XVill Introduction. 
practice. But it also became drawn into the scheme ot 
the new body of doctrine when the possibility of water 
also vitalising the human body was admitted. 
Asa result of this new trend of thought, the belief 
gradually took shape, for reasons which I have explained 
in detail elsewhere,’ that a statue made in imitation of a 
human being or an animal, or in fact any part of such a 
living creature, or any article of food or furniture which 
the deceased needed, could be animated by means of such 
ritual observances as I have enumerated. These ideas 
added definiteness to the further conception that any object 
reproducing the form of a part of the body could magically 
influence the structure which it mimicked. 
At atime when such beliefs represented the ortho- 
doxy of religion no less than the latest teaching of science, 
for then the two were identical, some humble children of 
nature who worshipped at this dual shrine were impressed 
with the likeness to the female pudenda of cowry-shells, 
picked up no doubt on the shores of the Red Sea; and 
with the analogy between the process by which the 
mollusc extruded itself from its shell to the act of parturi- 
tion. In strict accordance with the teaching of the time 
this discovery naturally made the cowry an amulet for 
insuring in women fertility and easy delivery in labour. 
Thus these shells became appropriate offerings to be made 
to girls on reaching maturity, or on the occasion of their 
marriage. They were also worn to cure sterility and to 
avert danger in parturition. These ideas spread until 
they encircled the world. 
But the idea of encouraging the bringing to life or 
the conception of offspring became extended to include 
the power of vitalising or animating a corpse. This is an 
***The Relationship of the Practice of Mummification, etc.,” of. cf. 
a 
supra. 
