The Malagasy view is that the crocodile is the ally of a magician during his lifetime, and that he can send him forth as a familiar to wreak harm upon his enemies.
The alligator is closely allied to the crocodile. Among the legends of the Arawak Indians of British Guiana is one about a half human beast of this species which received its extraordinary markings in the following manner: Arawadi, the sun-god, coming to earth saw an alligator disporting himself on the banks of a stream which he had preserved specially for fish. To get rid of the enemy he seized and smote him with a hard club upon the head and tail, but the alligator, crying out to him to stay his hand, promised in return for clemency a beauteous water-sprite to be his bride. Arawadi agreed to the proposal.
"The reptile's wounds were healed. Those blows
No more his hide assail;
But still their marks are seen, 'tis said,
Indented on his battered head
And notched along his tail!"
The domestic animals, bulls, cows, horses, asses, cats, and dogs, have been regarded at one time or another as gifted with human powers, or as suitable vehicles for the reception of human souls. The Tlaxcallans believe that man can be transformed into a dog. The wild dog, the coyote, according to the ideas of the Navajos, may be a bad man transformed at death for his sins.
Armenians sacrifice an ass at the graves of people who owe them money, their belief being that if payment is not forthcoming the ancestor's souls will enter asses' bodies.
The Corn Spirit is supposed to take the form of a cat, and in some places in Germany children have been warned not to go into the corn-fields because "The cat sits there." In Silesia the reaper who cuts the last corn is called the "Tom-cat" and is dressed up in rye-stalks, wearing a long plaited tail. Sometimes another man accompanies him called "the female cat."
The Lapps of the North Cape are said to consult a black cat when in trouble, and they regard it more as a human being than as an animal.
The cat is among the soul-animals familiar to the inhabitants of the British Islands, who, owing to this country's immunity from wild beasts, are satisfied to "humanise" the milder species of creatures such as the ant, butterfly, gull, moth, sparrow, and swan.
In the parish of Ballymoyer in Ireland butterflies are said to be the souls of grandfathers, whilst the Malagasy trace their descent from a moth, believing that a man was changed into a moth when he died. Many races believe that moths and butterflies are the souls of the dead.
In the Solomon Islands, if a native declared he intended to transmigrate into a butterfly, his children, on seeing one of these insects would cry "That is Daddy" and make some suitable offering of food. Witches have been known to have butterflies and moths as familiars.