The dead bodies of the caciques of Bogota were protected from desecration by diverting the course of a river and making the grave in its bed, and then letting the stream return to its natural course.  Alaric, the leader of the Goths, was secretly buried in the same way.  (Dorman, “Prim.  Superst.,” p. 195.)

Among the American tribes no man is permitted to marry a wife of the same clan-name or totem as himself.  In India a Brahman is not allowed to marry a wife whose clan-name (her “cow-stall,” as they say) is the same as his own; nor may a Chinaman take a wife of his own surname.  ("Anthropology,” p. 403.) “Throughout India the hill-tribes are divided into septs or clans, and a man may not marry a woman belonging to his own clan.  The Calmucks of Tartary are divided into hordes, and a man may not marry a girl of his own horde.  The same custom prevails among the Circassians and the Samoyeds of Siberia.  The Ostyaks and Yakuts regard it as a crime to marry a woman of the same family, or even of the same name.” (Sir John Lubbock, “Smith.  Rep.,” p. 347, 1869.)

Sutteeism—­the burning of the widow upon the funeral-pile of the husband—­was extensively practised in America (West’s “Journal,” p. 141); as was also the practice of sacrificing warriors, servants, and animals at the funeral of a great chief (Dorman, pp. 210-211.) Beautiful girls were sacrificed to appease the anger of the gods, as among the Mediterranean races. (Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 471.) Fathers offered up their children for a like purpose, as among the Carthaginians.

The poisoned arrows of America had their representatives in Europe.  Odysseus went to Ephyra for the man-slaying drug with which to smear his bronze-tipped arrows. (Tylor’s “Anthropology,” p. 237.)

“The bark canoe of America was not unknown in Asia and Africa” (Ibid., p. 254), while the skin canoes of our Indians and the Esquimaux were found on the shores of the Thames and the Euphrates.  In Peru and on the Euphrates commerce was carried on upon rafts supported by inflated skins.  They are still used on the Tigris.

The Indian boils his meat by dropping red-hot stones into a water-vessel made of hide; and Linnaeus found the Both land people brewing beer in this way—­“and to this day the rude Carinthian boor drinks such stone-beer, as it is called.” (Ibid., p. 266.)

In the buffalo dance of the Mandan Indians the dancers covered their heads with a mask made of the head and horns of the buffalo.  To-day in the temples of India, or among the lamas of Thibet, the priests dance the demons out, or the new year in, arrayed in animal masks (Ibid., p. 297 ); and the “mummers” at Yule-tide, in England, are a survival of the same custom. (Ibid., p. 298.) The North American dog and bear dances, wherein the dancers acted the part of those animals, had their prototype in the Greek dances at the festivals of Dionysia. (Ibid., p. 298.)