Mutilation.
This illustrates another principle about ghosts, that mutilation during life is avoided, as being likely to turn the spirit into a malignant ghost after death. This is the reason that many savages keep the cuttings of their hair and nails, not only to put them out of the way of witches, who might work evil charms by their means, but also that the body when it rises at the Last Day may not be deficient in any part.127 This also explains the strong feeling among Hindus against decapitation as a form of execution, and the dread which Musalmâns exhibit towards cremation. It also, in all probability, explains the lame demons, which abound all the world over, like Hephaistos, Wayland Smith, the Persian Æshma, the Asmodeus of the book of Tobit, and the Club-footed Devil of Christianity. The prejudice against amputation, based on this idea, is one of the many difficulties which meet our surgeons in India.