How the sailors used the opportunities was up to them. Untying three knots might not only start a gale but wreck the ship too. On frequently hears the phrase burned in effigy, which means to let it be known publicly that a person is hated and his enemies want to destroy him. The history of this spectacle reaches back for thousands of years. Occurrences of it were found in ancient India, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Occurrences still happen in countries throughout the world.
When the image is burned, so the man that it represents must die. As he did so he uttered certain magic words causing the enemy to die. Peruvian Indians molded images of fat mixed with grains to imitate the persons whom they disliked or feared, and then burned the effigy on a road where the person was to pass. They called this the burning of his soul. Puppet healing , or magic, is another use of sympathetic magic.