Nairs believed in spirits, which on some occasions they attempted to tame by performing various rituals. According to Panikkar, they believed in spirits such as "Pretam", "Bhutam" and "Pisachu". "Pretam" is the spirit of prematurely dead people; "Bhutam", Panikkar says, "is seen generally in marshy districts and does not always hurt people unless they go very near him"; and "Pisachu" is spirit of bad air causing illnesses. Believing "Pretam" to be wandering around the place of death, they warned people to stay away from those areas between 9 am and 3 pm. They also believed in a comic elf called Kutti Chattan who would be prone to mischief. They believed in "evil eye"—that compliments from others had negative effect; they also believed that utterances of a person with "kari nakku" (black-tongue) had a similarly bad effect. They also believed "koti" from a poor man watching someone eating a delicious food will cause stomach-aches and dysentery.