should be angry and the people should suffer in consequence. Then they dance round the dead body of the tiger till they can dance no longer, after which they skin the carcass and bury it. The inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahall, in Bengal, believe that if any man kills a tiger without divine orders, either he or one of his relations will be devoured by a tiger. Hence they are very averse to killing a tiger, unless one of their kinsfolk has been carried off by one of the beasts. In that case they go out for the purpose of hunting and slaying a tiger; and when they have succeeded they lay their bows and arrows on the carcass and invoke God, declaring that they slew the animal in retaliation for the loss of a kinsman. Vengeance having been thus taken they swear not to attack another tiger except under similar provocation.2

The Indians of Carolina would not molest snakes when they came upon them, but would pass by on the other side of the path, believing that if they were to kill a serpent, the reptile's kindred would destroy some of their brethren, friends, or relations in return.8 So the Seminole Indians spared the rattlesnake, because they feared that the soul of the dead rattlesnake would incite its kinsfolk to take vengeance. Once when a rattlesnake appeared in their camp they entreated an English traveller to rid them of the creature. When he had killed it, they were glad but tried to scratch him as a means of appeasing the spirit of the dead snake." Soon after the Iowas began to build their village near the mouth of Wolf River, a lad came into the village and reported that he had seen a rattlesnake on a hill not far off. A medicine-man immediately repaired to the spot, and finding the snake made it presents of tobacco and other things which he had brought with him for the purpose. He also had a long talk with the animal, and on returning to his people told them that now they might travel about in safety, for peace had been made with the snakes." The Kekchi

1 G. G. Batten, Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago (Singapore, 1894), p. 86.

2 Th. Shaw, "On the inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahail," Asiatic Researches, iv. 37 (8vo ed.).

3 J. Bricknell, The Natural History

of North Carolina (Dublin, 1737), p. 368.

4 W. Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, etc. (London, 1792), pp. 258-261.

6 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iii. 273.

Indians of Guatemala will not throw serpents or scorpions into the fire, lest the other creatures of the same species should punish them for the outrage. When the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia have slain a wolf they lay the carcass on a blanket and take out the heart, of which every person who helped to kill the beast must eat four morsels. Then they wail over the body, saying, " Woe! our great friend!" After that they cover the carcass with a blanket and bury it. A bow or gun that killed a wolf is regarded as unlucky, and the owner gives it away. These Indians believe that the slaying of a wolf produces a scarcity of game.2 In ancient Athens any man who killed a wolf had to bury it by subscription. The Palenques of South America are very careful to spare harmless animals which are not good for food; because they believe that any injury inflicted on such creatures would entail the sickness or death of their own children.1

But the savage clearly cannot afford to spare all animals. He must either eat some of them or starve, and when the question thus comes to be whether he or the animal must perish, he is forced to overcome his superstitious scruples and take the life of the beast. At the same time he does all he can to appease his victims and their kinsfolk. Even in the act of killing them he testifies his respect for them, endeavours to excuse or even conceal his share in procuring their death, and promises that their remains will be honourably treated. By thus robbing death of its terrors he hopes to reconcile his victims to their fate and to induce their fellows to come and be killed also. For example, it was a principle with the Kamtchatkans never to kill a land or sea animal without first making excuses to it and begging that the animal would not take it ill. Also they offered it cedarnuts and so forth, to make it think that it was not a victim but a guest at a feast. They believed that this hindered other animals of the same species from growing shy. For

1 C. Sapper, "Die Gebräuche und religiösen Anschauungen der KekchíIndianer," Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, viii. (1895), p. 204.

2 Fr. Boas, in Eleventh Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 9 sq. (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for 1896).

3 Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut. ii. 124.

4 Caulin, Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela Nueva Andalucia, p. 96: “Reusan mucho matar qualquier animal no comestibile que no sea nocibo," etc. Here reusan appears to be a misprint for recusan.

instance, after they had killed a bear and feasted on its flesh, the host would bring the bear's head before the company, wrap it in grass, and present it with a variety of trifles. Then he would lay the blame of the bear's death on the Russians, and bid the beast wreak his wrath upon them. Also he would ask the bear to inform the other bears how well he had been treated, that they too might come without fear. Seals, sea-lions, and other animals were treated by the Kamtchatkans with the same ceremonious respect. Moreover, they used to insert sprigs of a plant resembling bear's wort in the mouths of the animals they killed; after which they would exhort the grinning skulls to have no fear but to go and tell it to their fellows, that they also might come and be caught and so partake of this splendid hospitality.' When the Ostiaks have hunted and killed a bear, they cut off its head and hang it on a tree. Then they gather round in a circle and pay it divine honours. Next they run towards the carcass uttering lamentations and saying, "Who killed you? It was the Russians. Who cut off your head? It was a Russian axe. Who skinned you? It was a knife made by a Russian." They explain, too, that the feathers which sped the arrow on its flight came from the wing of a strange bird, and that they did nothing but let the arrow go. They do all this because they believe that the wandering ghost of the slain bear would attack them on the first opportunity, if they did not thus appease it.2 Or they stuff the skin of the slain bear with hay; and after celebrating their victory with songs of mockery and insult, after spitting on and kicking it, they set it up on its hind legs, "and then, for a considerable time, they bestow on it all the veneration due to a guardian god." 3 When a party of Koriaks have killed a bear or a wolf, they skin the beast and dress one of themselves in the skin. Then they dance round the skin-clad man, saying that it was not they who killed the animal, but some one else, generally a Russian. When they kill a fox they skin

1 Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, pp. 85, 280, 331. 2 Voyages au Nord (Amsterdam, 1727), viii. 41, 416; Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen Reichs, iii. 64; Georgi,

Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs, p. 83.

3 Erman, Travels in Siberia, ii. 43. For the veneration of the polar bear by the Samoyedes, who nevertheless kill and eat it, see ibid. 54 sq.

2

it, wrap the body in grass, and bid him go tell his companions how hospitably he has been received, and how he has received a new cloak instead of his old one.1 The Finns used to try to persuade a slain bear that he had not been killed by them, but had fallen from a tree, or met his death in some other way; moreover, they held a funeral festival in his honour, at the close of which bards expatiated on the homage that had been paid to him, urging him to report to the other bears the high consideration with which he had been treated, in order that they also, following his example, might come and be slain.3 When the Lapps had succeeded in killing a bear with impunity, they thanked him for not hurting them and for not breaking the clubs and spears which had given him his death wounds; and they prayed that he would not visit his death upon them by sending storms or in any other way. His flesh then furnished a feast.*

The reverence of hunters for the bear whom they regularly kill and eat may thus be traced all along the northern region of the Old World, from Bering's Straits to Lappland. It reappears in similar forms in North America. With the American Indians a bear hunt was an important event for which they prepared by long fasts and purgations. Before setting out they offered expiatory sacrifices to the souls of bears slain in previous hunts, and besought them to be favourable to the hunters. When a bear was killed the hunter lit his pipe, and putting the mouth of it between the bear's lips, blew into the bowl, filling the beast's mouth with smoke. Then he begged the bear not to be angry at having been killed, and not to thwart him afterwards in the chase. The carcass was roasted whole and eaten; not a morsel of the flesh might be left over. The head, painted red and blue, was hung on a post and addressed by orators, who heaped praise on the dead beast.5 When men of the Bear clan in the Otawa

1 Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, iii. 26.

2 Max Buch, Die Wotjäken, p. 139. 3 A. Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, Fourth Division, Dravido-Turanians, etc., p. 422.

4 Scheffer, Lapponia (Frankfort, 1673), p. 233 sq. The Lapps "have

still an elaborate ceremony in hunting the bear. They pray and chant to his carcase, and for several days worship before eating it" (E. Rae, The White Sea Peninsula (London, 1881), p. 276).

6 Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, v. 173 sq.; Chateaubriand,

tribe killed a bear, they made him a feast of his own flesh, and addressed him thus: "Cherish us no grudge because we have killed you. You have sense; you see that our children are hungry. They love you and wish to take you into their bodies. Is it not glorious to be eaten by the children of a chief?"1 Amongst the Nootka Indians of British Columbia, when a bear had been killed, it was brought in and seated before the head chief in an upright posture, with a chief's bonnet, wrought in figures, on its head, and its fur powdered over with white down. A tray of provisions was then set before it, and it was invited by words and gestures to eat. After that the animal was skinned, boiled, and eaten. The Assiniboins pray to the bear and offer sacrifices to it of tobacco, belts, and other valuable objects. Moreover, they hold feasts in its honour, that they may win the beast's favour and live safe and sound. The bear's head is often kept in camp for several days mounted in some suitable position and decked with scraps of scarlet cloth, necklaces, collars, and coloured feathers. They offer the pipe to it, and pray that they may be able to kill all the bears they meet, without harm to themselves, for the purpose of anointing themselves with his fine grease and banqueting on his tender flesh. The Ojebways will not suffer dogs to eat the flesh or gnaw the bones of a bear, and they throw all the waste portions into the fire. They think that if the flesh were desecrated, they would have no luck in hunting bears thereafter. Some of the Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the north-western coast of America, used to mark the skins of bears, otters, and other animals with four red crosses in a line, by way of propitiating the spirit of the beast they

Voyage en Amérique, pp. 172-181 (Paris, Michel Lévy, 1870).

1 Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, vi. 171. Morgan states that the names of the Otawa totem clans had not been obtained (Ancient Society, p. 167). From the Lettres édifiantes, vi. 168171, he might have learned the names of the Hare, Carp, and Bear clans, to which may be added the Gull clan, as I learn from an extract from The Canadian Journal (Toronto) for March 1858, quoted in the Academy, 27th

September 1884, p. 203.

2 A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, p. 117 (Middletown, 1820), p. 133 (Edinburgh, 1824).

3 De Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries (New York, 1863), p. 139.

4 A. P. Reid, "Religious belief of the Ojibois Indians," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, iii. (1874), p. 111.