on any one of them compels
him to follow her,--where? He never returns. Anansi (grotesquely
disguised sometimes as Aunt Nancy) is a hairy old man with claws,
who outwits the lesser creatures, as Br'er Rabbit does. To him and
his familiars are attributed all manner of queer tales, one of which,
from Jamaica, may be quoted as an illustration:

Sarah Winyan, an orphan of ten, lived with her aunt, while her two
brothers kept house by themselves a mile or two away. This aunt was
an Obeah witch, the duppy, or devil ghost, that was her familiar,
appearing as a great black dog that she called Tiger. Sarah stood
between this old woman and a little property, and after finding that
the child endured her abuse with more or less equanimity and was
not likely to die, she told her that she was too poor to support
her any longer, and she must go. Sarah sat on a stone before the
house, wondering how she could make a living, and all the time sang
mournfully. A racket as of some heavy creature plunging about in the
bushes aroused her with a start and she scrambled into a tree. It was
Tiger who had been making the disturbance. He told her to descend at
once. If she would go with him peacefully, and would be his servant,
all would be well, but if she refused he would gnaw the tree down and
tear her into a thousand pieces. He showed his double row of teeth,
like daggers, whereupon Sarah immediately descended. As she walked
beside him to his lair she sang low, in the hope of being heard
and rescued. It was well that she did so, for her brothers, who were
hunting in the wood, recognized her voice and softly followed. Peering
in at the cave where Tiger made his home, they saw him sleeping
soundly with his head in Sarah's lap. Cautiously, slowly, she drew
away, leaving a block of wood for his head to rest upon, and crept
out of the cavern. Then the boys entered, and with their guns blew
the head of the beast into bits, cut his body into four parts, buried
them at the north, south, east and west edges of the wood; then killed
the wicked aunt. And since that day dogs have been subject to men.

The evil eye is not uncommon in the Antilles. It blights the lives of
children, and it is one of the worst of fates to be "overlooked" by an
Obeah man possessing it. Higes, or witches, too, are seen, who take off
their skins, and in that state of extra-nudity go about looking for
children, whose blood they suck, like vampires. Lockjaw is caused by
this los