TRANSFORMATION 219 



now." 1 And still " there seems to be a vague belief 

 with some that adults, if they so desire, may also be 

 re-born on earth ; but this seldom happens." 2 Among 

 the Haida " belief in reincarnation was so general that 

 a large proportion of the children were named in 

 accordance with this idea. When the shaman an- 

 nounced what ancestor was reincarnated that ancestors 

 name was of course given to the child. A man was 

 always re-born into his own clan and generally into his 

 own family." According to one opinion a man might 

 return in this way four times from the Land of Souls. 

 Ultimately he became a blue fly ; what happened after 

 that does not appear. 3 Among the Thlinkit, if a 

 pregnant woman dreamed of a dead man it was said 

 that the ghost had taken up its abode in her body.; 

 and if a newborn child had the least resemblance to a 

 deceased relative, the latter was believed to have 

 returned and the child was called by his name. 4 



On this side of the Rocky Mountains the Hareskins, 

 a branch of the Dene or Athapascan stock, roam over 



1 Teit, Mem. Am. Mus. N. H. Anthrop. i. 359. The last state- 

 ment is not unambiguous. I understand it to mean that the belief 

 was formerly more general in its terms. It is likely that the cases 

 mentioned would survive in the tribal opinion as cases of re-birth 

 when others had been given up. 



2 Id. Jesup Exped. ii. 287, 277. 



3 S wanton, Jesup Exped. v. 117, 35. A story of a man who 

 remembered his sojourn among the dead and his new birth, Ibid, 

 36. Rev. C. Harrison (/. A. I. xxi. 20) gives a similar account of 

 Haida belief, but unquestionably coloured in some of its details by 

 Christian ideas. 



4 Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 392; Bancroft, iii. 517. See a saga 

 of a man who remembered his experiences, Brit. Ass. Rep. (1889), 

 844; cf. Id. (1888), 241. Similar beliefs and stories of other 

 British Columbian tribes, Id. (1890), 580, 611, 614; Boas, Ind. 

 Sag. 322. 



