Note 66 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

Mr. Conway asks whether this idea about the goat is due to the smell of the animal, its butting and injury to plants, or was it demonized merely because of its uncanny and shaggy appearance?66 Probably the chief reason is because it has a curious habit of occasionally shivering, which is regarded as caused by some indwelling spirit. The Thags in their sacrifice used to select two goats, black, and perfect in all their parts. They were bathed and made to face the west, and if they shook themselves and threw the water off their hair, they were regarded as a sacrifice acceptable to Devî. Hence in India a goat is led along a disputed boundary, and the place where it shivers is regarded as the proper line. Plutarch says that the Greeks would not sacrifice a goat if it did not shiver when water was thrown over it.