[464] Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, ii, 213.
[465] Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 527, 539; Crooke, op. cit.; Fewkes, "The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi," p. 17 ff.
[466] For a fanciful connection between the sun-myth and the spider see Frobenius, Childhood of Man, chap. xxiii.
[467] A somewhat vague Naga (snake) being of this sort is noted (Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 539). The relation between the Australian supernatural being Bunjil (or Punjil) and the eagle-hawk is not clear. Cf. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Index; Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, Index.
[468] See below, § 635 f.
[469] A special form of man's relations with animals is considered below under "Totemism."
[470] For example, in Sumatra, offerings are made to the "soul of the rice"; there is fear of frightening the rice-spirit, and ceremonies are performed in its honor; see Wilken, Het Animisme bij de Volken van den Indischen Archipel; Kruyt, De Rijstmoeder van den Indischen Archipel, 389. It has been suggested that the prohibition of yeast in the Hebrew mazzot (unleavened bread) festival may have come originally from fear of frightening the spirit of the grain. It may have been, however, merely the retention of an old custom (if the grain was eaten originally without yeast), which later (as sometimes happened in the case of old customs) was made sacred by its age, was adopted into the religious code, and so became obligatory.
[471] This conception survives in the expressions "spirit of wine," etc., and Cassio's "invisible spirit of wine" easily passes into a "devil."
[472] This distinction is made in a somewhat formal way by the Ainu, a very rude people (Batchelor, The Ainu, chap. xxxiii).
[473] W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2d ed., p. 132 f.