But, further, we have found a widespread custom of eating
the god sacramentally, either in the shape of the man or animal who
represents the god, or in the shape of bread made in human or animal
form. The reasons for thus partaking of the body of the god are,
from the primitive standpoint, simple enough. The savage commonly
believes that by eating the flesh of an animal or man he acquires
not only the physical, but even the moral and intellectual qualities
which were characteristic of that animal or man; so when the
creature is deemed divine, our simple savage naturally expects to
absorb a portion of its divinity along with its material substance.
It may be well to illustrate by instances this common faith in the
acquisition of virtues or vices of many kinds through the medium of
animal food, even when there is no pretence that the viands consist
of the body or blood of a god. The doctrine forms part of the widely
ramified system of sympathetic or homoeopathic magic.
Thus, for example, the Creeks, Cherokee, and kindred tribes of North
American Indians "believe that nature is possest of such a property
as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the
food they use, or of those objects that are presented to their
senses; he who feeds on venison is, according to their physical
system, swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the
flesh of the clumsy bear, or helpless dunghill fowls, the
slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy wallowing swine.
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