The most curious of all these beliefs is that mankind is descended from animals, all the more curious because some modern scientific men have, as every one knows, tried to prove very much the same thing. The modern scientist, however, does not have any especial reverence for the antediluvian ape from which he supposes he may have evolved, while the primitive savage regarded with awe and reverence the animals from which he thought himself descended. Groups of savages called clans—all tracing their descent from the same animal, considered that animal to be especially their friend. They would not kill it or eat it, except in a few instances when it was killed for the purposes of sacrifice. Many different animals were regarded as ancestral animals, and became the sign or totem, as it was called, of the tribe. Among totem animals may be mentioned the following in Australia: Opossum, Swan, Duck, Fish. Most of the Australian tribes declare that the family started by a transformation of these animals into mankind. The North American Indians have a great variety of totem animals: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk, Crane, Duck, Loon, Turkey, Muskrat, Pike, Catfish, Carp, and so on. It was an easy step for the savage from the belief in his own descent from some animal to a belief in the sacredness and mystery of animals, naturally leading to the worship of them. The Indians of Peru, for example, regarded the dog as their most exalted deity. They set up the image of a dog in their temples. They were also in the habit of choosing a live dog as a representation of their deity. They worshipped this and offered sacrifices to it, and when it was well fattened up they ate it with solemn religious ceremonies. This is one of the cases where the sacred animal was eaten. Serpent worship is one of the most wide-spread forms of animal worship, an example of which is found among the Zulus to whom certain species are sacred because they are supposed to be the incarnations of ancestral spirits. Another form which the sacred animal took was that of a supernatural being not only concerned in the origin of men but who had a part to play in the origin of the whole world. In a large number of these myths, the water already existed and, also of course, the remarkable animal who brought to pass such wonders. The animal was sometimes very humble as in the story told by the Indians of British Columbia of the creation of the world. HOW A MUSKRAT MADE THE WORLD In the beginning nothing existed but water and a muskrat. As the little animal kept diving down to the bottom of the water in search of food, his mouth became frequently filled with mud. This he spat out and so gradually formed by alluvial deposit, an island, which grew and grew until it finally became large enough to be the earth. * * * * * The natives of the Philippine Islands tell this story of the creation of the world. HOW THE KITE HELPED TO MAKE THE WORLD