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BOOK NOTICE.
MAY, 1891.]
Just as the worstrippers of agricultural deities kill their god, the worshippers of animals kill theirs on the ground that the god is incarnate in the whole species and is multiplied by killing one of the individuals in which he is incarnate. In this belief the Acagchemen tribe of California annually kill the great buzzard, their chief god, and the Egyptian worshippers of the god-ram Aramon slew a ram annually. The Zuni Indians of New Mexico believe that the dead are transformed into turtles and annually kill them in order to send the departed souls back into spirit-land. The Ainos of Japan regularly sacrifice a bear, an animal which they regard with special reverence, as do the Goldi and Gilyak tribes of Siberia.
Now all these bear-worshipping tribes freely hunt the bear, but in their sacrifices and in their slaying they propitiate the animal dead or alive, and the reason for this is that he . might otherwise bring about the vengeance. of his class upon them.
It is this that makes savages, all the world over, reluctant to slay wild beasts who can revenge themselves, such as crocodiles, rattle-snakes and tigers; and makes the Sumatrans go into the jungle and explain to the tigers that the Earopeans, and not they, are setting traps for them. Similarly Kamtehatkans explain to dead seals, and Ostiaks to slain bears, that it was the Russians that slew them! Again, animals, which are not dangerous in themselves, are propitiated after slaughter in case their guardian spirits might injure the slaughterer. This is why Siberian sable hunters are particular as to the treatment of the bones of sables, the Alaskans and Canadian Indians as to the bones of beavers, and the North American Indians of those of elans, deer, and elk. If they did not, the take would be bad for the season, or some other misfortune would be inflicted by the incensed spirits. For exactly the same reason the Peruvian Indians adored the fish they chiefly caught, the Otawa Indians of Canada never burned fish bones because their souls passed into them, and the Hurons preached to the fish to induce them to come and be caught. Thence to the good treatment of the first fish caught in order that he may induce others to come into the net, is a small transition: leading to putting him back into the water among the Maoris, and to special ceremonies over him elsewhere.
The reason why so many savage hunters are particular about preserving bones is that they believe that they will be re-clothed with flesh, and so, if they destroyed them, the animal could
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not be resurrected and the supply of game would step. Phis belief in resurrection is direct among the Indians of North America, the Lapps, and the Katchatkans, either in another world or in this one, and is probably at the bottom of the worldwide objection to breaking the bones of slain or sacrificed animals. It will also explain the curious custom of detaching parts of a slain animal from the carcass, as the sinew of the thigh in North America, and the tongue in other places, as being necessary to its reprodaction after death.
Vermin are treated much in the same way as the dangerous and the valuable animals. They are propitiated in various ways, and coaxed to keep out of the crops, but for the present purpose the most interesting custom with regard to them is treating favoured individuals with great distinction, while pursuing the rest with relentless severity. This is prevalent in Germany, Syria, and Russia. The special individuals are in fact turned into gods much in the same way as the larger animals, and in Syria the favoured caterpillar is given a human "mother" and then buried. Here, again, we have the killing of the god.
We have thus two kinds of sacramental killing and eating of the gods; one in which an animal is habitually spared and never eaten except sacramentally; and the other in which an animal is the habitual food of a tribe, but an individual is eaten sacramentally by way of warding off the revenge from its congeners.
The custom of sacramental eating of the god leads to a very interesting set of customs as to communion with the divinity. This is shewn strongly at the pastoral sacrament of the lamb among the Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa. Here the lamb is sacrificed, and its blood is first sprinkled over the people and then smeared on them individually. Similarly the Gilyaks of Siberia promenade their sacramental bear before killing him, and the Mirasis of the Pañjab, who are snakeworshippers, send a dough snake about their houses and then bury it. In Europe until recent times a custom based on a similar idea was very prevalent. The wren has always been a sacred bird, and one which it is extremely unlucky to kill, and yet the annual Hunting of the Wren, in which it was killed, carried about and then buried; has been a common custom in the Isle of Man, Ireland, in various parts of England, and in France. In Sweden a magpie is substituted, and in. ancient Greece probably a swallow or a crow.
Connected with the killing of the god, is the idea that the dying god carries away with
