405 It seems to be a common custom with hunters to cut out the tongues of the animals which they kill. Omaha hunters remove the tongue of a slain buffalo through an opening made in the animal’s throat. The tongues thus removed are sacred and may not touch any tool or metal except when they are boiling in the kettles at the sacred tent. They are eaten as sacred food. _Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington), p. 289 _sq._ Indian bear-hunters cut out what they call the bear’s little tongue (a fleshy mass under the real tongue) and keep it for good luck in hunting or burn it to determine from its crackling, etc., whether the soul of the slain bear is angry with them or not. Kohl, _Kitschi-Gami_, ii. 251 _sq._; Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, v. 173; Chateaubriand, _Voyage en Amérique_, pp. 179 _sq._, 184. In folk-tales the hero commonly cuts out the tongue of the wild beast which he has slain and preserves it as a token. The incident serves to show that the custom was a common one, since folk-tales reflect with accuracy the customs and beliefs of a primitive age. For examples of the incident, see Blade, _Contes populaires recueillis en Agenais_, pp. 12, 14; Dasent, _Tales from the Norse_, p. 133 _sq._ (“Shortshanks”); Schleicher, _Litauische Märchen_; Sepp, Altbayerischer Sagenschatz, p. 114; Köhler on Gonzenbach’s _Sicilianische Märchen_, ii. 230; Apollodorus, iii. 13, 3; Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ p. 53; Poestion, _Lapplandische Märchen_, p. 231 _sq._ It may be suggested that the cutting out of the tongues is a precaution to prevent the slain animals from telling their fate to the live animals and thus frightening away the latter. At least this explanation harmonises with the primitive modes of thought revealed in the foregoing customs. 406 Holzmayer, _Osiliana_, p. 105 _note_. 407 Heinrich, _Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche unter den Sachsen Siebenbürgens_, p. 15 _sq._ 408 E. Krause, “Aberglaubische Kuren und sonstiger Aberglaube in Berlin,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv. (1883) p. 93. _ 409 Geoponica_, xiii. 5. According to the commentator, the field assigned to the mice is a neighbour’s, but it may be a patch of waste ground on the farmer’s own land. 410 R. van Eck, “Schetsen van het eiland Bali,” in _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië_, N.S. viii. (1879) p. 125. 411 Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_, § 405. 412 Lagarde, _Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici antiquissimae_, p. 135. For this passage I am indebted to my friend Prof. W. Robertson Smith, who kindly translated it for me from the Syriac. 413 Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 255. 414 Compare _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 280, with the customs referred to in the following note.