The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.[238.3] The native tribes of Manipur lay a _genna_, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a grave dug for it by the old women.[238.4] To the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole moon. At Ugwoba he may not go to {239} the Aǰana (the shrine of the earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is regarded as _ekwensu_, defined as the spirit of a man who has been killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in pregnancy.[239.1] Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the leopards’ vengeance. Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some of the blood upon the earth.[239.2] The Hidatsa of the North American prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.[239.3] The practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.