HIS RELATION TO ANIMALS 



AGAIN, among the Yoruba we find Iro, the chim- 

 panzee, confused with Oro, the departed spirit of the 

 first father. They say that Iro had the power of 

 sacrificing to the Orishas in such a way that he could 

 obtain children for the sterile and barren. He killed 

 one of his master's children, ran away, and became a 

 chimpanzee ; and now if anyone wants a child from 

 Oro he will get a ram and peto (corn beer) and take 

 them to the Oro grove and ask the master of Iro to 

 take the offering to him. 



" The Moors consider it wrong to kill a monkey, 

 because the monkey was once a man whom God 

 changed into his present shape as a punishment for 

 the sin he committed by performing his ablutions with 

 milk. The Chukchi of North- Eastern Siberia believe 

 that if a person is cruel to brutes his soul will after his 

 death migrate into some domestic animal." (The 

 Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, 

 Westermarck.) 



Here then we find that the souls of human beings 

 are as it were degraded back to animals on account of 

 their brutality ; and I think it is worth while to note 

 that while the primitive man feels himself much more 



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