Old Harriet may have been
lying, but was, I imagine, merely self-deluded. Witches, prior to being
burned, have often confessed their commerce with the Evil One. Why
should Harriet hesitate to relate a simple personal experience which
involved her in no blame whatever?
Old Uncle Jim, a shrewd, hard old sinner, and a palpable fraud, who did
not, I imagine, believe in himself to any great extent, gave me some
private points as to the manner in which these reptiles were thus
transferred to the human system. If a snake or a lizard be killed, and a
few drops of its blood be dried upon a plate or in a gourd, the person
next eating or drinking from the contaminated vessel will soon become
the unwilling landlord of a reptilian tenant. There are other avenues,
too, by which the reptile may gain admittance; but when expelled by the
conjure doctor's arts or medicines, it always leaves at the point where
it entered. This belief may have originally derived its existence from
the fact that certain tropical insects sometimes lay their eggs beneath
the skins of animals, or even of men, from which it is difficult to
expel them until the larvae are hatched.
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