According to the Koryak ideas, the whales, like all other
animals, constitute one tribe, or rather family, of related
individuals, who live in villages like the Koryak. They avenge the
murder of one of their number, and are grateful for kindnesses that
they may have received." When the inhabitants of the Isle of St.
Mary, to the north of Madagascar, go a-whaling, they single out the
young whales for attack and "humbly beg the mother's pardon, stating
the necessity that drives them to kill her progeny, and requesting
that she will be pleased to go below while the deed is doing, that
her maternal feelings may not be outraged by witnessing what must
cause her so much uneasiness." An Ajumba hunter having killed a
female hippopotamus on Lake Azyingo in West Africa, the animal was
decapitated and its quarters and bowels removed. Then the hunter,
naked, stepped into the hollow of the ribs, and kneeling down in the
bloody pool washed his whole body with the blood and excretions of
the animal, while he prayed to the soul of the hippopotamus not to
bear him a grudge for having killed her and so blighted her hopes of
future maternity; and he further entreated the ghost not to stir up
other hippopotamuses to avenge her death by butting at and capsizing
his canoe.
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