190 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



walk and when his parents were lying down to sleep 

 he used to lick them like a snake. So they consulted 

 a witch-doctor, who told them that the child was in 

 reality a water-serpent, and advised them to take him 

 to the waterside and put him into the water when he 

 would resume his natural shape. They determined to 

 do so, and when they took him to the water there in 

 their presence the boy changed himself into a serpent 

 and rolled into the river. 1 Major Leonard who relates 

 the incident argues, and doubtless with justice, for the 

 entire good faith of the defendants, on the ground that 

 the child was a boy and therefore of value to the 

 family both on its human and spiritual sides, and that 

 the explanation of his inability to walk and his habits 

 given by the local diviner was in harmony with all the 

 convictions and traditions of his parents, and contri- 

 buted materially to their delusions. Parallel beliefs 

 are found in British Columbia. The Kwakiutl and 

 other peoples hold that twins were salmon before their 

 birth and have the power to become salmon again ; 2 

 and the Lillooet say that twins are grisly bears in 

 human form, and that when a twin dies his soul goes 

 back to the grisly bears and becomes one of them. 3 



In previous chapters we have examined tales in 

 which men and women deceased have reappeared as 

 human babes without undergoing any intermediate 

 change into lower forms ; and we have others yet to 

 examine. What is expressly affirmed where pregnancy 

 is caused by tasting the ashes of a corpse, what is 

 implicit in the disgusting superstitions that lead women 

 to swallow portions of dead human bodies or to bathe 



1 Leonard, 194. 2 Boas, Ind. Sag. 209, 219, 174. 



3 Teit, Jesup Exped. ii. 263. 



