actually taking place: "Alas," cried the people, "his whole body is beginning to be covered with tiger-spots; his nails are growing." Near Loanda, Livingstone found[1] that a "chief may metamorphose himself into a lion, kill any one he choses, and then resume his proper form." Among the Barotse and Balonda, "while persons are still alive they may enter into lions and alligators."[2] Among the Mayas of Central America "sorcerers could transform themselves into dogs, pigs, and other animals; their glance was death to a victim."[3] The Thlinkeets think that their Shamans can metamorphose themselves into animals at pleasure; and a very old raven was pointed out to Mr. C. E. S. Wood as an incarnation of the soul of a Shaman.[4] Sir A. C. Lyall finds a similar belief in flourishing existence in India. The European superstition of the were-wolf is too well known to need description. Perhaps the most curious legend is that told by Giraldus Cambrensis about a man and his wife metamorphosed into wolves by an abbot. They retained human speech, made exemplary professions of Christian faith, and sent for priests when they found their last hours approaching. In an old Norman ballad a girl is transformed into a white doe, and hunted and slain by her brother's hounds. The "aboriginal" peoples of India retain similar convictions. Among the Hos,[5] an old sorcerer called Pusa was known to turn himself habitually into a tiger, and to eat his neighbour's goats, and even their
- ↑ Missionary Travels, p. 615.
- ↑ Livingstone, p. 642.
- ↑ Bancroft, ii.
- ↑ Century Magazine, July 1882.
- ↑ Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, p. 200
