Motif
Animal vengeance and interspecies blood feud
animal_vengeance_and_interspecies_blood_feud
A motif of the Sacred Combat and Ritual Warfare family, within the sub-family Vengeance and Blood Feud. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.
1 occurrences
1 traditions
comparative
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The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2) The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2) / CONTENTS; lines 2576-2642 confidence: high
The passage explains that, from the described viewpoint, animals have human-like feeling and intelligence and souls that survive death or are reborn; killing an animal may expose the killer to vengeance by the animal’s spirit or its species kin, understood through blood-feud obligations.
The passage describes a belief that slain animals or their species kin may avenge killing, leading people to spare dangerous animals except under retaliation or defence.
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