Note 364 — Chapter IV

Myths explaining the domestication of animals belong to this stage of culture. The dog is a sacred animal among the Khasis, with certain totemic associations, and there is a very realistic and humanising myth relating how the dog came to be regarded as the friend of man (Gurdon, The Khasis, 51, 172-3). The Kyeng creation legend includes a good example of animal friendship with man (Lewin, Wild Races of South-east India, 238-9). The American creation myths afford remarkable testimony to this view of the case. "Game and fish of all sorts were under direct divine supervision ... maize or Indian corn is a transformed god who gave himself to be eaten to save men from hunger and death" (Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America, pp. xxvi, xxxviii). The Narrinyeri Australians "do not appear to have any story of the origin of the world, but nearly all animals they suppose anciently to have been men who performed great prodigies, and at last transformed themselves into different kinds of animals and stones" (Taplin, The Narrinyeri, 59).