30 King, Folk-lore of the North American Indians. 



conception, not at the time of birth. For instance, an 

 Emu mother conceived when she was in the locaUty of 

 the Witchetty grub totem. The child was born lOO miles 

 off in the Emu territory, but all the same it counted as a 

 Witchetty grub.* Time after time these natives have 

 been questioned, and have asserted their belief that 

 children are not the direct result of human intercourse. 

 Now we have an ancient Greek law, found in the island 

 of Ceos, regulating funeral rites. Amongst other regula- 

 tions of interest, it directs that no woman is to enter the 

 room from which the corpse has just been taken unless 

 she is the daughter of a cousin of the deceased, or a still 

 nearer relation, such as mother, daughter, sister, &c. 

 Similarly, we have a law of Solon's quoted, which for- 

 bids any woman under 60 to enter the chamber of the 

 deceased or follow the corpse to the tomb unless she 

 is a cousin's daughter or still nearer relation.f The 

 soul after death was a shadowy, weakly thing ; it could 

 be entangled in the sweepings of the room, it went 

 at the head of the funeral procession to the grave. 

 (x., 143.) It is a legitimate inference, then, to suppose 

 that in these regulations we have survivals of a primi- 

 tive belief in the re-birth of the soul, and the object of the 

 regulations was to ensure that the soul should be born of a 

 woman belonging to the family of the deceased. At Rome, 

 if a man, supposed to be dead, returned home, he was let in 

 through the roof In Greece we are told by Plutarch that, 

 if a man had been given up for dead, and his funeral 

 solemnised or prepared, and then he recovered, he was 

 solemnly committed as an infant new-born unto women 

 for to be washed, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes, and 

 to be suckled. His soul had got back at once into its 



♦ Spencer and Gillen, op. ciL, p. 124, 265. 



t Rcehl, Iitscr. Antiquiss., No. 395, Dem. c. Macart. § 62. 



