men that have become animals, of marriages that take place between men and beasts. He also believes that he who slays an animal will be exposed to the vengeance either of its disembodied spirit, or of all the other animals of the same species which, quite after human fashion, are bound to resent the injury done to one of their number.51 Is it not natural, then, that the savage should give like for like? If it is the duty of animals to take vengeance upon men, is it not equally the duty of men to take vengeance upon animals?
51 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 467 sqq. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 389 sqq. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 17. Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 373 sqq. Idem, ‘Animal Worship,’ in Open Court, xi. 705 sq. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. 180 (Negroes). von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 351. Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 350 sqq. Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, pp. 223, 253. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 331 (Tarahumares). Mooney, ‘Myths of the Cherokee,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. pp. 250, 261 sq. Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ ibid. xviii. 423. Hose and McDougall, ‘Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 173 sqq., especially p. 205 sq.
Nor are these beliefs restricted to savages. Muhammedans maintain, not only that animals will share with men the general resurrection, but that they will be judged according to their works. Their tradition says that God “will raise up animals at the last day to receive reward and to show His perfection and His justice. Then the hornless goat will be revenged on the horned one.”52 We can hardly wonder that the Zoroastrian law inflicted punishments on dogs which hurt men or animals, when we read in the Vendîdâd that a dog has the characters of eight sorts of people.53 The fable and the Märchen for a long time related in good earnest their stories of animals that behaved exactly like men.54 Even to this day, in certain districts of Europe, as soon as a peasant is dead, it is customary for his heir to announce the change of ownership to every beast in the stall, and to the bees also;55 and in some parts of Poland, when the corpse of the rustic proprietor is being carried out, all his cattle are let loose, that they may take leave of their old master.56 In the Middle Ages animals were sometimes accepted as witnesses; a man who was accused of having committed a murder in his house appeared before the tribunal with his cat, his dog, and his cock, swore in their presence that he was innocent, and was acquitted.57 It was not only the common people that ascribed intelligence to beasts. According to Porphyry, all the philosophers who have endeavoured to discover the truth concerning animals have acknowledged that they to a certain extent participate of reason;58 and the same idea is expressed by Christian writers of a much later date. In the sixteenth century, Benoît wrote that animals often speak.59 In the middle of the following century, Hieronymus Rorarius published a book entitled ‘Quod animalia bruta ratione utantur melius homine.’ And about the same time Johann Crell, in his ‘Ethica Christiana,’ expressed the opinion that animals at all events possess faculties analogous to reason and free-will, that they have something similar to virtues and vices, that they deserve something like rewards and punishments, and are consequently punished by God and man.60 This, as it seems to me, is the correct explanation of the mediæval practice of punishing animals, even though, in some cases, as M. Ménabréa observes, the obnoxious animal was regarded as an embodiment of some evil spirit and was punished as such.61 The beast or insect was retaliated upon for the simple reason that it was regarded as a rational being.
52 Koran, vi. 38. Sell, Faith of Islám, p. 223.
53 Vendîdâd, xiii. 44 sqq.
54 See Grimm, Reinhart Fuchs, p. i. sqq.
55 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 315. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, p. 428.
56 Ralston, op. cit. p. 318.
57 Michelet, Origines du droit français, pp. 76, 279 sq. Chambers, op. cit. i. 129.
58 Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu animalium, iii. 6.
59 Benoît, quoted by d’Addosio, op. cit. p. 214.
60 Crell, Ethica Christiana, ii. 1, p. 65 sq.:—“Hinc aliquid etiam virtuti et vitio simile, seu recte et prave factum: quorum illud est, cum bruta naturæ suæ ductum sequuntur, hoc cum a naturali via exorbitant. Unde tandem etiam aliquid præmio aut pœnæ, et huic quidem maxime simile. Unde bestias etiam a Deo punitas, aut pœnas certas lege illis constitutas, cernimus.”
61 Ménabréa, De l’origine de la forme et de l’esprit des jugements rendus au moyen-age contre les animaux, p. 35.
At the earlier stages of civilisation even inanimate things are treated as if they were responsible agents. The Kukis take revenge not only on a murderous tiger, but on a murderous tree. “If a man should happen to be killed, by an accidental fall from a tree, all his relations assemble, and cut it down; and however large it may be, they reduce it to chips, which they scatter in the winds, for having, as they say, been the cause of the death of their brother.”62 Among the aborigines of Western Victoria, “when the spear or weapon of an enemy has killed a friend, it is always burnt by the relatives of the deceased; but those captured in battle are kept, and used by the conquerors.”63 The North American Redskins, when struck with an arrow in battle, “will tear it from the wound, break and bite it with their teeth, and dash it on the ground.”64 The British Guiana Indian, when hurt either by falling on a rock, or by the rock falling on him, “attributes the blame, by a line of argument still not uncommon in more civilised life, to the rock.”65 The gods of the Vedic age cursed the trees which had injured them.66 Xerxes commanded that the Hellespont should be stricken with three hundred lashes,67 and Cyrus “wreaked his vengeance” on the river Gyndes by dispersing it through three hundred and sixty channels.68 Pausanias relates that when Theagenes had died, one of his enemies went up to his statue every night, and whipped the brass. At last, however,