Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/259

 Animal Superstitions and Totemism. 247

the remaining animals used in magic were probably "taboo" animals.

" Lucky" animals are taboo. But "taboo" animals are not always lucky. We have other instances in which sacred animals have in course of time become separated into two classes — holy and unclean animals. We may conjecture that the "lucky" and "unlucky" animals are the result of a similar process. They were originally all taboo. Mutatis mutandis this is also true of the ominous animals.

The facts are difficult to explain on the assumption that we must look for their origin to more than one source.

Admitting that in later times other causes have played their part, it seems clear that we must derive the great mass of the usages under consideration from a period when animals were sacred, and, as the facts which I shall now bring to your notice seem to suggest, solemnly sacrificed once a year.

III.— Annual Ceremonies.

I. Sacrifice. — In the two great totem-areas of Australia and North America sacrifice is either unknown or unim- portant. Australia has no domestic animals ; America had only the dog, and the dog was the only animal commonly sacrificed.^

It is possible, therefore, that a connection exists between sacrifice and domestication {i.e. for many peoples between sacrifice and civilization), rather than, as Professor Jevons maintains, between taboo and domestication. 2 We find traces, in European customs, of a custom of retaining the victim in captivity for a period before the sacrifice. We may conjecture that this practice would be suggested by con- siderations of convenience in comparatively early times ;

' Relations des Jes.., 1667, p. 12; Fexrot, J>assim ; Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 207, &c.

^ I find Dr. Hahn has made the same suggestion, to explain the domesti- cation of a single animal, in Demctcr u. Baubo, p. 28.