discover their whereabouts."^^*' Did not the Witch
of Endor "call up" Samuel, that is by uttering his
name ?
The connection of a man's shadow with his body ,
as evidenced in the proceedings of Australian savages,
is also a very widespread belief at the present time
throughout the East amongst the races from which
the Australians originally sprang. An injury to a
man's shadow, such as stabbing, treading on or striking
it, is thought to injure his person in the same
and if it is detached from him entirely, as
degree ;
it is believed it may be, he will die.
In the Island of Wetar in the Eastern Archipelago,
near Celebes, the magicians profess to make a man
ill by stabbing his shadow with a spear, or hacking
it with a sword. Sankara, to prove his supernatural
powers to the Grand Lama, soared into the air, but
as he mounted up, the Grand Lama, perceiving his
shadow swaying and wavering on the ground, struck
his knife into it, upon which down fell Sankara and
broke his neck.^'^ The ancient Greeks, too, believed
in the intimate association of a man or beast with
his shadow. It was thought in Arabia that if a
hyena trod on a person's shadow it deprived him of
the power of speech ; also that if a dog were standing
on a roof, and if his shadow falling upon the ground
were trodden upon by a hyena, the dog would fall
down as if dragged by a rope. Again it was thought,
on the other hand, that a dog treading upon the
shadow of a hyena rendered the latter dumb.^"
120 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 279.
121 Bastian, Die Volker des ostlichen Asien, v. 455.
1" Torreblanca, De Magia, ii. 49.