DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



from Lower Egypt and the coming floods of the Nile, says that 

 the people of every family in which a dog died shaved them- 

 selves their expression of mourning adding that this was 

 the custom of his own time. 



Very fine and clear representations of the sporting dogs 

 used in hunting the wild ass by the monarchs of Assyria are 

 found in the bas-reliefs of Assur-bani-pal, dating from 668- 

 626 B.C. Clay models of the dogs of this monarch also exist.* 



In Ethiopia not only was great veneration paid to the dog, 

 but the inhabitants used to elect a dog as their king. It was 

 kept in great state and surrounded by a numerous train of 

 officers and guards. 



Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new 

 sect in Egypt and S. Italy, teaching, with the Egyptian 

 philosophers, that at the death of the body the soul entered 

 into that of various animals. At the death of any of his 

 favourite disciples he would hold a dog to the mouth of the 

 man in order to receive the departing spirit, saying that there 

 was no animal which could perpetuate his virtues better than 

 that quadruped .f 



The Parsi religion, whose priests ruled Persia from a period 

 many centuries before the Christian era until overthrown by 

 the second successor of Mohammed, devoted the whole of one 

 of its sacred books, found in the Zend Avesta to the dog. 

 To the Magi of this fire-worshipping religion the Rabbi's 

 and Mohammed owe much of their thought. To a reaction 

 against its extravagant dog-reverence coupled with that of 

 ancient Egypt is, perhaps, due the abhorrence in which the 

 dog is held by Saracen and Jew alike. This veneration held 

 by the Aryans for the canine disguise attributed to some of 

 their divinities, appears to throw light upon the race's 



* " Mesopotamian Archaeology," by Percy S. P. Handcock, 1912. 

 f Encyclopedia Britannica, " The Dog." 



12 



