then he cannot think that these kindly folk have done him any harm; it was all the fault of the unprincipled toad.

Whatever may be thought of this explanation, as soon as the ceremony of wiping away poor bruin's tears had been performed, the assembled Gilyaks set to work in earnest to devour his flesh. The broth obtained by boiling the meat had already been partaken of. The wooden bowls, platters, and spoons out of which the Gilyaks eat the broth and flesh of the bears on these occasions are always made specially for the purpose at the festival and only then; they are elaborately ornamented with carved figures of bears and other devices that refer to the animal or the festival, and the people have a strong superstitious scruple against parting with them. While the festival lasts, no salt may be used in cooking the bear's flesh or indeed any other food; and no flesh of any kind may be roasted, for the bear would hear the hissing and sputtering of the roasting flesh, and would be very angry. After the bones had been picked clean they were put back in the kettle in which the flesh had been, boiled. And when the festal meal was over, an old man took his stand at the door of the house with a branch of fir in his hand, with which, as the people passed out, he gave a light blow to every one who had eaten of the bear's flesh or fat, perhaps as a punishment for their treatment of the worshipful animal. In the afternoon of the same day the women performed a strange dance. Only one woman danced at a time, throwing the upper part of her body into the oddest postures, while she held in her hands a branch of fir or a kind of wooden castanets. The other women meanwhile played an accompaniment in a peculiar rhythm by drumming on the beams of the house with clubs. The dance reminded one of the Russian travellers of the beardance which he had seen danced by the women of Kamtchatka. Von Schrenck believes, though he has not positive evidence, that after the fat and flesh of the bear have been consumed, his skull is cleft with an axe, and the brain taken out and eaten. Then the bones and the skull are solemnly carried out by the oldest people to a place in the forest not far from the village. There all the boncs except the skull are buried. After that a young tree is felled a few inches 2 C

VOL. II

above the ground, its stump cleft, and the skull wedged into the cleft. When the grass grows over the spot, the skull disappears from view, and that is the end of the bear.1

The Goldi, neighbours of the Gilyaks, treat the bear in much the same way. They hunt and kill it; but sometimes they capture a live bear and keep him in a cage, feeding him well and calling him their son and brother. Then at a great festival he is taken from his cage, paraded about with marked consideration, and afterwards killed and eaten. "The skull, jaw-bones, and ears are then suspended on a tree, as an antidote against evil spirits; but the flesh is eaten and much relished, for they believe that all who partake of it acquire a zest for the chase, and become courageous." 2

The Orotchis, another Tunguzian people of the region of the Amoor, hold bear festivals of the same general character. Any one who catches a bear cub considers it his bounden duty to rear it in a cage for about three years, in order at the end of that time to kill it publicly and eat the flesh with his friends. The feasts being public, though organised by individuals, the people try to have one in each Orotchi village every year in turn. When the bear is taken out of his cage, he is led about by means of ropes to all the huts, accompanied by people armed with lances, bows, and arrows. At each hut the bear and bear-leaders are treated to something good to eat and drink. This goes on for several days until all the huts, not only in that village but also in the next, have been visited. The days are given up to sport and noisy jollity. Then the bear is tied to a tree or wooden pillar and shot to death by the arrows of the crowd, after which its flesh is roasted and eaten. Among the Orotchis of the Tundja River women take part in the bear-feasts, while among the Orotchis of the River Vi the women will not even touch bear's flesh.3

1 L. von Schrenck, Reisen und Forschungen im Amur-lande, iii. 696731.

2 Ravenstein, The Russians on the Amur, p. 379 sq.; T. W. Atkinson, Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor (London, 1860), p. 482 sq.

3 E. H. Fraser, "The

fish-skin

Tartars," Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for the year 1891-1892, New Series, xxvi. 3639. L. von Schrenck describes a bear-feast which he witnessed in 1855 among the Oltscha (Reisen und For schungen im Amur-lande, iii. 723-728). The Oltscha are probably the same as the Orotchis.

In the treatment of the captive bear by these tribes there are features which can hardly be distinguished from worship. Such in particular is the Gilyak custom of leading him from house to house, that every family may receive his blessinga custom parallel to the European one of taking a May-tree or a personal representative of the tree-spirit from door to door in spring, in order that all may share the fresh energies of reviving nature. Again the expected resurrection of the bear is avowedly indicated by the bamboo leaves and by the prayer addressed to him to "come back soon into an Aino." And that the eating of his flesh is regarded as a sacrament is made probable by the Gilyak custom of reserving special vessels to hold the bear's flesh on this solemn occasion.

How is the reverence thus paid to particular bears to be reconciled with the fact that bears in general are habitually hunted and killed by these tribes for the sake of their flesh and skins? On the one hand, the bear is treated as a god; on the other hand, as a creature wholly subservient to human needs. The apparent contradiction vanishes when we place ourselves at the savage point of view. The savage, we must remember, believes that animals are endowed with feelings and intelligence like those of men, and that, like men, they possess souls which survive the death of their bodies either to wander about as disembodied spirits or to be born again in animal form. Thus, for example, we are told that the Indian of Guiana does not see "any sharp line of distinction, such as we see, between man and other animals, between one kind of animal and other, or between animals-man included—and inanimate objects. On the contrary, to the Indian, all objects, animate and inanimate, seem exactly of the same nature except that they differ in the accident of bodily form. Every object in the whole world is a being, consisting of a body and spirit, and differs from every other object in no respect except that of bodily form, and in the greater or less degree of brute power and brute cunning consequent on the difference of bodily form and bodily habits." 1 Even the distinction of bodily form seems almost to elude the dull intellect of some savages. An unusually intelligent Bushman questioned by a missionary "could not state any difference between a man and

1 E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 350.

» 2

a brute-he did not know but a buffalo might shoot with bows and arrows as well as a man, if it had them.” 1 Nor is it merely that in the mental fog the savage takes beasts for men; he seems to be nearly as ready to take himself and his fellows for beasts. When the Russians first landed on one of the Alaskan islands the people took them for cuttle-fish, "on account of the buttons on their clothes." We have seen how some savages identify themselves with animals of various sorts by eating the maggots bred in the rotting carcasses of the beasts, and how thereafter, when occasion serves, they behave in their adopted characters by wriggling, roaring, barking, or grunting, according as they happen to be boaconstrictors, lions, jackals, or hippopotamuses.3 In the island of Mabuiag men of the Sam, that is, the Cassowary, totem think that cassowaries are men or nearly so. "Sam he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the account they give of their kinship with the creature. Conversely they hold that they themselves are cassowaries, or at all events that they possess some of the qualities of the long-legged bird. When a Cassowary man went forth to reap laurels on the field of battle, he used to reflect with satisfaction on the length of his lower limbs: "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Omaha Indians believe that between a man and the creature which is his personal totem there subsists so close a bond that the man acquires the powers and qualities, the virtues and defects of the animal. Thus if a man has seen a bear in that vision at puberty which determines an Indian's personal totem, he will be apt to be wounded in battle, because the bear is a slow and clumsy animal and easily trapped. If he has dreamed of an eagle, he will be able to see into the future and foretell coming events, because the eagle's vision is keen and piercing. The Bororos, a

tribe of Indians in the heart

graphy of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xix. (1890), p. 393.

Miss Alice C. Fletcher, The import of the totem, a study from the Omaha tribe, p. 6 (paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August 1897).

of Brazil, will have it that they are birds of a gorgeous red plumage which live in the Brazilian forest. It is not merely that their souls will pass into these birds at death, but they are actually identical with them in their life, and accordingly they treat the birds as they might treat their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity, refusing to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. However, they kill the wild birds for their feathers, and, though they will not kill, they pluck the tame ones to deck their own naked brown bodies with the gaudy plumage of their feathered brethren.1

Thus to the savage, who regards all living creatures as practically on a footing of equality with man, the act of killing and eating an animal must wear a very different aspect from that which the same act presents to us, who regard the intelligence of animals as far inferior to our own and deny them the possession of immortal souls. Hence on the principles of his rude philosophy the primitive hunter who slays an animal believes himself exposed to the vengeance either of its disembodied spirit or of all the other animals of the same species, whom he considers as knit together, like men, by the ties of kin and the obligations of the blood feud, and therefore as bound to resent the injury done to one of their number. Accordingly the savage makes it a rule to spare the life of those animals which he has no pressing motive for killing, at least such fierce and dangerous animals as are likely to exact a bloody vengeance for the slaughter of one of their kind. Crocodiles are animals of this sort. They are only found in hot countries, where, as a rule, food is abundant and primitive man has therefore no reason to kill them for the sake of their tough and unpalatable flesh. Hence it is a general rule among savages to spare crocodiles, or rather only to kill them in obedience to the law of blood feud, that is, as a retaliation for the slaughter of men by crocodiles. For example, the Dyaks of Borneo will not kill a crocodile unless a crocodile has first killed a man. "For why, say they, should they commit an act of aggression, when he and his kindred can so easily repay them? But should the alligator take a human life,

1 K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, pp. 352, 512.