TRANSFORMATION 207 



souls of the departed are embodied in certain animals. 

 If after a death a calf is born and refuses to drink 

 milk, it is often declared to represent the spirit of the 

 deceased. In the same way, when a baby refuses to 

 suck a ceremony is performed. " The mother sits 

 down and the father names each of his departed 

 ancestors father mother grandfather, and so on. 

 At whichever name the baby takes the breast, that 

 ancestor is supposed to have been re-born in the 

 family, and the child is henceforth treated with special 

 care. The Ghasiyas similarly believe that deceased 

 ancestors are from time to time re-born in the family." * 

 Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush " the instant an 

 infant is born it is given to the mother to suckle, Xvhile 

 an old woman runs rapidly over the names of the 

 baby's ancestors or ancestresses, as the case may be, 

 and stops the instant the infant begins to feed. The 

 name on the reciter's lips when that event occurs 

 becomes the name by which the child will thenceforth 

 be known during its life." The analogy of other cases 

 leads to the conclusion that here too the ancestor must 

 be thought to be born again. Sir George Robertson 

 who reports the custom indeed adds that as a conse- 

 quence, it not unfrequently happens that " several 

 members of a family are compelled to bear the same 

 name," and are " distinguished from one another in 

 conversation by the prefix senior or junior, as the case 

 may be." 2 This of course may happen also among 

 peoples who, we are definitely informed, practise 

 similar divination in order to ascertain what ancestor 

 has returned. How their philosophy settles the 

 question of identity when such duplication occurs we 

 1 N. Ind. N. and Q. 129 (par. 817). 2 Robertson, Kafirs, 596. 



