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For
the savage commonly conceives animals to be endowed with souls and
intelligences like his own, and hence he naturally treats them with
similar respect. Just as he attempts to appease the ghosts of the
men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the spirits of the
animals he has killed. These ceremonies of propitiation will be
described later on in this work; here we have to deal, first, with
the taboos observed by the hunter and the fisherman before or during
the hunting and fishing seasons, and, second, with the ceremonies of
purification which have to be practised by these men on returning
with their booty from a successful chase.
While the savage respects, more or less, the souls of all animals,
he treats with particular deference the spirits of such as are
either especially useful to him or formidable on account of their
size, strength, or ferocity. Accordingly the hunting and killing of
these valuable or dangerous beasts are subject to more elaborate
rules and ceremonies than the slaughter of comparatively useless and
insignificant creatures.


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