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Show t 226 BASIS OF AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 would come under- that head in pre- Columbian times. Dogs were eaten by certain tribes, but their chief usefulness was in other lines. It is almost certain that the horses which play so important a part in the life of the plains Indians are the descendants of those introduced by the first Europeans; and the sheep and goats which now afford the Navajo his chief means of subsistence are known to have come from the Spaniards, ^ annibalism as a practice can hardly be said to have existed in North America, certainly not north of the Mexican border. In certain tribes there were ceremonials in which the rite of eating human flesh, or at least the pretence, formed a part; and it has been thought that this expressed a survival from days when the custom was general. It was probably nothing more than the symbolic acquisition of the victim's powers, and there is no evidence that it ever had other significance. In practically all cases it was an empty form. J As among all peoples, food taboos occur in bewildering variety, especially among the Eskimo, and hardly an Indian group can be found that does not practise some kind of abstinence for religious reasons. These taboos are sometimes temporary, but sometimes permanent; in the latter cases there is always a traditional or mythological basis which gives the custom the strength of a religious principle. |