According to the tradition of the scapegoat, the evil or lower side of man can be transferred from him to an animal. In this process of removing disease or sin, the bad spirit is expelled from the human being and enters the form of some beast. In India the scape-animal may be a pig, buffalo, a goat or a black cock.
The Jews had the custom of bringing a goat to the door of the Tabernacle and the high priest laid the sins of the people upon the animal, sending it thereafter away with its burden into the wilderness.
In Thibet a human scapegoat, dressed in goat's skin, is kicked out of the community as soon as the people have confessed their sins, and wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables as a vehicle for the evil spirits to enter into which might otherwise injure their horses.
The Kaffirs sometimes take a goat in the presence of a sick man and confess sins over him. Then a few drops of the patient's blood are allowed to fall on the animal's head and the sickness is thought to be transferred, the animal being turned loose over the veld. The medicine- men of the Baganda races perform a similar operation, taking hold of the animal and tying upon it some herbs they have passed over the patient's body. Then the animal is driven away to waste land, and the sick man is supposed to recover. The Baganda people transmit the sins of a dead man to a calf, the animal being led three times round the bier and the hand of the dead man being placed on its head, by which act the calf takes upon itself the evil done by the deceased. Then the scape- goat is driven on to waste land, where it cannot con- taminate anybody.