METEMPSYCHOSIS 359 



to arrest him, the secret of death was handed by the 

 lizard to the petitioners for it, and the chameleon 

 must throughout the ages bear the odium attaching 

 to his scandalous and inopportune casualness. 



A very curious form of belief is that the spirits 

 of dead persons are enabled to return and watch 

 over their surviving relations in the shapes of 

 animals. It frequently happens, therefore, that 

 whilst one family is unwilUng to slay beasts of one 

 species, another group will betray reluctance to kill 

 those of another. This belief is particularly general 

 among the Wa- Tonga of the Baru^, who still 

 perform " animal dances " in which they imitate 

 the voices and movements of those forms in which 

 they suppose the spirits of their dead may be 

 temporarily sheltered. But although the reason 

 assigned for the entry of spirits into the bodies of 

 animals is that of protection to the survivors, the 

 beasts whose forms the spirits take are not expected 

 to manifest their presence by any undue desire to 

 visit the abode of those who remain. Were they 

 to do so, I do not think that faith in the identity 

 of their animating spark would outweigh an un- 

 mistakable manifestation of panic on the part of 

 those so visited. They will tell you, however, that 

 an animal into which a given spirit has passed, is 

 close by, and will not permit any other of the 

 same species to do them harm. 



I have never heard expression given to the belief, 

 attributed to certain South African tribes, in races 

 of people who live beneath the surface of the water ; 

 but I have heard the opinion several times ex- 

 pressed that Europeans originally lived under the 



