ABSTRACT
The evil influences so dreaded by the primitives are usually beyond their reach. If they would neutralize or nullify the dread consequences of an occurrence or an act, they must "reverse" it, that is, produce the same occurrence or accomplish the same act again, but in exactly the opposite direction. It is especially in cases where there is a desire to escape from the terrible, often fatal, effects of a sorcerer's magic practices that people can note the processes of this method of "reversal", and their remarkable uniformity in communities that are widely different and far removed from one another. It seems certain, then, that in very many cases primitives, when they want to put a stop to, or neutralize an evil influence, act as it were on the principle that to a given act, the same act, reversed, must be opposed; that what has been done must be done again, but in the contrary direction.
