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The episode was accepted as one more proof of the horror of "debils-debils" of fire, and of the necessity of such a precautionary measure. The scene of the only occasion on which a visitant from the land of spirits assumed benign shape is not far from this spot.
He actually modelled the grossest of debils-debils for the piccaninnies and impaled all the vital parts with grass darts, while the piccaninnies broke into open jeers at Yan-coo, for the spell of the debil-debil had been destroyed. Such outrages upon the craft of the sorcerer could not be tolerated.
Yan-coo, the wit of the tribe, a stubby, grim old man, who spent most of his time making dilly-bags and modelling grotesque debils-debils in a pliant blending of bees' wax and loam, to the horror of every piccaninny, soon found that Wylo could talk back with such withering effect, such shatteringly gross personalities that he, who with the spiteful ironies of his venomous tongue had kept the camp in awe, was dazed to gloomy silence by Wylo's vivid flashes of wit.
That he did most truly and sincerely believe the existence of "debils-debils" we had proof every evening, for he would sit at the door of his grass hut, maintain a big, dancing fire, and sing lustily under the supposition that a good discordant corroboree was the most effective scare.
Some of the blacks of my acquaintance are ardent believers in ghosts and do posit the existence of personal "debils-debils." Seldom is a good word to be said of the phantoms, which depend almost entirely for "local habitation and a name" upon the chronicles of old men steeped to the lips in the accumulated lore of the camps.
Perfectly unconscious of the dastard trick played upon him, Wylo continued for several days to flirt and fight. He had a glorious time, and so, too, had the piccaninnies, for Yan-coo, for reputation's sake, dared not model debils-debils merely to have their horrible heads knocked off with irreverent grass darts.
But though the boys gave many exhibitions of their skill and of the proper attitude and degree of caution, the correct gestures and facial expression for so momentous a manoeuvre, they could never be persuaded to put their skill to the test at the spot where "debils-debils" most do congregate after dark, the consequences inevitable on failure being too diabolical to contemplate.
In the fulness of his vanity and wit, Wylo began to make gratuitous fun of Yan-coo, who fretted and fumed and terrified the piccaninnies with still more hideous debils-debils. I saw one of them. It resembled a span-long plesiosaurus, afflicted with elephantiasis, and a forked, lolling, tongue extruded from a head that swayed ominously right and left.
They insisted that "debils-debils" suffered from certain physical limitations; they could not cross the sea hence the variety native to the Island might be different from the mainland species, and would therefore demand local study before being approached with hostile intentions.
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