Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/92

 swear by him, and mark the ears of their cattle with an incision which resembles the open jaws of the creature." This custom of marking the cattle with the crest, as it were, of the stock, takes among some races the shape of deforming themselves, so as the more to resemble the animal from which they claim descent. "The chief of the family which holds the chief rank in the stock is called 'The Great Man of the Crocodile.' Precisely in the same way the Duchess of Sutherland, the female head of Clan Chattan, is styled in Gaelic 'The Great Lady of the Cat.' "

Casalis proceeds: "No one would dare to eat the flesh or wear the skin of the animal whose name he bears. If the animal be dangerous—the lion, for example—people only kill him after offering every apology and asking his pardon. Purification must follow such a sacrifice." Casalis was much struck with the resemblance between these practices and the similar customs of North American races. Livingstone's account on the whole corroborates that of Casalis, though he says the Batau (tribe of the lion) no longer exists. "They use the word bina, 'to dance,' in reference to the custom of thus naming themselves, so that when you wish to ascertain what tribe they belong to, you say, 'What do you dance?' It would seem as if this had been part of the worship of old." The mythological and religious knowledge of the Bushmen is still imparted in dances; and when a man is ignorant of some myth he will say, "I do not