Note 52 — Chapter III · TOTEMISM AND FETISHISM.

These rude stones are very often smeared with ruddle or red ochre. We have here a survival of the blood sacrifice of a human being or animal which was once universal.52 Such sacrifices rest on the principle that it is necessary to supply attendants to the dead or to the tribal gods in the other world; and the commutation of human sacrifices, first into those of animals, and then into a mere scarlet stain on the fetish stone, is a constantly recurring fact in the history of custom.53 It may be worth while to discuss this transition from the Indian evidence.