220 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



the steppes and stunted forests of the great North-West. 

 Of them it is told that sometimes men die to be re- born 

 almost immediately without going to the land of the 

 dead. When these souls have chosen a woman for 

 their mother they go to her and are reincarnated in 

 her womb. Such migrations are recognised by several 

 signs, as when the child is born with two teeth in the 

 upper and two in the lower jaw, or when it is born 

 immediately after a death, or when it remembers what 

 it has been during its previous life, or when it re- 

 sembles trait for trait a person defunct. 1 The Tacullies, 

 or Carriers, also an Athapascan tribe, assist the soul's 

 decision as to the child in which it will become 

 reincarnate. They inquire of the dead if they will 

 return to life or not. The shaman inspects the naked 

 breast of the corpse, and if satisfied on the point he 

 blows the soul into the air, that it may seek a new 

 body, or puts his hands on one of the mourners, thereby 

 conveying the spirit into him, to be embodied in his 

 next offspring. The relation thus favoured, we are 

 told, added the name of the deceased to his own. 2 



Like the Thompson Indians, the Iroquois held 

 that it was chiefly the souls of children to which 

 the privilege of a new birth was granted. 3 Huron 

 philosophy posited the existence of two souls in a 



1 Petitot, Traditions, 275. The author gives one other sign 

 which I do not understand : " Lorsqu'elles \sc. the women] cessent 

 d'avoir leurs regies au temps prescrit par la nature dans notre pays.' 



2 Bancroft, iii. 517. Tylor (op. tit. 3), citing Waitz, states that 

 it was the child who bore not only the name but the rank of the 

 deceased. I have preferred to cite Bancroft both because the state- 

 ment is second-hand instead of third -hand (I have no access to the 

 original), and because it tells somewhat less strongly in favour of the 

 argument. See also Boyle, Archaeological Report, Ontario ( 1 898), 142. 



3 Featherman, op. cit. 31. 



