Edward Lovett

“ In like manner, too, the teeth and claws of certain predatory animals are worn as charms against the animals themselves. I have ascertained that men engaged in menageries and wild-beast-shows wear upon their watch chains teeth and tusks of dangerous animals as a "danger charm," which brings this belief down very close to our own doors. ”

“ This form seems to have commenced as a fairly accurate copy in glass of an arrowhead of white chert, chalcedony, or red cornelian, but with the curious addition of a hole, which, I understand, is for the finger, these charms being worn on the hand. A very important feature, indeed the only mark of decoration, consists of three parallel lines across the base of the arrowhead, doubtless a survival of the lashing by which its prototype was fastened to its shaft. ”

“ Meanwhile I will briefly deal with the subject of charms and amulets in general, and then with the very interesting differentiation of form and design which obtains in these objects.
I think we may take it as a fact that the human dread of the unknown is practically universal, though it is naturally far more general amongst primitive races than amongst civilised people. This fear may, for our purpose, be subdivided into dread of the directly mysterious, such as death by lightning ”

“ They are undoubtedly charms and not mere ornaments, for it is a most significant fact that an object possessing the mystic power in the eyes of one tribe has no value or meaning at all with the people of even a neighbouring part of the country or of an adjacent island. ”