DOG-LORE AND SUPERSTITION 



men and animals were introduced (into Indonesia) by the 

 stone-using immigrants. For they appear to be more closely 

 connected with animals than the indigenous peoples. The 

 chiefs of Kupang in Timor are said to be descended from 

 crocodiles." " The Khasi have certain food-restrictions. 

 They do not, as a people, eat dogs or ordinary frogs." " The 

 cat and dog are not eaten by the Kayan of the Mahakam river." 

 " Among the Chiru no women may eat dog, which is also 

 forbidden to the priests when killed for a sacrifice." " Dogs 

 and salt fish are forbidden when rice is being transplanted, and 

 dogs are forbidden during rice-harvest and epidemics." 



The street-dogs, as remarked by Robert Fortune,* a 

 botanist who visited Japan in 1860, " appear to be of the same 

 breed as the common Chinese dog, and both have probably 

 sprung from the same stock." They were as much neglected 

 as is the case in China to-day. " On a warm summer after- 

 noon," he continues, " these animals may be seen lying at full 

 length in the public highway, apparently sound asleep ; 

 and it was not unusual for our attendants to kick and whip 

 them out of our road in a most unceremonious way. On 

 many of them the marks of the sharp swords of the yakoneens 

 were plainly visible, and everything tended to show, that if 

 the dogs were regarded as sacred by some, the feeling fails to 

 secure them from being cruelly ill-treated by the common 

 people. It was not unusual to meet with wretched specimens 

 in a half-starved condition, and covered with loathsome 

 disease." His statements are confirmed by the remark of 

 Lafcadio Hearn, that the condition of the Japanese dog is one 

 thing which tells powerfully against beliefs about the influence 

 of Buddhism upon the treatment of animals. 



The dog has had his day in Japan, however. " We went by 

 the place where publick orders and proclamations are put up, 



* Kaempfer. 



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