2i 4 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



We may set this explanation beside the statement 

 quoted by Dr. Tylor from Charlevoix that "some 

 North- American Indians were observed to set the child 

 in place of the last owner of its name, so that a man 

 would treat as his grandfather a child who might have 

 been his grandson." 1 It may also be compared with 

 the belief of the Eskimo. Dr. Tylor cites from Crantz 

 the assertion that a helpless widow would seek to 

 persuade some father that the soul of a dead child of 

 his had passed into a living child of hers, or vice versa, 

 thus gaining to herself a new relative and protector. 

 Dr. Rink on the other hand considers that the de- 

 ceased person whose name a child bore was only 

 looked upon as a kind of guardian spirit. His state- 

 ment, however, that the child when grown up was 

 bound to brave the influences that caused his name- 

 sake's death for instance, if the namesake had 

 perished at sea, his successor had all the greater 

 inducement to become a skilful kayaker points to 

 more than this ; while numerous stories in Rink's 

 collection indicate nothing less than identity ; nay, one 

 of them at least definitely asserts it. 2 Like Crantz, 



1 Tylor, Prim. Cut. ii. 4. 



2 Tylor, Prim. Cul. ii. 3 ; Crantz, i. 200 \cf. 161) ; Rink, 44, 

 54, 64, 434, 450. Compare the belief of the Baganda. Speaking 

 of the custom of naming a child Mr. Roscoe says : " With royalty 

 the name of the great-grandfather is given to the eldest son ; 

 peasants do not follow this custom, but take the name of some 

 renowned relative. The spirit of the deceased relative enters the 

 child and assists him through life " (/. A. L xxxii. 32). Among the 

 Awemba the diviner after consulting the lots gives a new-born child 

 " the name of some dead chief, declaring that the spirit will look after 

 his namesake " (J. H. W. Sheane,/. A. L xxxvi. 155). Comparison 

 of such cases as these enables us to surmise the stages through which 

 the belief in the identity of the child with the deceased has decayed. 

 Compare the Roman Catholic custom cited in a note, infra, p. 223. 



