Ancestors Re-born in Children.
Among many races, again, there is a common belief that the father or grandfather is re-born in one of his descendants. The modern reader is familiar with examples of such beliefs in Mr. Du Maurier’s “Peter Ibbetson,” and Mr. Rider Haggard’s “She.” Manu expresses this belief when he writes—“The husband after conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her; for that is the wifehood of a wife, that he is born again by her.” The feeling that children are really the ancestors re-born is obviously based on the principle of hereditary resemblance. Hence the general feeling in favour of calling a child by the name of the grandfather or grandmother, which is about as far as the rustic goes in recognizing the ascending line. The Konkan Kunbis, and even Brâhmans, believe that the dead ancestors sometimes appear in children. Among Gujarât Musalmâns the nurse, if a child is peevish, says, “Its kind has come upon its head.” The same idea is found among the Khândhs. Among the Laplanders of Europe an ancestral spirit tells the mother that he has come into the child, and directs her to call it after his name.6 Another variant of the same belief is that common among some of the Drâvidian races that the ancestor is revived in a calf, which is in consequence well fed and treated with particular respect.