and confused frame of mind to which all
things, animate or inanimate, human, animal, vegetable, or inorganic,
seem on the same level of life, passion and reason. The savage, at all
events when myth-making, draws no hard and fast line between himself and
the things in the world. He regards himself as literally akin to animals
and plants and heavenly bodies; he attributes sex and procreative powers
even to stones and rocks, and he assigns human speech and human feelings
to sun and moon and stars and wind, no less than to beasts, birds and
fishes.(1)

(1) "So fasst auch das Alterthum ihren Unterschied von den Menschen
ganz anders als die spatere Zeit."--Grimm, quoted by Liebrecht, Zur
Volkskunde, p. 17.

2. The second point to note in savage opinion is the belief in magic and
sorcery. The world and all the things in it being vaguely conceived of
as sensible and rational, obey the commands of certain members of the
tribe, chiefs, jugglers, conjurors, or what you will. Rocks open at
their order, rivers dry up, animals are their servants and hold converse
with them. These magicians cause or heal diseases, and can command even
the weather, bringing rain or thunder or sunshine at their will.(1)
There are few supernatural attributes of "cloud-compelling Zeus" or of
Apollo that are not freely assigned to the tribal conjuror. By virtue,
doubtless, of the community of nature between man and the things in the
world, the conjuror (like Zeus or Indra) can assume at will the shape
of any animal, or can metamorphose his neighbours or enemies into animal
forms.

(1) See Roth in North-West Central Queensland Aborigines, chapter xii.,
1897.

3. Another peculiarity of savage belief naturally connects itself with
that which has just been described. The savage has very strong ideas
about the persistent existence of the souls of the dead. They retain
much of their old nature, but are often more malignant after death than
they had been during life. They are frequently at the beck and call of
the conjuror, whom they aid with their advice and with their magical
power. By virtue of the close connection already spoken of between
man and the animals, the souls of the dead are not rarely supposed to
migrate into the bodies of beasts, or to revert to the condition of that
species of creatures with which each tribe supposes itself to be related
by ties of kinship or friendship. With the usual inconsistency of
mythical belief, the souls of