Among the Fans
of West Africa men in the prime of life never eat tortoises for a
similar reason; they imagine that if they did so, their vigour and
fleetness of foot would be gone. But old men may eat tortoises
freely, because having already lost the power of running they can
take no harm from the flesh of the slow-footed creature.
While many savages thus fear to eat the flesh of slow-footed animals
lest they should themselves become slow-footed, the Bushmen of South
Africa purposely ate the flesh of such creatures, and the reason
which they gave for doing so exhibits a curious refinement of savage
philosophy. They imagined that the game which they pursued would be
influenced sympathetically by the food in the body of the hunter, so
that if he had eaten of swift-footed animals, the quarry would be
swift-footed also and would escape him; whereas if he had eaten of
slow-footed animals, the quarry would also be slow-footed, and he
would be able to overtake and kill it. For that reason hunters of
gemsbok particularly avoided eating the flesh of the swift and agile
springbok; indeed they would not even touch it with their hands,
because they believed the springbok to be a very lively creature
which did not go to sleep at night, and they thought that if they
ate springbok, the gemsbok which they hunted would likewise not be
willing to go to sleep, even at night.
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