With respect to the various tangible protection marks, whatever their sanctions, they have no real value as physical barriers to trespass or appropriation. The commonest is papara or ese, the frond of coconut palm tied about the butt, which means that no one is to climb for nuts. The heri is a strip of bark or liana tied to uprights, and encircling a house or some forbidden ground. A haribari is some object, usually a leaf or twig, placed in the cleft of a split stick and set up, e.g., at the mouth of a creek, as a sign of fishing right. Inja is simply a few handfuls of grass laid across a track to bar the passage. We might include the naterari and pamba which serve to mark a village tabu on the coconuts, and logically enough the ordinary garden boundary, tani, which consists merely of a series of tree trunks or branches laid on the ground between adjacent poles. . . . It is true that these signs are often regarded or obeyed automatically and without any reflection or motive; again, they may be regarded out of pure consideration for the man—neighbor, relative, or friend—who has set them up; but there is an additional sanction, simply that of sorcery. The very name, inja, of one of these conventional signs is that of black magic, and if a native pauses to explain why he avoids trespassing beyond a heri or an inja, he will have but one explanation—the danger of sorcery. But sorcery is not merely a protector of property; it operates in all walks of life. A man will hesitate to wrong another in any way if he thinks of the crippled leg or the crop of boils which vengeance armed with magic may give him in return. In short, it is not worth elaborating what has been often enough observed, viz., that sorcery, despite being in itself the most hated of crimes, is undoubtedly, by reason of the superstitious fear it inspires, a stalwart guardian of individual rights.¹

¹Williamsn/an/an/an/an/an/a, , 325–326, 328–329 (Oxford University Press. By permission).