his own will."[1] The Red Men of North America[2] have a tradition
showing how it is that the bear does not die, but, like Herodotus
with the sacred stories of the Egyptian priests, Mr. Schoolcraft
"cannot induce himself to write it out".[3] It is a most curious
fact that the natives of Australia tell a similar tale of THEIR
"native bear". "He did not die" when attacked by men.[4] In parts
of Australia it is a great offence to skin the native bear, just as
on a part of the west coast of Ireland, where seals are
superstitiously regarded, the people cannot be bribed to skin them.
In New Caledonia, when a child tries to kill a lizard, the men warn
him to "beware of killing his own ancestor".[5] The Zulus spare to
destroy a certain species of serpents, believed to be the spirits
of kinsmen, as the great snake which appeared when Aeneas did
sacrifice was held to be the ghost of Anchises. Mexican women[6]
believed that children born during an eclipse turn into mice. In
Australia the natives believe that the wild dog has the power of
speech; whoever listens to him is petrified; and a certain spot is
shown where "the wild dog spoke and turned the men into stone";[7]
and the blacks run for their lives as soon as the dog begins to
speak. What it said was "Bones".


[1] Kalewala, in La Finlande, Leouzon Le Duc (1845), vol. ii. p.
100; cf. also the Introduction.

[2] Schoolcraft, v. 420.

[3] See similar ceremonies propitiatory of the bear in Jewett's
Adventures among the Nootkas, Edinburgh, 1824.