[19] Nelson, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 435.
[20] Abreu de Galindo, History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands, p. 71 sq. Bory de St. Vincent, Essais sur les Isles Fortunées, p. 103 sq.
[22] Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 296 sq.
[23] Griffis, Mikado’s Empire, p. 472.
How far ideas of this sort may account for the great disinclination of many peoples to kill their cattle, it is impossible to say; but they certainly do not constitute the only motive. We have noticed above that pastoral tribes are unwilling to reduce their herds and agricultural peoples to kill the ploughing ox, because this would imply loss of valuable property.[24] And apart from economic considerations, we may assume that feelings of genuine sympathy also induce them to treat their animals with kindness. The altruistic sentiment has not necessarily reference to members of the same species only; of this we find instances even among animals in confinement and domesticated animals, which frequently become attached to individuals of a different species with whom they live together.[25] And the savage feels himself much more closely related to the animal world than does his civilised fellow creature; indeed, as we have seen, he habitually obliterates the boundaries between man and beast and regards all animals as practically on a footing of equality with himself.[26] Among the pastoral races of Africa the men delight in attending their cattle, and spend much time in ornamenting and adorning them; the herdsman knows every beast in his herd, calls it by its name, and affectionately observes all its peculiarities.[27] Of the Bahima, a cow tribe in Uganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe tells us that the men form warm attachments for their cattle; some of them love the animals like children, pet and coax them, talk to them, and weep over their ailments, and should a favourite die their grief is so extreme that it sometimes leads to suicide.[28] The mythical founder of the kingdom of Uganda, Kintu, is said to have been so humane and averse from the sight of blood, that “even cattle killed for necessary food were slaughtered at some distance from his dwelling.”[29] But cattle are not the only dumb creatures that excite tender feelings in the bosom of a savage. The For tribe of Central Africa regard it as a characteristic of a good man to be kind to animals in general, and consider it wicked to be otherwise.[30] Concerning the Eastern Central Africans Mr. Macdonald writes that if they appear destitute of pity, say, for their fowls in their methods of carrying them, it is because they do not reflect that it gives them pain—“all would admit that it was a cruel thing to pain the fowl”; and they have fables in their language which show a desire to enter minutely into the feelings of dumb creatures, representing, for instance, fowls as reasoning on their hard fate in being killed for their master’s supper.[31] Among the Indians of the province of Quito, according to Juan and Ulloa, the women are so fond of their fowls that they will not sell them, much less kill them with their own hands; “so that if a stranger, who is obliged to pass the night in one of their cottages, offers ever so much money for a fowl, they refuse to part with it, and he finds himself under a necessity of killing the fowl himself. At this his landlady shrieks, dissolves in tears, and wrings her hands, as if it had been an only son; till seeing the mischief past remedy she wipes her eyes, and quietly takes what the traveller offers her.”[32] North American Indians, again, are very fond of their hunting dogs. Those on the west side of the Rocky Mountains “appear to have the same affection for them that they have for their children; and they will discourse with them, as if they were rational beings. They frequently call them their sons or daughters; and when describing an Indian, they will speak of him as father of a particular dog which belongs to him. When these dogs die, it is not unusual to see their masters or mistresses place them on a pile of wood, and burn them in the same manner as they do the dead bodies of their relations; and they appear to lament their deaths, by crying and howling, fully as much as if they were their kindred.”[33] So also the natives of Australia often display much affection for their dogs; Mr. Gason has seen women crying over a dog when bitten by a snake as if it had been one of their own children, and if a puppy has lost its mother the women suckle and nurse it.[34] Of the Maoris of New Zealand we read that their extreme love of offspring “was also carried out to excess towards the young of brutes—especially of their dogs, and, afterwards, of cats and pigs introduced. Hence it was by no means an unusual sight to see a woman carrying her child at her back, and a pet dog, or pig, in her bosom.”[35] The Chukchi of North-Eastern Siberia believe that if a person is cruel to brutes his soul will after his death migrate into some domestic animal—a dog, a horse, or a reindeer.[36] Even the miserable Veddahs of Ceylon are said to be indignant at the needless killing of a beast.[37]
[27] Ratzel, History of Mankind, ii. 415.