Note 29 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

He is, again, often the disguise of a sorcerer of evil temper, an idea similar to that which was the basis of the European dread of lycanthropy and the were-wolf. “Accounts differ as to the way in which the were-wolf was chosen. According to one account, a human victim was sacrificed, one of his bowels was mixed with the bowels of animal victims, the whole was consumed by the worshippers, and the man who unwittingly ate the human bowel was changed into a wolf. According to another account, lots were cast among the members of a particular family, and he upon whom the lot fell was the were-wolf. Being led to the brink of a tarn, he stripped himself, hung his clothes on an oak tree, plunged into the tarn, and swimming across it, went into desert places. There he was changed into a wolf, and herded with wolves for nine years. If he tasted human blood before the nine years were out he had to remain a wolf for ever. If during the nine years he abstained from preying on men, then, when the tenth year came round, he recovered his human shape. Similarly, there is a negro family at the mouth of the Congo who are supposed to possess the power of turning themselves into leopards in the gloomy depths of the forest. As leopards, they knock people down, but do no further harm, for they think that if, as leopards, they once lapped blood, they would be leopards for ever.”29