Sometimes the whole life and being of a man was supposed to be bound up in the bundle with that of some animal. Thus, of the Guatemaltecs, old Gage quaintly enough writes: "Many are deluded by the Devil to believe that their life dependeth upon the life of such and such a beast (which they take unto them as their familiar spirit) and think that when that beast dieth they must die; when he is chased their hearts pant; when he is faint they are faint; nay it happeneth that by the devil's delusion they appear in the shape of that beast."[IV-6]
Animals are sometimes only men in disguise; and this is the idea often to be found at the bottom of that sacredness which among particular tribes is ascribed to particular animals.
The Thlinkeet will kill a bear only in case of great necessity, for the bear is supposed to be a man that has taken the shape of an animal. We do not know if they think the same of the albatross, but they certainly will not kill this bird, believing, like mariners ancient and modern, that such a misdeed would be followed by bad weather.[IV-7]
Among the natives seen by Mr Lord on Vancouver Island, ill-luck is supposed to attend the profane killing of the ogress-squirrel, and the conjurers wear its skin as a strong charm among their other trumpery. As tradition tells, there once lived there a monstrous old woman with wolfish teeth, and finger-nails like claws. She ate children, this old hag, wiling them to her with cunning and oily words, and many were the broken hearts and empty cradles that she left. One poor Rachel, weeping for her child and not to be comforted because it was not, cries aloud: Oh, Great Spirit, Great Medicine, save my son, in any way, in any form! And the great, good Father, looking down upon the red mother pities her; lo, the child's soft brown skin turns to fur, and there slides from the ogress's grip no child, but the happiest, liveliest, merriest little squirrel of all the west--but bearing, as its descendants still bear, those four dark lines along the back that show where the cruel claws plowed into it escaping.[IV-8]
Where monkeys are found, the idea seems often to have occurred to men, to account for the resemblance of the monkey to the man by making of the first a fallen or changed form of the latter. We have already seen how the third Quiché destruction of the human race terminated thus; and how the hurricane-ended Sun of the Air in Mexican mythology, also left men in the apish state. The intelligence of beavers may have been the means of winning them a similar distinction. The Flathead says these animals are a fallen race of Indians, condemned for their wickedness to this form, but who will yet, in the fulness of time, be restored to their humanity.[IV-9]