The tabus are largely preventive measures. But Tom learned that there are more positive ways of working one’s will in the world of magic. One of these is the use of certain amulets on the person, hidden in the house or woods, or in connection with hunting and fishing implements. As a general good-luck amulet, Tom was fond of wearing in his hat the spine of the “rat-fish.” When his father was about to die, he called Tom to him and whispered in his ear an important secret. This was that the chief life-guarding amulet of the family had been a fire drill that was secreted at the bottom of an old box filled with all sorts of odds and ends. Its efficacy depended largely on the fact that hardly anybody knew of it. In general, secrecy helps tremendously in the power of all magic objects and formulæ. An Indian likes to withhold as much as possible, even from his nearest kin, until economic urgency or the approach of death compels him to transmit the magical knowledge to some one that is near and dear to him. Some of his most powerful amulets Tom would secrete in the canoe or hide under the cherry bark wrappings around the hafts of his hunting spears. These amulets were of all sorts, but chiefly fragments of supernatural animals—blind snakes, crabs, spiders, or the like—obtained in the woods.