It is a conjecture not unworthy of consideration that the human gods with bestial heads are derived from the aspect of the celebrant clad in the pelt of the beast whom he sacrifices. In Egyptian art the heads of the gods are usually like masks, or flayed skins superimposed on the head of a man.*** If it be asked _why_ the celebrant thus disguises himself in the sacrifice, it is only possible to reply by guess-work. But the hypothesis may be hazarded that this rite was one of the many ways in which the sacred animal has been propitiated in his death by many peoples. It is a kind of legal fiction to persuade him that, like the bear in the Finnish Kalewala and in the Red Indian and Australian legend, "he does not die". His skin is still capering about on other shoulders.**** * [Robinson, _Life in California_, pp. 241, 803;] Herodotus, ii. 42. ** Menant, _Recherehes_, ii. 49. See a collection of cases in our _Cupid and Psyche_, pp. lviii., lix. *** The idea is Professor Robertson Smith's. **** For examples of propitiation of slain animals by this and other arts, see _Prim. Cult_, i. 467, 469. When the Koriaks slay a bear or wolf, they dress one of their people in his skin, and dance round him, chanting excuses. We must not forget, while offering this hypothesis of the origin of beast-headed gods, that representations of this kind in art may only be a fanciful kind of shorthand. Everyone knows the beasts which, in Christian art, accompany the four Evangelists. These do not, of course, signify that St. John was of the eagle totem kin, and St. Mark of the stock of the lion. They are the beasts of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse, regarded as types of the four Gospel writers. Moreover, in mediaeval art, the Evangelists are occasionally represented with the heads of their beasts--John with an eagle's head, Mark with a lion's, Luke with that of an ox. See _Bulletin, Com. Hist. Archeol_., iv. 1852. For this note I am indebted to M. H. Gaidoz.