ences between the objects
which fill the world.(1) "To the ear of the savage, animals certainly
seem to talk." "As far as the Indians of Guiana are concerned, I do not
believe that they distinguish such beings as sun and moon, or such other
natural phenomena as winds and storms, from men and other animals,
from plants and other inanimate objects, or from any other objects
whatsoever." Bancroft says about North American myths, "Beasts and birds
and fishes fetch and carry, talk and act, in a way that leaves even
Aesop's heroes quite in the shade".(2)

(1) Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xi. 366-369. A very large and rich collection
of testimonies as to metamorphosis will be found in J. G. Muller's
Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 62 et seq.; while, for European
superstitions, Bodin on La Demonomanie des Sorciers, Lyon, 1598, may be
consulted.

(2) Vol. iii. p. 127.

The savage tendency is to see in inanimate things animals, and in
animals disguised men. M. Reville quotes in his Religions des Peuples
Non-Civilise's, i. 64, the story of some Negroes, who, the first time
they were shown a cornemuse, took the instrument for a beast, the two
holes for its eyes. The Highlander who looted a watch at Prestonpans,
and observing, "She's teed," sold it cheap when it ran down, was in the
same psychological condition. A queer bit of savage science is displayed
on a black stone tobacco-pipe from the Pacific Coast.(1) The savage
artist has carved the pipe in the likeness of a steamer, as a steamer is
conceived by him. "Unable to account for the motive power, he imagines
the paddle to be linked round the tongue of a coiled serpent, fastened
to the tail of the vessel," and so he represents it on the black stone
pipe. Nay, a savage's belief that beasts are on his own level is so
literal, that he actually makes blood-covenants with the lower animals,
as he does with men, mingling his gore with theirs, or smearing both
together on a stone;(2) while to bury dead animals with sacred rites is
as usual among the Bedouins and Malagasies to-day as in ancient Egypt
or Attica. In the same way the Ainos of Japan, who regard the bear as a
kinsman, sacrifice a bear once a year. But, to propitiate the animal and
his connections, they appoint him a "mother," an Aino girl, who looks
after his comforts, and behaves in a way as maternal as possible. The
bear is now a kinsman, (Greek text omitted), and cannot avenge himself
within the kin. This, at least, seems