Chapter IX: Part 9

ANIMAL (Lat. _animalis_, from _anima_, breath, soul), a term first used as a noun or adjective to denote a living thing, but now used to designate one branch of living things as opposed to the other branch known as plants. Until the discovery of protoplasm, and the series of investigations by which it was established that the cell was a fundamental structure essentially alike in both animals and plants (see CYTOLOGY), there was a vague belief that plants, if they could really be regarded as animated creatures, exhibited at the most a lower grade of life. We know now that in so far as life and living matter can be investigated by science, animals and plants cannot be described as being alive in different degrees. Animals and plants are extremely closely related organisms, alike in their fundamental characters, and each grading into organisms which possess some of the characters of both classes or kingdoms (see PROTISTA). The actual boundaries between animals and plants are artificial; they are rather due to the ingenious analysis of the systematist than actually resident in objective nature. The most obvious distinction is that the animal cell-wall is either absent or composed of a nitrogenous material, whereas the plant cell-wall is composed of a carbohydrate material--cellulose. The animal and the plant alike require food to repair waste, to build up new tissue and to provide material which, by chemical change, may liberate the energy which appears in the processes of life. The food is alike in both cases; it consists of water, certain inorganic salts, carbohydrate material and proteid material. Both animals and plants take their water and inorganic salts directly as such. The animal cell can absorb its carbohydrate and proteid food only in the form of carbohydrate and proteid; it is dependent, in fact, on the pre-existence of these organic substances, themselves the products of living matter, and in this respect the animal is essentially a parasite on existing animal and plant life. The plant, on the other hand, if it be a green plant, containing chlorophyll, is capable, in the presence of light, of building up both carbohydrate material and proteid material from inorganic salts; if it be a fungus, devoid of chlorophyll, whilst it is dependent on pre-existing carbohydrate material and is capable of absorbing, like an animal, proteid material as such, it is able to build up its proteid food from material chemically simpler than proteid. On these basal differences are founded most of the characters which make the higher forms of animal and plant life so different. The animal body, if it be composed of many cells, follows a different architectural plan; the compact nature of its food, and the yielding nature of its cell-walls, result in a form of structure consisting essentially of tubular or spherical masses of cells arranged concentrically round the food-cavity. The relatively rigid nature of the plant cell-wall, and the attenuated inorganic food-supply of plants, make possible and necessary a form of growth in which the greatest surface is exposed to the exterior, and thus the plant body is composed of flattened laminae and elongated branching growths. The distinctions between animals and plants are in fact obviously secondary and adaptive, and point clearly towards the conception of a common origin for the two forms of life, a conception which is made still more probable by the existence of many low forms in which the primary differences between animals and plants fade out.

An animal may be defined as a living organism, the protoplasm of which does not secrete a cellulose cell-wall, and which requires for its existence proteid material obtained from the living or dead bodies of existing plants or animals. The common use of the word animal as the equivalent of mammal, as opposed to bird or reptile or fish, is erroneous.

The classification of the animal kingdom is dealt with in the article ZOOLOGY.

(P.C.M.)

ANIMAL HEAT. Under this heading is discussed the physiology of the temperature of the animal body.

The higher animals have within their bodies certain sources of heat, and also some mechanism by means of which both the production and loss of heat can be regulated. This is conclusively shown by the fact that both in summer and winter their mean temperature remains the same. But it was not until the introduction of thermometers that any exact data on the temperature of animals could be obtained. It was then found that local differences were present, since heat production and heat loss vary considerably in different parts of the body, although the circulation of the blood tends to bring about a mean temperature of the internal parts. Hence it is important to determine the temperature of those parts which most nearly approaches to that of the internal organs. Also for such results to be comparable they must be made in the same situation. The rectum gives most accurately the temperature of internal parts, or in women and some animals the vagina, uterus or bladder.

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Occasionally that of the urine as it leaves the urethra may be of use. More usually the temperature is taken in the mouth, axilla or groin.

_Warm and Cold Blooded Animals_.--By numerous observations upon men and animals, John Hunter showed that the essential difference between the so-called warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals lies in the constancy of the temperature of the former, and the variability of the temperature of the latter. Those animals high in the scale of evolution, as birds and mammals, have a high temperature almost constant and independent of that of the surrounding air, whereas among the lower animals there is much variation of body temperature, dependent entirely on their surroundings. There are, however, certain mammals which are exceptions, being warm-blooded during the summer, but cold-blooded during the winter when they hibernate; such are the hedgehog, bat and dormouse. John Hunter suggested that two groups should be known as "animals of permanent heat at all atmospheres" and "animals of a heat variable with every atmosphere," but later Bergmann suggested that they should be known as "homoiothermic" and "poikilothermic" animals. But it must be remembered there is no hard and fast line between the two groups. Also, from work recently done by J.O. Wakelin Barratt, it has been shown that under certain pathological conditions a warm-blooded (homoiothermic) animal may become for a time cold-blooded (poikilothermic). He has shown conclusively that this condition exists in rabbits suffering from rabies during the last period of their life, the rectal temperature being then within a few degrees of the room temperature and varying with it. He explains this condition by the assumption that the nervous mechanism of heat regulation has become paralysed. The respiration and heart-rate being also retarded during this period, the resemblance to the condition of hibernation is considerable. Again, Sutherland Simpson has shown that during deep anaesthesia a warm-blooded animal tends to take the same temperature as that of its environment. He demonstrated that when a monkey is kept deeply anaesthetized with ether and is placed in a cold chamber, its temperature gradually falls, and that when it has reached a sufficiently low point (about 25° C. in the monkey), the employment of an anaesthetic is no longer necessary, the animal then being insensible to pain and incapable of being roused by any form of stimulus; it is, in fact, narcotized by cold, and is in a state of what may be called "artificial hibernation." Once again this is explained by the fact that the heat-regulating mechanism has been interfered with. Similar results have been obtained from experiments on cats. These facts--with many others--tend to show that the power of maintaining a constant temperature has been a gradual development, as Darwin's theory of evolution suggests, and that anything that interferes with the due working of the higher nerve-centres puts the animal back again, for the time being, on to a lower plane of evolution.

_Variations in the Temperature of Man and some other Animals_.--As stated above, the temperature of warm-blooded animals is maintained with but slight variation. In health under normal conditions the temperature of man varies between 36° C. and 38° C., or if the thermometer be placed in the axilla, between 36.25° C. and 37.5° C. In the mouth the reading would be from .25° C. to 1.5° C. higher than this; and in the rectum some .9° C. higher still. The temperature of infants and young children has a much greater range than this, and is susceptible of wide divergencies from comparatively slight causes.

Of the lower warm-blooded animals, there are some that appear to be cold-blooded at birth. Kittens, rabbits and puppies, if removed from their surroundings shortly after birth, lose their body heat until their temperature has fallen to within a few degrees of that of the surrounding air. But such animals are at birth blind, helpless and in some cases naked. Animals who are born when in a condition of greater development can maintain their temperature fairly constant. In strong, healthy infants a day or two old the temperature rises slightly, but in that of weakly, ill-developed children it either remains stationary or falls. The cause of the variable temperature in infants and young immature animals is the imperfect development of the nervous regulating mechanism.

The average temperature falls slightly from infancy to puberty and again from puberty to middle age, but after that stage is passed the temperature begins to rise again, and by about the eightieth year is as high as in infancy. A diurnal variation has been observed dependent on the periods of rest and activity, the maximum ranging from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., the minimum from 11 P.M. to 3 A.M. Sutherland Simpson and J.J. Galbraith have recently done much work on this subject. In their first experiments they showed that in a monkey there is a well-marked and regular diurnal variation of the body temperature, and that by reversing the daily routine this diurnal variation is also reversed. The diurnal temperature curve follows the periods of rest and activity, and is not dependent on the incidence of day and night; in monkeys which are active during the night and resting during the day, the body temperature is highest at night and lowest through the day. They then made observations on the temperature of animals and birds of nocturnal habit, where the periods of rest and activity are naturally the reverse of the ordinary through habit and not from outside interference. They found that in nocturnal birds the temperature is highest during the natural period of activity (night) and lowest during the period of rest (day), but that the mean temperature is lower and the range less than in diurnal birds of the same size. That the temperature curve of diurnal birds is essentially similar to that of man and other homoiothermal animals, except that the maximum occurs earlier in the afternoon and the minimum earlier in the morning. Also that the curves obtained from rabbit, guinea-pig and dog were quite similar to those from man. The mean temperature of the female was higher than that of the male in all the species examined whose sex had been determined.

Meals sometimes cause a slight elevation, sometimes a slight depression--alcohol seems always to produce a fall. Exercise and variations of external temperature within ordinary limits cause very slight change, as there are many compensating influences at work, which are discussed later. Even from very active exercise the temperature does not rise more than one degree, and if carried to exhaustion a fall is observed. In travelling from very cold to very hot regions a variation of less than one degree occurs, and the temperature of those living in the tropics is practically identical with those dwelling in the Arctic regions.

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_Limits compatible with Life._--There are limits both of heat and cold that a warm-blooded animal can bear, and other far wider limits that a cold-blooded animal may endure and yet live. The effect of too extreme a cold is to lessen metabolism, and hence to lessen the production of heat. Both katabolic and anabolic changes share in the depression, and though less energy is used up, still less energy is generated. This diminished metabolism tells first on the central nervous system, especially the brain and those parts concerned in consciousness. Both heart-beat and respiration-number become diminished, drowsiness supervenes, becoming steadily deeper until it passes into the sleep of death. Occasionally, however, convulsions may set in towards the end, and a death somewhat similar to that of asphyxia takes place. In some recent experiments on cats performed by Sutherland Simpson and Percy T. Herring, they found them unable to survive when the rectal temperature was reduced below 16° C. At this low temperature respiration became increasingly feeble, the heart-impulse usually continued after respiration had ceased, the beats becoming very irregular, apparently ceasing, then beginning again. Death appeared to be mainly due to asphyxia, and the only certain sign that it had taken place was the loss of knee jerks. On the other hand, too high a temperature hurries on the metabolism of the various tissues at such a rate that their capital is soon exhausted. Blood that is too warm produces dyspnoea and soon exhausts the metabolic capital of the respiratory centre. The rate of the heart is quickened, the beats then become irregular and finally cease. The central nervous system is also profoundly affected, consciousness may be lost, and the patient falls into a comatose condition, or delirium and convulsions may set in. All these changes can be watched in any patient suffering from an acute fever. The lower limit of temperature that man can endure depends on many things, but no one can survive a temperature of 45° C. (113° F.) or above for very long. Mammalian muscle becomes rigid with heat rigor at about 50° C., and obviously should this temperature be reached the sudden rigidity of the whole body would render life impossible. H.M. Vernon has recently done work on the death temperature and paralysis temperature (temperature of heat rigor) of various animals. He found that animals of the same class of the animal kingdom showed very similar temperature values, those from the Amphibia examined being 38.5° C., Fishes 39°, Reptilia 45°, and various Molluscs 46°. Also in the case of Pelagic animals he showed a relation between death temperature and the quantity of solid constituents of the body, _Cestus_ having lowest death temperature and least amount of solids in its body. But in the higher animals his experiments tend to show that there is greater variation in both the chemical and physical characters of the protoplasm, and hence greater variation in the extreme temperature compatible with life.

_Regulation of Temperature._--The heat of the body is generated by the chemical changes--those of oxidation--undergone not by any particular substance or in any one place, but by the tissues at large. Wherever destructive metabolism (katabolism) is going on, heat is being set free. When a muscle does work it also gives rise to heat, and if this is estimated it can be shown that the muscles alone during their contractions provide far more heat than the whole amount given out by the body. Also it must be remembered that the heart--also a muscle,--never resting, does in the 24 hours no inconsiderable amount of work, and hence must give rise to no inconsiderable amount of heat. From this it is clear that the larger proportion of total heat of the body is supplied by the muscles. These are essentially the "thermogenic tissues." Next to the muscles as heat generators come the various secretory glands, especially the liver, which appears never to rest in this respect. The brain also must be a source of heat, since its temperature is higher than that of the arterial blood with which it is supplied. Also a certain amount of heat is produced by the changes which the food undergoes in the alimentary canal before it really enters the body. But heat while continually being produced is also continually being lost by the skin, lungs, urine and faeces. And it is by the constant modification of these two factors, (1) heat production and (2) heat loss, that the constant temperature of a warm-blooded animal is maintained. Heat is lost to the body through the faeces and urine, respiration, conduction and radiation from the skin, and by evaporation of perspiration. The following are approximately the relative amounts of heat lost through these various channels (different authorities give somewhat different figures):--faeces and urine about 3, respiration about 20, skin (conduction, radiation and evaporation) about 77. Hence it is clear the chief means of loss are the skin and the lungs. The more air that passes in and out of the lungs in a given time, the greater the loss of heat. And in such animals as the dog, who do not perspire easily by the skin, respiration becomes far more important.

But for man the great heat regulator is undoubtedly the skin, which regulates heat loss by its vasomotor mechanism, and also by the nervous mechanism of perspiration. Dilatation of the cutaneous vascular areas leads to a larger flow of blood through the skin, and so tends to cool the body, and _vice versa_. Also the special nerves of perspiration can increase or lessen heat loss by promoting or diminishing the secretions of the skin. There are greater difficulties in the exact determination in the amount of heat produced, but there are certain well-known facts in connexion with it. A larger living body naturally produces more heat than a smaller one of the same nature, but the surface of the smaller, being greater in proportion to its bulk than that of the larger, loses heat at a more rapid rate. Hence to maintain the same constant bodily temperature, the smaller animal must produce a relatively larger amount of heat. And in the struggle for existence this has become so.

Food temporarily increases the production of heat, the rate of production steadily rising after a meal until a maximum is reached from about the 6th to the 9th hour. If sugar be included in the meal the maximum is reached earlier; if mainly fat, later. Muscular work very largely increases the production of heat, and hence the more active the body the greater the production of heat.

But all the arrangements in the animal economy for the production and loss of heat are themselves probably regulated by the central nervous system, there being a thermogenic centre--situated above the spinal cord, and according to some observers in the optic thalamus.

AUTHORITIES.--M.S. Pembrey, "Animal Heat," in Schafer's _Textbook of Physiology_ (1898); C.R. Richet, "Chaleur," in _Dictionnaire de physiologie_ (Paris, 1898); Hale White, Croonian Lectures, _Lancet_, London, 1897; Pembrey and Nicol, _Journal of Physiology_, vol. xxiii., 1898-1899; H.M. Vernon, "Heat Rigor," _Journal of Physiology_, xxiv., 1899; H.M. Vernon, "Death Temperatures," _Journal of Physiology_, xxv., 1899; F.C. Eve, "Temperature on Nerve Cells," _Journal of Physiology_, xxvi., 1900; G. Weiss, _Comptes Rendus, Soc. de Biol._, lii., 1900; Swale Vincent and Thomas Lewis, "Heat Rigor of Muscle," _Journal of Physiology_, 1901; Sutherland Simpson and Percy Herring, "Cold and Reflex Action," Journal of Physiology, 1905; Sutherland Simpson, _Proceedings of Physiological Soc._, July 19, 1902; Sutherland Simpson and J.J. Galbraith, "Diurnal Variation of Body Temperature," _Journal of Physiology_, 1905; _Transactions Royal Society Edinburgh_, 1905; _Proc. Physiological Society_, p. xx., 1903; A.E. Boycott and J.S. Haldane, _Effects of High Temperatures on Man._

ANIMAL WORSHIP, an ill-defined term, covering facts ranging from the worship of the real divine animal, commonly conceived as a "god-body," at one end of the scale, to respect for the bones of a slain animal or even the use of a respectful name for the living animal at the other end. Added to this, in many works on the subject we find reliance placed, especially for the African facts, on reports of travellers who were merely visitors to the regions on which they wrote.

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_Classification_.--Animal cults may be classified in two ways: (A) according to their outward form; (B) according to their inward meaning, which may of course undergo transformations.

(A) There are two broad divisions: (1) all animals of a given species are sacred, perhaps owing to the impossibility of distinguishing the sacred few from the profane crowd; (2) one or a fixed number of a species are sacred. It is probable that the first of these forms is the primary one and the second in most cases a development from it due to (i.) the influence of other individual cults, (ii.) anthropomorphic tendencies, (iii.) the influence of chieftainship, hereditary and otherwise, (iv.) annual sacrifice of the sacred animal and mystical ideas connected therewith, (v.) syncretism, due either to unity of function or to a philosophic unification, (vi.) the desire to do honour to the species in the person of one of its members, and possibly other less easily traceable causes.

(B) Treating cults according to their meaning, which is not necessarily identical with the cause which first led to the deification of the animal in question, we can classify them under ten specific heads: (i.) pastoral cults; (ii.) hunting cults; (iii.) cults of dangerous or noxious animals; (iv.) cults of animals regarded as human souls or their embodiment; (v.) totemistic cults; (vi.) cults of secret societies, and individual cults of tutelary animals; (vii.) cults of tree and vegetation spirits; (viii.) cults of ominous animals; (ix.) cults, probably derivative, of animals associated with certain deities; (x.) cults of animals used in magic.

(i.) The pastoral type falls into two sub-types, in which the species (_a_) is spared and (_b_) sometimes receives special honour at intervals in the person of an individual. (See _Cattle, Buffalo_, below.)

(ii.) In hunting cults the species is habitually killed, but (_a_) occasionally honoured in the person of a single individual, or (_b_) each slaughtered animal receives divine honours. (See _Bear_, below.)

(iii.) The cult of dangerous animals is due (_a_) to the fear that the soul of the slain beast may take vengeance on the hunter, (_b_) to a desire to placate the rest of the species. (See _Leopard_, below.)

(iv.) Animals are frequently regarded as the abode, temporary or permanent, of the souls of the dead, sometimes as the actual souls of the dead. Respect for them is due to two main reasons: (_a_) the kinsmen of the dead desire to preserve the goodwill of their dead relatives; (_b_) they wish at the same time to secure that their kinsmen are not molested and caused to undergo unnecessary suffering. (See _Serpent_, below.)

(v.) One of the most widely found modes of showing respect to animals is known as totemism (see TOTEM AND TOTEMISM), but except in decadent forms there is but little positive worship; in Central Australia, however, the rites of the Wollunqua totem group are directed towards placating this mythical animal, and cannot be termed anything but religious ceremonies.

(vi.) In secret societies we find bodies of men grouped together with a single tutelary animal; the individual, in the same way, acquires the nagual or individual totem, sometimes by ceremonies of the nature of the bloodbond.

(vii.) Spirits of vegetation in ancient and modern Europe and in China are conceived in animal form. (See _Goat_, below.)

(viii.) The ominous animal or bird may develop into a deity. (See _Hawk_, below.)

(ix.) It is commonly assumed that the animals associated with certain deities are sacred because the god was originally theriomorphic; this is doubtless the case in certain instances; but Apollo Smintheus, Dionysus Bassareus and other examples seem to show that the god may have been appealed to for help and thus become associated with the animals from whom he protected the crops, &c.

(x.) The use of animals in magic may sometimes give rise to a kind of respect for them, but this is of a negative nature. See, however, articles by Preuss in _Globus_, vol. lxvii., in which he maintains that animals of magical influence are elevated into divinities.

_Animal Cults._

_Bear_.--The bear enjoys a large measure of respect from all savage races that come in contact with it, which shows itself in apologies and in festivals in its honour. The most important developments of the cult are in East Asia among the Siberian tribes; among the Ainu of Sakhalin a young bear is caught at the end of winter and fed for some nine months; then after receiving honours it is killed, and the people, who previously show marks of grief at its approaching fate, dance merrily and feast on its body. Among the Gilyaks a similar festival is found, but here it takes the form of a celebration in honour of a recently dead kinsman, to whom the spirit of the bear is sent. Whether this feature or a cult of the hunting type was the primary form, is so far an open question. There is a good deal of evidence to connect the Greek goddess Artemis with a cult of the bear; girls danced as "bears" in her honour, and might not marry before undergoing this ceremony. The bear is traditionally associated with Bern in Switzerland, and in 1832 a statue of Artio, a bear goddess, was dug up there.

_Buffalo_.--The Todas of S. India abstain from the flesh of their domestic animal, the buffalo; but once a year they sacrifice a bull calf, which is eaten in the forest by the adult males.

_Cattle_.--Cattle are respected by many pastoral peoples; they live on milk or game, and the killing of an ox is a sacrificial function. Conspicuous among Egyptian animal cults was that of the bull, Apis. It was distinguished by certain marks, and when the old Apis died a new one was sought; the finder was rewarded, and the bull underwent four months' education at Nilopolis. Its birthday was celebrated once a year; oxen, which had to be pure white, were sacrificed to it; women were forbidden to approach it when once its education was finished. Oracles were obtained from it in various ways. After death it was mummified and buried in a rock-tomb. Less widespread was the cult of the Mnevis, also consecrated to Osiris. Similar observances are found in our own day on the Upper Nile; the Nuba and Nuer worship the bull; the Angoni of Central Africa and the Sakalava of Madagascar keep sacred bulls. In India respect for the cow is widespread, but is of post-Vedic origin; there is little actual worship, but the products of the cow are important in magic.

_Crow_.--The crow is the chief deity of the Thlinkit Indians of N.W. America; and all over that region it is the chief figure in a group of myths, fulfilling the office of a culture hero who brings the light, gives fire to mankind, &c. Together with the eagle-hawk the crow plays a great part in the mythology of S.E. Australia.

_Dog_.--Actual dog-worship is uncommon; the Nosarii of western Asia are said to worship a dog; the Kalangs of Java had a cult of the red dog, each family keeping one in the house; according to one authority the dogs are images of wood which are worshipped after the death of a member of the family and burnt after a thousand days. In Nepal it is said that dogs are worshipped at the festival called Khicha Puja. Among the Harranians dogs were sacred, but this was rather as brothers of the mystae.

_Elephant_.--In Siam it is believed that a white elephant may contain the soul of a dead person, perhaps a Buddha; when one is taken the capturer is rewarded and the animal brought to the king to be kept ever afterwards; it cannot be bought or sold. It is baptized and fêted and mourned for like a human being at its death. In some parts of Indo-China the belief is that the soul of the elephant may injure people after death; it is therefore fêted by a whole village. In Cambodia it is held to bring luck to the kingdom. In Sumatra the elephant is regarded as a tutelary spirit. The cult of the white elephant is also found at Ennarea, southern Abyssinia.

_Fish_.--Dagon seems to have been a fish-god with human head and hands; his worshippers wore fish-skins. In the temples of Apollo and Aphrodite were sacred fish, which may point to a fish cult. Atargatis is said to have had sacred fish at Askelon, and from Xenophon we read that the fish of the Chalus were regarded as gods.

_Goat_.--Dionysus was believed to take the form of a goat, probably as a divinity of vegetation. Pan, Silenus, the Satyrs and the Fauns were either capriform or had some part of their bodies shaped like that of a goat. In northern Europe the wood spirit, Ljesche, is believed to have a goat's horns, ears and legs. In Africa the Bijagos are said to have a goat as their principal divinity.

_Hare_.--In North America the Algonquin tribes had as their chief deity a "mighty great hare" to whom they went at death. According to one account he lived in the east, according to another in the north. In his anthropomorphized form he was known as Menabosho or Michabo.

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_Hawk_.--In North Borneo we seem to see the evolution of a god in the three stages of the cult of the hawk among the Kenyahs, the Kayans and the sea Dyaks. The Kenyahs will not kill it, address to it thanks for assistance, and formally consult it before leaving home on an expedition; it seems, however, to be regarded as the messenger of the supreme god Balli Penyalong. The Kayans have a hawk-god, Laki Neho, but seem to regard the hawk as the servant of the chief god, Laki Tenangan. Singalang Burong, the hawk-god of the Dyaks, is completely anthropomorphized. He is god of omens and ruler of the omen birds; but the hawk is not his messenger, for he never leaves his house; stories are, however, told of his attending feasts in human form and flying away in hawk form when all was over.

_Horse_.--There is some reason to believe that Poseidon, like other water gods, was originally conceived under the form of a horse. In the cave of Phigalia Demeter was, according to popular tradition, represented with the head and mane of a horse, possibly a relic of the time when a non-specialized corn-spirit bore this form. Her priests were called Poloi (colts) in Laconia. In Gaul we find a horse-goddess, Epona; there are also traces of a horse-god, Rudiobus. The Gonds in India worship a horse-god, Koda Pen, in the form of a shapeless stone; but it is not clear that the horse is regarded as divine. The horse or mare is a common form of the corn-spirit in Europe.

_Leopard_.--The cult of the leopard is widely found in West Africa. Among the Ewe a man who kills one is liable to be put to death; no leopard skin may be exposed to view, but a stuffed leopard is worshipped. On the Gold Coast a leopard hunter who has killed his victim is carried round the town behind the body of the leopard; he may not speak, must besmear himself so as to look like a leopard and imitate its movements. In Loango a prince's cap is put upon the head of a dead leopard, and dances are held in its honour.

_Lion_.--The lion was associated with the Egyptian gods R[=e] and Horus; there was a lion-god at Baalbek and a lion-headed goddess Sekhet. The Arabs had a lion-god, Yaghuth. In modern Africa we find a lion-idol among the Balonda.

_Lizard_.--The cult of the lizard is most prominent in the Pacific, where it appears as an incarnation of Tangaloa. In Easter Island a form of the house-god is the lizard; it is also a tutelary deity in Madagascar.

_Mantis_.--Cagn is a prominent figure in Bushman mythology; the mantis and the caterpillar, Ngo, are his incarnations. It was called the "Hottentots' god" by early settlers.

_Monkey_.--In India the monkey-god, Hanuman, is a prominent figure; in orthodox villages monkeys are safe from harm. Monkeys are said to be worshipped in Togo. At Porto Novo, in French West Africa, twins have tutelary spirits in the shape of small monkeys.

_Serpent_.--The cult of the serpent is found in many parts of the Old World; it is also not unknown in America; in Australia, on the other hand, though many species of serpent are found, there does not appear to be any species of cult unless we include the Warramunga cult of the mythical Wollunqua totem animal, whom they seek to placate by rites. In Africa the chief centre of serpent worship was Dahomey; but the cult of the python seems to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of Whydah the Dahomeyans were brought in contact with a people of serpent worshippers, and ended by adopting from them the cult which they at first despised. At Whydah, the chief centre, there is a serpent temple, tenanted by some fifty snakes; every python of the danh-gbi kind must be treated with respect, and death is the penalty for killing one, even by accident. Danh-gbi has numerous wives, who until 1857 took part in a public procession from which the profane crowd was excluded; a python was carried round the town in a hammock, perhaps as a ceremony for the expulsion of evils. The rainbow-god of the Ewe was also conceived to have the form of a snake; his messenger was said to be a small variety of boa; but only certain individuals, not the whole species, were sacred. In many parts of Africa the serpent is looked upon as the incarnation of deceased relatives; among the Amazulu, as among the Betsileo of Madagascar, certain species are assigned as the abode of certain classes; the Masai, on the other hand, regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.

In America some of the Amerindian tribes reverence the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi (Moqui) of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the sun; and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a serpent-god. The tribes of Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days; and in Chile the Araucanians made a serpent figure in their deluge myth.

Over a large part of India there are carved representations of cobras (N[=a]gas) or stones as substitutes; to these human food and flowers are offered and lights are burned before the shrines. Among the Dravidians a cobra which is accidentally killed is burned like a human being; no one would kill one intentionally; the serpent-god's image is carried in an annual procession by a celibate priestess.

Serpent cults were well known in ancient Europe; there does not, it is true, appear to be much ground for supposing that Aesculapius was a serpent-god in spite of his connexion with serpents. On the other hand, we learn from Herodotus of the great serpent which defended the citadel of Athens; the Roman _genius loci_ took the form of a serpent; a snake was kept and fed with milk in the temple of Potrimpos, an old Slavonic god. To this day there are numerous traces in popular belief, especially in Germany, of respect for the snake, which seems to be a survival of ancestor worship, such as still exists among the Zulus and other savage tribes; the "house-snake," as it is called, cares for the cows and the children, and its appearance is an omen of death, and the life of a pair of house-snakes is often held to be bound up with that of the master and mistress themselves. Tradition says that one of the Gnostic sects known as the Ophites caused a tame serpent to coil round the sacramental bread and worshipped it as the representative of the Saviour. See also SERPENT-WORSHIP.

_Sheep_.--Only in Africa do we find a sheep-god proper; Ammon was the god of Thebes; he was represented as ram-headed; his worshippers held the ram to be sacred; it was, however, sacrificed once a year, and its fleece formed the clothing of the idol.

_Tiger_.--The tiger is associated with Siva and Durga, but its cult is confined to the wilder tribes; in Nepal the tiger festival is known as Bagh Jatra, and the worshippers dance disguised as tigers. The Waralis worship Waghia the lord of tigers in the form of a shapeless stone. In Hanoi and Manchuria tiger-gods are also found.

_Wolf_.--Both Zeus and Apollo were associated with the wolf by the Greeks; but it is not clear that this implies a previous cult of the wolf. It is frequently found among the tutelary deities of North American dancing or secret societies. The Thlinkits had a god, Khanukh, whose name means "wolf," and worshipped a wolf-headed image.

AUTHORITIES.--For a fuller discussion and full references to these and other cults, that of the serpent excepted, see N.W. Thomas in Hastings' _Dictionary of Religions_; Frazer, _Golden Bough_; Campbell's _Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom_; Maclennan's _Studies_ (series 2); V. Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_. For the serpent, see Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, p. 54; _Internat. Archiv_, xvii. 113; Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 239; Fergusson, _Tree and Serpent Worship_; Mähly,_Die Schlange im Mythus_; Staniland Wake, _Serpent Worship, &c._; _16th Annual Report of the American Bureau of Ethnology_, p. 273, and bibliography, p. 312. For the bull, &c., in Egypt, see EGYPT: _Religion_.

(N.W.T.)

ANIMÉ, an oleo-resin (said to be so called because in its natural state it is infested with insects) which is exuded from the locust tree, _Hymenaea coumaril_, and other species of _Hymenaea_ growing in tropical South America. It is of a pale brown colour, transparent, brittle, and in consequence of its agreeable odour is used for fumigation and in perfumery. Its specific gravity varies from 1.054 to 1.057. It melts readily over the fire, and softens even with the heat of the mouth; it is insoluble in water, and nearly so in cold alcohol. It is allied to copal in its nature and appearance, and is much used by varnish-makers. The name is also given to Zanzibar copal (_q.v._).

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ANIMISM (from _animus_, or _anima_, mind or soul), according to the definition of Dr. E.B. Tylor, the doctrine of spiritual beings, including human souls; in practice, however, the term is often extended to include panthelism or animatism, the doctrine that a great part, if not the whole, of the inanimate kingdom, as well as all animated beings, are endowed with reason, intelligence and volition, identical with that of man. This latter theory, which in many cases is equivalent to personification, though it may be, like animism, a feature of the philosophy of peoples of low culture, should not be confused with it. But it is difficult in practice to distinguish the two phases of thought and no clear account of animatism can yet be given, largely on the ground that no people has yet been discovered which has not already developed to a greater or less extent an animistic philosophy. On theoretical grounds it is probable that animatism preceded animism; but savage thought is no more consistent than that of civilized man; and it may well be that animistic and panthelistic doctrines are held simultaneously by the same person. In like manner one portion of the savage explanation of nature may have been originally animistic, another part animatistic.

_Origin_.--Animism may have arisen out of or simultaneously with animatism as a primitive explanation of many different phenomena; if animatism was originally applied to non-human or inanimate objects, animism may from the outset have been in vogue as a theory of the nature of man. Lists of phenomena from the contemplation of which the savage was led to believe in animism have been given by Dr. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Andrew Lang and others; an animated controversy arose between the former as to the priority of their respective lists. Among these phenomena are: trance (_q.v._) and unconsciousness, sickness, death, clairvoyance (_q.v._), dreams (_q.v._), apparitions (_q.v._) of the dead, wraiths, hallucinations (_q.v._), echoes, shadows and reflections.

Primitive ideas on the subject of the soul, and at the same time the origin of them, are best illustrated by an analysis of the terms applied to it. Readers of Dante know the idea that the dead have no shadows; this was no invention of the poet's but a piece of traditionary lore; at the present day among the Basutos it is held that a man walking by the brink of a river may lose his life if his shadow falls on the water, for a crocodile may seize it and draw him in; in Tasmania, North and South America and classical Europe is found the conception that the soul--[Greek: skia], _umbra_--is somehow identical with the shadow of a man. More familiar to the Anglo-Saxon race is the connexion between the soul and the breath; this identification is found both in Aryan and Semitic languages; in Latin we have _spiritus_, in Greek _pneuma_, in Hebrew _ruach_; and the idea is found extending downwards to the lowest planes of culture in Australia, America and Asia. For some of the Red Indians the Roman custom of receiving the breath of a dying man was no mere pious duty but a means of ensuring that his soul was transferred to a new body. Other familiar conceptions identify the soul with the liver (see OMEN) or the heart, with the reflected figure seen in the pupil of the eye, and with the blood. Although the soul is often distinguished from the vital principle, there are many cases in which a state of unconsciousness is explained as due to the absence of the soul; in South Australia _wilyamarraba_ (without soul) is the word used for insensible. So too the autohypnotic trance of the magician or _shaman_ is regarded as due to his visit to distant regions or the nether world, of which he brings back an account. Telepathy or clairvoyance (_q.v._), with or without trance, must have operated powerfully to produce a conviction of the dual nature of man, for it seems probable that facts unknown to the automatist are sometimes discovered by means of crystal-gazing (_q.v._), which is widely found among savages, as among civilized peoples. Sickness is often explained as due to the absence of the soul; and means are sometimes taken to lure back the wandering soul; when a Chinese is at the point of death and his soul is supposed to have already left his body, the patient's coat is held up on a long bamboo while a priest endeavours to bring the departed spirit back into the coat by means of incantations. If the bamboo begins to turn round in the hands of the relative who is deputed to hold it, it is regarded as a sign that the soul of the moribund has returned (see AUTOMATISM). More important perhaps than all these phenomena, because more regular and normal, was the daily period of sleep with its frequent concomitant of fitful and incoherent ideas and images. The mere immobility of the body was sufficient to show that its state was not identical with that of waking; when, in addition, the sleeper awoke to give an account of visits to distant lands, from which, as modern psychical investigations suggest, he may even have brought back veridical details, the conclusion must have been irresistible that in sleep something journeyed forth, which was not the body. In a minor degree revival of memory during sleep and similar phenomena of the sub-conscious life may have contributed to the same result. Dreams are sometimes explained by savages as journeys performed by the sleeper, sometimes as visits paid by other persons, by animals or objects to him; hallucinations, possibly more frequent in the lower stages of culture, must have contributed to fortify this interpretation, and the animistic theory in general. Seeing the phantasmic figures of friends at the moment when they were, whether at the point of death or in good health, many miles distant, must have led the savage irresistibly to the dualistic theory. But hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living; from the reappearance of dead friends or enemies primitive man was inevitably led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man which survived the dissolution of the body. The soul was conceived to be a facsimile of the body, sometimes no less material, sometimes more subtle but yet material, sometimes altogether impalpable and intangible.

_Animism and Eschatology_.--The psychological side of animism has already been dealt with; almost equally important in primitive creeds is the eschatological aspect. In many parts of the world it is held that the human body is the seat of more than one soul; in the island of Nias four are distinguished, the shadow and the intelligence, which die with the body, a tutelary spirit, termed _begoe_, and a second which is carried on the head. Similar ideas are found among the Euahlayi of S.E. Australia, the Dakotas and many other tribes. Just as in Europe the ghost of a dead person is held to haunt the churchyard or the place of death, although more orthodox ideas may be held and enunciated by the same person as to the nature of a future life, so the savage, more consistently, assigns different abodes to the multiple souls with which he credits man. Of the four souls of a Dakota, one is held to stay with the corpse, another in the village, a third goes into the air, while the fourth goes to the land of souls, where its lot may depend on its rank in this life, its sex, mode of death or sepulture, on the due observance of funeral ritual, or many other points (see ESCHATOLOGY). From the belief in the survival of the dead arose the practice of offering food, lighting fires, &c., at the grave, at first, maybe, as an act of friendship or filial piety, later as an act of worship (see ANCESTOR WORSHIP). The simple offering of food or shedding of blood at the grave develops into an elaborate system of sacrifice; even where ancestor-worship is not found, the desire to provide the dead with comforts in the future life may lead to the sacrifice of wives, slaves, animals, &c., to the breaking or burning of objects at the grave or to the provision of the ferryman's toll, a coin put in the mouth of the corpse to pay the travelling expenses of the soul. But all is not finished with the passage of the soul to the land of the dead; the soul may return to avenge its death by helping to discover the murderer, or to wreak vengeance for itself; there is a widespread belief that those who die a violent death become malignant spirits and endanger the lives of those who come near the haunted spot; the woman who dies in child-birth becomes a _pontianak_, and threatens the life of human beings; and man resorts to magical or religious means of repelling his spiritual dangers.

_Development of Animism_.--If the phenomena of dreams were, as suggested above, of great importance for the development of animism, the belief, which must originally have been a doctrine of human psychology, cannot have failed to expand speedily into a general philosophy of nature. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams; and the conclusion would be that they too have souls; the same conclusion may have been reached by another line of argument; primitive psychology posited a spirit in a man to account, amongst other things, for his actions; a natural explanation of the changes in the external world would be that they are due to the operations and volitions of spirits.

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_Animal Souls._--But apart from considerations of this sort, it is probable that animals must, early in the history of animistic beliefs, have been regarded as possessing souls. Education has brought with it a sense of the great gulf between man and animals; but in the lower stages of culture this distinction is not adequately recognized, if indeed it is recognized at all. The savage attributes to animals the same ideas, the same mental processes as himself, and at the same time vastly greater power and cunning. The dead animal is credited with a knowledge of how its remains are treated and sometimes with a power of taking vengeance on the fortunate hunter. Powers of reasoning are not denied to animals nor even speech; the silence of the brute creation may be put down to their superior cunning. We may assume that man attributed a soul to the beasts of the field almost as soon as he claimed one for himself. It is therefore not surprising to find that many peoples on the lower planes of culture respect and even worship animals (see TOTEM; ANIMAL WORSHIP); though we need not attribute an animistic origin to all the developments, it is clear that the widespread respect paid to animals as the abode of dead ancestors, and much of the cult of dangerous animals, is traceable to this principle. With the rise of species, deities and the cult of individual animals, the path towards anthropomorphization and polytheism is opened and the respect paid to animals tends to lose its strict animistic character.

_Plant Souls._--Just as human souls are assigned to animals, so primitive man often credits trees and plants with souls in both human or animal form. All over the world agricultural peoples practise elaborate ceremonies explicable, as Mannhardt has shown, on animistic principles. In Europe the corn spirit sometimes immanent in the crop, sometimes a presiding deity whose life does not depend on that of the growing corn, is conceived in some districts in the form of an ox, hare or cock, in others as an old man or woman; in the East Indies and America the rice or maize mother is a corresponding figure; in classical Europe and the East we have in Ceres and Demeter, Adonis and Dionysus, and other deities, vegetation gods whose origin we can readily trace back to the rustic corn spirit. Forest trees, no less than cereals, have their indwelling spirits; the fauns and satyrs of classical literature were goat-footed and the tree spirit of the Russian peasantry takes the form of a goat; in Bengal and the East Indies wood-cutters endeavour to propitiate the spirit of the tree which they cut down; and in many parts of the world trees are regarded as the abode of the spirits of the dead. Just as a process of syncretism has given rise to cults of animal gods, tree spirits tend to become detached from the trees, which are thenceforward only their abodes; and here again animism has begun to pass into polytheism.

_Object Souls._--We distinguish between animate and inanimate nature, but this classification has no meaning for the savage. The river speeding on its course to the sea, the sun and moon, if not the stars also, on their never-ceasing daily round, the lightning, fire, the wind, the sea, all are in motion and therefore animate; but the savage does not stop short here; mountains and lakes, stones and manufactured articles, are for him alike endowed with souls like his own; he deposits in the tomb weapons and food, clothes and implements, broken, it may be, in order to set free their souls; or he attains the same result by burning them, and thus sending them to the Other World for the use of the dead man. Here again, though to a less extent than in tree cults, the theriomorphic aspect recurs; in the north of Europe, in ancient Greece, in China, the water or river spirit is horse or bull-shaped; the water monster in serpent shape is even more widely found, but it is less strictly the spirit of the water. The spirit of syncretism manifests itself in this department of animism too; the immanent spirit of the earlier period becomes the presiding genius or local god of later times, and with the rise of the doctrine of separable souls we again reach the confines of animism pure and simple.

_Spirits in General._--Side by side with the doctrine of separable souls with which we have so far been concerned, exists the belief in a great host of unattached spirits; these are not immanent souls which have become detached from their abodes, but have every appearance of independent spirits. Thus, animism is in some directions little developed, so far as we can see, among the Australian aborigines; but from those who know them best we learn that they believe in innumerable spirits and bush bogies, which wander, especially at night, and can be held at bay by means of fire; with this belief may be compared the ascription in European folk belief of prophylactic properties to iron. These spirits are at first mainly malevolent; and side by side with them we find the spirits of the dead as hostile beings. At a higher stage the spirits of dead kinsmen are no longer unfriendly, nor yet all non-human spirits; as fetishes (see FETISHISM), naguals (see TOTEM), familiars, gods or demi-gods (for which and the general question see DEMONOLOGY), they enter into relations with man. On the other hand there still subsists a belief in innumerable evil spirits, which manifest themselves in the phenomena of possession (_q.v._), lycanthropy (_q.v._), disease, &c. The fear of evil spirits has given rise to ceremonies of expulsion of evils (see EXORCISM), designed to banish them from the community.