convinced of her truth, he gives her directions to go to the place of the dead and fetch his heart. This she accomplishes, and thus recovers him as her husband permanently.[197.2] The islanders of the East Indian Archipelago are profoundly convinced that various kinds of spirits can have similar intercourse with human beings. The spirits of the dead are not excepted from this belief; and albinos are held to be their offspring by a living mother. A famous priest-king of the Toba-bataks, called Singa Mangaraja, owed his birth to this cause.[197.3] A story is told by the Dene (Athapascans) of the northern provinces of Canada concerning a man who one night suddenly disappeared from his wife’s side, and in the morning, in the ashes of the hearth, were found the cloven footprints of a reindeer: he had been transformed. {198} His wife was an adept in magic. By its aid she became an expert hunter, and after the loss of her husband supplied the family, consisting of her mother and little son, with food. As her son grew up, he in turn hunted and successfully snared reindeer. One day he caught a reindeer with human hair between its horns. He brought its carcase to his mother, who had constantly mourned her husband. She at once recognized the dead reindeer as her husband. Lying down along with it, the animal revived and once more became man. Thus she recovered the husband whom she had loved, and for whom she had so long sorrowed. The story is ætiological, told to explain why so many reindeer are caught with snares made of magical bonds of pine-root, and why certain parts of the reindeer are not eaten.[198.1]