The people of Miri believe themselves to be related to large deer, and suppose that their dead relatives become deer. The Bakongs, another group of Mohammedan Malasians, believe their friends become bear-cats after death. The Papuans of New Guinea hold that at death souls of human beings pass into animals such as cassowaries, fish, or pigs. They do not eat these sacred creatures, which are taboo.
The taboos include all animals which must not be killed. They enjoy local sanctity, and are never eaten or even touched. Taboo animals are thought to give favourable and unfavourable omens. Death is sometimes foretold by their means.
These instances of the supposed connection between savage races and certain animals might be multiplied a hundredfold, and they lead to interesting developments of the transformation theory.
The belief that beasts are the dwelling-places of the souls of depraved men is a variation of the idea that depraved men were inhabited by demons.
In Australia and America it is customary for savages to have what is called "a medicine animal," something in the nature of a tutelary genius or second soul. The natives of Central America call this animal nagual, the Algonquins manitou, the Eskimo tornaq, and amongst the last-named people it is usually a bear. Others call it simply the bush-soul.
The young Tinkhlet Indian goes out hunting the otter, and when he has killed his prey he cuts out its tongue, which he uses as a charm, wearing it round his neck and believing that he now understands the language of all animals. In other races various animals are killed in order that part of their body may be used as a talisman. A nagual may be obtained in other ways, perhaps through dreaming of the right animal, or by having it chosen by the magician of the tribe. It then becomes sacred, and should it die the man dies too.
The West African negroes believe that a man can have as many as four souls, one of which lives in animal form out in the bush, and is then called his bush-soul. If this animal soul is trapped or shot, the man himself dies. Nor will a native kill his bush-soul, for this would surely be the cause of his own end. Bush-souls are often regarded as an hereditary possession, generally passing from father to son and from mother to daughter. Among many primitive peoples the belief exists that the human being can and does actually change into this tutelary animal genius. In Iceland, for instance, it is believed that various members of a family have a kind of animal double called fylgja, in the shape of a dog or bird.
The Yakuts of Siberia believe that every wizard has one of his souls incarnate in an animal. "Nobody can find my external soul," said one famous wizard, "it lies hidden far away in the stony mountains of Edzhigansk." Once a year at the melting of the snow, these souls appear amongst the dwellings of men in the shape of animals, invisible to all but the wizards themselves. Strong ones hurry about noisily, but the weak ones move furtively as though afraid. Sometimes they fight, and the sorcerer whose soul is worsted in the battle falls ill and may even die. The souls of cowardly wizards are in the form of dogs, and they give their human double no peace, but gnaw at his heart and tear his body. Powerful wizards have souls incarnate in stallions, elks, boars, eagles, and black bears.
The Samoyeds in the Turukhinsk region believe that sorcerers have a familiar in the shape of a boar, and that they lead him by a magic belt. If the boar dies the sorcerer too must die. Sometimes battles occur between sorcerers who send forth their familiars to encounter one another before they themselves meet in the flesh.
The Melanesians of Mota in the New Hebrides, call the soul the atai, and they believe that every person has a second self which is visible and is, in fact, the reflection in animal form of his own personality. He and his atai would rejoice or grieve, live and die together.