In cutting him up the executioners are naturally very careful not
to be bespattered with his blood, for if that were to happen they would
of course be turned into were-wolves themselves. Further, they place his
severed head beside his hinder-quarters to prevent his soul from coming
to life again and pursuing his depredations. So great is the horror of
were-wolves among the Toradjas, and so great is their fear of
contracting the deadly taint by infection, that many persons have
assured a missionary that they would not spare their own child if they
knew him to be a were-wolf.[763] Now these people, whose faith in
were-wolves is not a mere dying or dead superstition but a living,
dreadful conviction, tell stories of were-wolves which conform to the
type which we are examining. They say that once upon a time a were-wolf
came in human shape under the house of a neighbour, while his real body
lay asleep as usual at home, and calling out softly to the man's wife
made an assignation with her to meet him in the tobacco-field next day.
But the husband was lying awake and he heard it all, but he said nothing
to anybody. Next day chanced to be a busy one in the village, for a roof
had to be put on a new house and all the men were lending a hand with
the work, and among them to be sure was the were-wolf himself, I mean to
say his own human self; there he was up on the roof working away as hard
as anybody. But the woman went out to the tobacco-field, and behind went
unseen her husband, slinking through the underwood.
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