The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)

The King of the Night.

At Porto Novo there used to be, in addition to the ordinary monarch, a King of the Night, who reigned during the hours of darkness from sunset to sunrise. He might not shew himself in the street after the sun was up. His duty was to patrol the streets with his satellites and to arrest all whom he found abroad after a certain hour. Each band of his catchpoles was led by a man who went about concealed from head to foot under a conical casing of straw and blew blasts on a shell which caused every one that heard it to shudder. The King of the Night never met the ordinary king except on the first and last days of their respective reign; for each of them invested the other with office and paid him the last honours at death.[72 - Marchoux, “Ethnographie, Porto-Novo,” Revue Scientifique, Quatrième Série, iii. (1895) pp. 595 sq. This passage was pointed out to me by Mr. N. W. Thomas.] With this King of the Night at Porto Novo we may compare a certain king of Hawaii who was so very sacred that no man might see him, even accidentally, by day under pain of death; he only shewed himself by night.[73 - O. von Kotzebue, Entdeckungs-Reise in die Süd-See und nach der Berings-Strasse (Weimar, 1821), iii. 149.]

Civil rajahs and taboo rajahs in the East Indies.

In some parts of the East Indian island of Timor we meet with a partition of power like that which is represented by the civil king and the fetish king of western Africa. Some of the Timorese tribes recognise two rajahs, the ordinary or civil rajah, who governs the people, and the fetish or taboo rajah (radja pomali), who is charged with the control of everything that concerns the earth and its products. This latter ruler has the right of declaring anything taboo; his permission must be obtained before new land may be brought under cultivation, and he must perform certain necessary ceremonies when the work is being carried out. If drought or blight threatens the crops, his help is invoked to save them. Though he ranks below the civil rajah, he exercises a momentous influence on the course of events, for his secular colleague is bound to consult him in all important matters. In some of the neighbouring islands, such as Rotti and eastern Flores, a spiritual ruler of the same sort is recognised under various native names, which all mean “lord of the ground.”[74 - J. J. de Hollander, Handleiding bij de Beofening der Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Oost-Indië, ii. 606 sq. In other parts of Timor the spiritual ruler is called Anaha paha or “conjuror of the land.” Compare H. Zondervan, “Timor en de Timoreezen,” Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, v. (1888) Afdeeling, mehr uitgebreide artikelen, pp. 400-402.] Similarly in the Mekeo district of British New Guinea there is a double chieftainship. The people are divided into two groups according to families, and each of the groups has its chief. One of the two is the war chief, the other is the taboo (afu) chief. The office of the latter is hereditary; his duty is to impose a taboo on any of the crops, such as the coco-nuts and areca nuts, whenever he thinks it desirable to prohibit their use. In his office we may perhaps detect the beginning of a priestly dynasty, but as yet his functions appear to be more magical than religious, being concerned with the control of the harvests rather than with the propitiation of higher powers. The members of another family are bound to see to it that the taboo imposed by the chief is strictly observed. For this purpose some fourteen or fifteen men of the family form a sort of constabulary. Every evening they go round the village armed with clubs and disguised with masks or leaves. All the time they are in office they are forbidden to live with their wives and even to look at a woman. Hence women may not quit their houses while the men are going their rounds. Further, the constables on duty are prohibited from chewing betel nut and drinking coco-nut water, lest the areca and coco-nuts should not grow. When there is a good show of nuts, the taboo chief proclaims that on a certain day the restriction will come to an end.[75 - A. C. Haddon, Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown (London, 1901), pp. 270-272.] In Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, the kingship is elective within the limits of the blood royal, which runs in the female line, so that the sovereignty passes backwards and forwards between families which we, reckoning descent in the male line, should regard as distinct. The chosen monarch must be in possession of certain secrets. He must know the places where the sacred stones are kept, on which he has to seat himself. He must understand the holy words and prayers of the liturgy, and after his election he must recite them at the place of the sacred stones. But he enjoys only the honours of his office; the real powers of government are in the hands of his prime-minister or vizier.[76 - Dr. Hahl, “Mittheilungen über Sitten und rechtliche Verhältnisse auf Ponape,” Ethnologisches Notizblatt, ii. Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), pp. 5 sq., 7. The title of the prime-minister is Nanekin.]

Chapter II. The Perils Of The Soul

§ 1. The Soul as a Mannikin

What is the primitive conception of death?

The foregoing examples have taught us that the office of a sacred king or priest is often hedged in by a series of burdensome restrictions or taboos, of which a principal purpose appears to be to preserve the life of the divine man for the good of his people. But if the object of the taboos is to save his life, the question arises, How is their observance supposed to effect this end? To understand this we must know the nature of the danger which threatens the king's life, and which it is the intention of these curious restrictions to guard against. We must, therefore, ask: What does early man understand by death? To what causes does he attribute it? And how does he think it may be guarded against?

Savages conceive the human soul as a mannikin, the prolonged absence of which from the body causes death.

As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which moves it: if a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being the permanent absence of the soul. Hence if death be the permanent absence of the soul, the way to guard against it is either to prevent the soul from leaving the body, or, if it does depart, to ensure that it shall return. The precautions adopted by savages to secure one or other of these ends take the form of certain prohibitions or taboos, which are nothing but rules intended to ensure either the continued presence or the return of the soul. In short, they are life-preservers or life-guards. These general statements will now be illustrated by examples.

The soul as a mannikin in Australia, America, and among the Malays.

Addressing some Australian blacks, a European missionary said, “I am not one, as you think, but two.” Upon this they laughed. “You may laugh as much as you like,” continued the missionary, “I tell you that I am two in one; this great body that you see is one; within that there is another little one which is not visible. The great body dies, and is buried, but the little body flies away when the great one dies.” To this some of the blacks replied, “Yes, yes. We also are two, we also have a little body within the breast.” On being asked where the little body went after death, some said it went behind the bush, others said it went into the sea, and some said they did not know.[77 - R. Salvado, Mémoires historiques sur l'Australie (Paris, 1854), p. 162; Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vii. (1878) p. 282. In this edifying catechism there is little to choose between the savagery of the white man and the savagery of the black.] The Hurons thought that the soul had a head and body, arms and legs; in short, that it was a complete little model of the man himself.[78 - Relations des Jésuites, 1634, p. 17; id., 1636, p. 104; id., 1639, p. 43 (Canadian reprint, Quebec, 1858).] The Esquimaux believe that “the soul exhibits the same shape as the body it belongs to, but is of a more subtle and ethereal nature.”[79 - H. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 36. The Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that every man has several souls, and that two of these souls are shaped exactly like the body. See E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part i. (Washington, 1899) p. 422.] According to the Nootkas of British Columbia the soul has the shape of a tiny man; its seat is the crown of the head. So long as it stands erect, its owner is hale and hearty; but when from any cause it loses its upright position, he loses his senses.[80 - Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 44 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for 1890).] Among the Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River, man is held to have four souls, of which the principal one has the form of a mannikin, while the other three are shadows of it.[81 - Fr. Boas, in Ninth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 461 (Report of the British Association for 1894).] The Malays conceive the human soul (semangat) as a little man, mostly invisible and of the bigness of a thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape, proportion, and even in complexion to the man in whose body he resides. This mannikin is of a thin unsubstantial nature, though not so impalpable but that it may cause displacement on entering a physical object, and it can flit quickly from place to place; it is temporarily absent from the body in sleep, trance, and disease, and permanently absent after death.[82 - W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 47.]

The soul as a mannikin in ancient Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians believed that every man has a soul (ka) which is his exact counterpart or double, with the same features, the same gait, even the same dress as the man himself. Many of the monuments dating from the eighteenth century onwards represent various kings appearing before divinities, while behind the king stands his soul or double, portrayed as a little man with the king's features. Some of the reliefs in the temple at Luxor illustrate the birth of King Amenophis III. While the queen-mother is being tended by two goddesses acting as midwives, two other goddesses are bringing away two figures of new-born children, only one of which is supposed to be a child of flesh and blood: the inscriptions engraved above their heads shew that, while the first is Amenophis, the second is his soul or double. And as with kings and queens, so it was with common men and women. Whenever a child was born, there was born with him a double which followed him through the various stages of life; young while he was young, it grew to maturity and declined along with him. And not only human beings, but gods and animals, stones and trees, natural and artificial objects, everybody and everything had its own soul or double. The doubles of oxen and sheep were the duplicates of the original oxen or sheep; the doubles of linen or beds, of chairs or knives, had the same form as the real linen, beds, chairs, and knives. So thin and subtle was the stuff, so fine and delicate the texture of these doubles, that they made no impression on ordinary eyes. Only certain classes of priests or seers were enabled by natural gifts or special training to perceive the doubles of the gods, and to win from them a knowledge of the past and the future. The doubles of men and things were hidden from sight in the ordinary course of life; still, they sometimes flew out of the body endowed with colour and voice, left it in a kind of trance, and departed to manifest themselves at a distance.[83 - G. Maspero, Études de mythologie et d'archéologie égyptiennes (Paris, 1893), i. 388 sq.; A. Wiedemann, The ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul (London, 1895), pp. 10 sqq. In Greek works of art, especially vase-paintings, the human soul is sometimes represented as a tiny being in human form, generally winged, sometimes clothed and armed, sometimes naked. See O. Jahn, Archäologische Beiträge (Berlin, 1847), pp. 128 sqq.; E. Pottier, Étude sur les lécythes blancs attiques (Paris, 1883), pp. 75-79; American Journal of Archaeology, ii. (1886) pll. xii., xiii.; O. Kern, in Aus der Anomia, Archäologische Beiträge Carl Robert zur Erinnerung an Berlin dargebracht (Berlin, 1890), pp. 89-95. Greek artists of a later period sometimes portrayed the human soul in the form of a butterfly (O. Jahn, op. cit. pp. 138 sqq.). There was a particular sort of butterfly to which the Greeks gave the name of soul (ψυχή). See Aristotle, Hist. anim. v. 19, p. 550 b 26, p. 551 b 13 sq.; Plutarch, Quaest. conviv. ii. 3. 2.]

The soul as a mannikin in Nias, Fiji, and India.

So exact is the resemblance of the mannikin to the man, in other words, of the soul to the body, that, as there are fat bodies and thin bodies, so there are fat souls and thin souls;[84 - W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (London, 1876), p. 171.] as there are heavy bodies and light bodies, long bodies and short bodies, so there are heavy souls and light souls, long souls and short souls. The people of Nias (an island to the west of Sumatra) think that every man, before he is born, is asked how long or how heavy a soul he would like, and a soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to him. The heaviest soul ever given out weighs about ten grammes. The length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of his soul; children who die young had short souls.[85 - H. Sundermann, “Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, Bd. xi. October 1884, p. 453.] The Fijian conception of the soul as a tiny human being comes clearly out in the customs observed at the death of a chief among the Nakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men, who are the hereditary undertakers, call him, as he lies, oiled and ornamented, on fine mats, saying, “Rise, sir, the chief and let us be going. The day has come over the land.” Then they conduct him to the river side, where the ghostly ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream As they thus attend the chief on his last journey, they hold their great fans close to the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to a missionary, “His soul is only a little child.”[86 - The late Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author, dated November 3, 1898.] People in the Punjaub who tattoo themselves believe that at death the soul, “the little entire man or woman” inside the mortal frame, will go to heaven blazoned with the same tattoo patterns which adorned the body in life.[87 - H. A. Rose, “Note on Female Tattooing in the Panjâb,” Indian Antiquary, xxxi. (1902) p. 298.] Sometimes, however, as we shall see, the human soul is conceived not in human but in animal form.

§ 2. Absence and Recall of the Soul

Attempts to prevent the soul from escaping from the body.

The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the body, especially the mouth and nostrils. Hence in Celebes they sometimes fasten fishhooks to a sick man's nose, navel, and feet, so that if his soul should try to escape it may be hooked and held fast.[88 - B. F. Matthes, Over de Bissoes of heidensche priesters en priesteressen der Boeginezen (Amsterdam, 1872), p. 24 (reprinted from the Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Deel vii.).] A Turik on the Baram River, in Borneo, refused to part with some hook-like stones, because they, as it were, hooked his soul to his body, and so prevented the spiritual portion of him from becoming detached from the material.[89 - A. C. Haddon, Head-hunters, p. 439.] When a Sea Dyak sorcerer or medicine-man is initiated, his fingers are supposed to be furnished with fish-hooks, with which he will thereafter clutch the human soul in the act of flying away, and restore it to the body of the sufferer.[90 - H. Ling Roth, “Low's Natives of Borneo,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxi. (1892) p. 115.] But hooks, it is plain, may be used to catch the souls of enemies as well as of friends. Acting on this principle head-hunters in Borneo hang wooden hooks beside the skulls of their slain enemies in the belief that this helps them on their forays to hook in fresh heads.[91 - A. C. Haddon, Head hunters, pp. 371, 396.] When an epidemic is raging, the Goajiro Indians of Colombia attribute it to an evil spirit, it may be the prowling ghost of an enemy. So they hang strings furnished with hooks from the roofs of their huts and from all the trees in the neighbourhood, in order that the demon or ghost may be caught on a hook and thus rendered powerless to harm them.[92 - H. Candelier, Rio-Hacha et les Indiens Goajires (Paris, 1893), pp. 258 sq.] Similarly the Calchaquis Indians to the west of Paraguay used to plant arrows in the ground about a sick man to keep death from getting at him.[93 - R. Southey, History of Brazil, iii. 396.] One of the implements of a Haida medicine-man is a hollow bone, in which he bottles up departing souls, and so restores them to their owners.[94 - G. M. Dawson, “On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,” Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1878-1879 (Montreal, 1880), pp. 123 B, 139 B.] When any one yawns in their presence the Hindoos always snap their thumbs, believing that this will hinder the soul from issuing through the open mouth.[95 - Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. 114, § 665.] The Marquesans used to hold the mouth and nose of a dying man, in order to keep him in life by preventing his soul from escaping;[96 - M. Radiguet, Les Derniers Sauvages (Paris, 1882), p. 245; Matthias G – , Lettres sur Iles les Marquises (Paris, 1843), p. 115; Clavel, Les Marquisiens, p. 42 note.] the same custom is reported of the New Caledonians;[97 - Gagnière, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xxxii. (1860) p. 439.] and with the like intention the Bagobos of the Philippine Islands put rings of brass wire on the wrists or ankles of their sick.[98 - F. Blumentritt, “Das Stromgebiet des Rio Grande de Mindano,” Petermanns Mitteilungen, xxxvii. (1891) p. 111.] On the other hand, the Itonamas in South America seal up the eyes, nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost should get out and carry off others;[99 - A. d'Orbigny, L'Homme américain, ii. 241; T. J. Hutchinson, “The Chaco Indians,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S., iii. (1865) pp. 322 sq.; A. Bastian, Culturländer des alten Amerika, i. 476. A similar custom is observed by the Cayuvava Indians (A. d'Orbigny, op. cit. ii. 257).] and for a similar reason the people of Nias, who fear the spirits of the recently deceased and identify them with the breath, seek to confine the vagrant soul in its earthly tabernacle by bunging up the nose or tying up the jaws of the corpse.[100 - E. Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nías (Milan, 1890), p. 283.] Before leaving a corpse the Wakelbura in Australia used to place hot coals in its ears in order to keep the ghost in the body, until they had got such a good start that he could not overtake them.[101 - A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), p. 473.] Esquimaux mourners plug their nostrils with deerskin, hair, or hay for several days,[102 - Fr. Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1888), pp. 613 sq. Among the Esquimaux of Smith Sound male mourners plug up the right nostril and female mourners the left (E. Bessels in American Naturalist, xviii. (1884) p. 877; cp. J. Murdoch, “Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,” Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1892), p. 425). This seems to point to a belief that the soul enters by one nostril and goes out by the other, and that the functions assigned to the right and left nostrils in this respect are reversed in men and women. Among the Esquimaux of Baffin land “the person who prepares a body for burial puts rabbit's fur into his nostrils to prevent the exhalations from entering his own lungs” (Fr. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, xv. part i. (1901) p. 144). But this would hardly explain the custom of stopping one nostril only.] probably to prevent their souls from following that of their departed friend; the custom is especially incumbent on the persons who dress the corpse.[103 - G. F. Lyon, Private Journal (London, 1824), p. 370.] In southern Celebes, to hinder the escape of a woman's soul at childbirth, the nurse ties a band as tightly as possible round the body of the expectant mother.[104 - B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes (The Hague, 1875), p. 54.] The Minangkabauers of Sumatra observe a similar custom; a skein of thread or a string is sometimes fastened round the wrist or loins of a woman in childbed, so that when her soul seeks to depart in her hour of travail it may find the egress barred.[105 - J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxix. (1890) p. 56.] Among the Kayans of Borneo illness is attributed to the absence of the soul; so when a man has been ill and is well again, he attempts to prevent his soul from departing afresh. For this purpose he ties the truant into his body by fastening round his wrist a piece of string on which a lukut, or antique bead, is threaded; for a magical virtue appears to be ascribed to such beads. But lest the string and the bead should be broken and lost, he will sometimes tattoo the pattern of the bead on his wrist, and this is found to answer the purpose of tethering his soul quite as well.[106 - C. Hose and R. Shelford, “Materials for a Study of Tatu in Borneo,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) p. 65.] Again, the Koryak of North-Eastern Asia fancy that if there are two sick people in a house and one of them is at the last extremity, the soul of the other is apt to be lured away by the soul of the dying man; hence in order to hinder its departure they tie the patient's neck by a string to the bands of the sleeping-tent and recite a charm over the string so that it may be sure to detain the soul.[107 - W. Jochelson, “The Koryak, Religion and Myths” (Leyden and New York, 1905), p. 103 (Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vi. part i.).] And lest the soul of a babe should escape and be lost as soon as it is born, the Alfoors of Celebes, when a birth is about to take place, are careful to close every opening in the house, even the keyhole; and they stop up every chink and cranny in the walls. Also they tie up the mouths of all animals inside and outside the house, for fear one of them might swallow the child's soul. For a similar reason all persons present in the house, even the mother herself, are obliged to keep their mouths shut the whole time the birth is taking place. When the question was put, Why they did not hold their noses also, lest the child's soul should get into one of them? the answer was that breath being exhaled as well as inhaled through the nostrils, the soul would be expelled before it could have time to settle down.[108 - W. F. A. Zimmermann, Die Inseln des Indischen und Stillen Meeres (Berlin, 1864-65), ii. 386 sq.] Popular expressions in the language of civilised peoples, such as to have one's heart in one's mouth, or the soul on the lips or in the nose, shew how natural is the idea that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils.[109 - Compare τοῦτον κατ᾽ ὤμου δεῖρον ἄχρις ἡ ψυχὴ | αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ χειλέων μοῦνον ἡ κακὴ λειφθῇ, Herodas, Mimiambi, iii. 3 sq.; μόνον οὐκ ἐπὶ τοῖς χείλεσι τὰς ψυχὰς ἕχοντας, Dio Chrysostom, Orat. xxxii. vol. i. p. 417, ed. Dindorf; modern Greek μὲ τὴ ψυχὴ ᾽ς τὰ δόντια, G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 193 note; “mihi anima in naso esse, stabam tanquam mortuus,” Petronius, Sat. 62; “in primis labris animam habere,” Seneca, Natur. quaest. iii. praef. 16; “Voilà un pauvre malade qui a le feu dans le corps, et l'âme sur le bout des lèvres,” J. de Brebeuf, in Relations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 113 (Canadian reprint); “This posture keeps the weary soul hanging upon the lip; ready to leave the carcass, and yet not suffered to take its wing,” R. Bentley, “Sermon on Popery,” quoted in Monk's Life of Bentley,

i. 382. In Czech they say of a dying person that his soul is on his tongue (Br. Jelínek, in Mittheilungen der anthropolog. Gesellschaft in Wien, xxi. (1891) p. 22).]

The soul conceived as a bird ready to fly away.

Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight. This conception has probably left traces in most languages,[110 - Compare the Greek ποτάομαι, ἀναπτερόω, etc.] and it lingers as a metaphor in poetry. But what is metaphor to a modern European poet was sober earnest to his savage ancestor, and is still so to many people. The Bororos of Brazil fancy that the human soul has the shape of a bird, and passes in that shape out of the body in dreams.[111 - K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin, 1894), pp. 511, 512.] According to the Bilqula or Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia the soul dwells in the nape of the neck and resembles a bird enclosed in an egg. If the shell breaks and the soul flies away, the man must die. If he swoons or becomes crazed, it is because his soul has flown away without breaking its shell. The shaman can hear the buzzing of its wings, like the buzz of a mosquito, as the soul flits past; and he may catch and replace it in the nape of its owner's neck.[112 - Fr. Boas, in Seventh Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp. 14 sq. (separate reprint of the Report of the British Association for 1891).] A Melanesian wizard in Lepers' Island has been known to send out his soul in the form of an eagle to pursue a ship and learn the fortunes of some natives who were being carried off in it.[113 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 207 sq.] The soul of Aristeas of Proconnesus was seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a raven.[114 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 174. Compare Herodotus, iv. 14 sq.; Maximus Tyríus, Dissert. xvi. 2.] There is a popular opinion in Bohemia that the parting soul comes forth from the mouth like a white bird.[115 - Br. Jelínek, “Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und Volkskunde Böhmens,” Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, xxi. (1891) p. 22.] The Malays carry out the conception of the bird-soul in a number of odd ways. If the soul is a bird on the wing, it may be attracted by rice, and so either prevented from taking wing or lured back again from its perilous flight. Thus in Java when a child is placed on the ground for the first time (a moment which uncultured people seem to regard as especially dangerous), it is put in a hen-coop and the mother makes a clucking sound, as if she were calling hens.[116 - G. A. Wilken, “Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,” De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 944.] Amongst the Battas of Sumatra, when a man returns from a dangerous enterprise, grains of rice are placed on his head, and these grains are called padiruma tondi, that is, “means to make the soul (tondi) stay at home.” In Java also rice is placed on the head of persons who have escaped a great danger or have returned home unexpectedly after it had been supposed that they were lost.[117 - G. A. Wilken, l. c.] Similarly in the district of Sintang in West Borneo, if any one has had a great fright, or escaped a serious peril, or comes back after a long and dangerous journey, or has taken a solemn oath, the first thing that his relations or friends do is to strew yellow rice on his head, mumbling, “Cluck! cluck! soul!” (koer, koer, semangat). And when a person, whether man, woman, or child, has fallen out of a house or off a tree, and has been brought home, his wife or other kinswoman goes as speedily as possible to the spot where the accident happened, and there strews rice, which has been coloured yellow, while she utters the words, “Cluck! cluck! soul! So-and-so is in his house again. Cluck! cluck! soul!” Then she gathers up the rice in a basket, carries it to the sufferer, and drops the grains from her hand on his head, saying again, “Cluck! cluck! soul!”[118 - E. L. M. Kühr, “Schetsen uit Borneo's Westerafdeeling,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, xlvii. (1897) p. 57.] Here the intention clearly is to decoy back the loitering bird-soul and replace it in the head of its owner. In southern Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul is apt to fly away at marriage, so coloured rice is scattered over him to induce it to stay. And, in general, at festivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the person in whose honour the festival is held, with the object of detaining his soul, which at such times is in especial danger of being lured away by envious demons.[119 - B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes, p. 33; id., Over de Bissoes of heidensche priesters en priesteressen der Boeginezen, pp. 9 sq.; id., Makassaarsch-Hollandsch Woordenboek, s. vv.Kôerróe and soemāñgá, pp. 41, 569. Of these two words, the former means the sound made in calling fowls, and the latter means the soul. The expression for the ceremonies described in the text is ápakôerróe soemāñgá. So common is the recall of the bird-soul among the Malays that the words koer (kur) semangat (“cluck! cluck! soul!”) often amount to little more than an expression of astonishment, like our “Good gracious me!” See W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 47, note 2.] For example, after a successful war the welcome to the victorious prince takes the form of strewing him with roasted and coloured rice “to prevent his life-spirit, as if it were a bird, from flying out of his body in consequence of the envy of evil spirits.”[120 - B. F. Matthes, “Over de âdá's of gewoonten der Makassaren en Boegineezen,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen (Amsterdam), Afdeeling Letterkunde, Reeks iii. Deel ii. (1885) pp. 174 sq.; J. K. Niemann, “De Boegineezen en Makassaren,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxviii.(1889) p. 281.] In Central Celebes, when a party of head-hunters returns from a successful expedition, a woman scatters rice on their heads for a similar purpose.[121 - A. C. Kruyt, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja's,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen (Amsterdam), Afdeeling Letterkunde, Reeks iv. Deel iii. (1899) p. 162.] Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra the old rude notions of the soul seem to be dying out. Nowadays most of the people hold that the soul, being immaterial, has no shape or form. But some of the sorcerers assert that the soul goes and comes in the shape of a tiny man. Others are of opinion that it does so in the form of a fly; hence they make food ready to induce the absent soul to come back, and the first fly that settles on the food is regarded as the returning truant. But in native poetry and popular expressions there are traces of the belief that the soul quits the body in the form of a bird.[122 - J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxix. (1890) pp. 56-58. On traces of the bird-soul in Mohammedan popular belief, see I. Goldziher, “Der Seelenvogel im islamischen Volksglauben,” Globus, lxxxiii. (1903) pp. 301-304; and on the soul in bird-form generally, see J. von Negelein, “Seele als Vogel,” Globus, lxxix. (1901) pp. 357-361, 381-384.]

The soul is supposed to be absent in sleep.

The soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from his body and actually to visit the places, to see the persons, and to perform the acts of which he dreams. For example, when an Indian of Brazil or Guiana wakes up from a sound sleep, he is firmly convinced that his soul has really been away hunting, fishing, felling trees, or whatever else he has dreamed of doing, while all the time his body has been lying motionless in his hammock. A whole Bororo village has been thrown into a panic and nearly deserted because somebody had dreamed that he saw enemies stealthily approaching it. A Macusi Indian in weak health, who dreamed that his employer had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts, bitterly reproached his master next morning for his want of consideration in thus making a poor invalid go out and toil during the night.[123 - K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 340; E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, pp. 344 sqq.] The Indians of the Gran Chaco are often heard to relate the most incredible stories as things which they have themselves seen and heard; hence strangers who do not know them intimately say in their haste that these Indians are liars. In point of fact the Indians are firmly convinced of the truth of what they relate; for these wonderful adventures are simply their dreams, which they do not distinguish from waking realities.[124 - V. Fric, “Eine Pilcomayo-Reise in den Chaco Central,” Globus, lxxxix. (1906) p. 233.]

The soul absent in sleep may be prevented from returning to the body.

Now the absence of the soul in sleep has its dangers, for if from any cause the soul should be permanently detained away from the body, the person thus deprived of the vital principle must die.[125 - Shway Yoe, The Burman, his Life and Notions (London, 1882), ii. 100.] There is a German belief that the soul escapes from a sleeper's mouth in the form of a white mouse or a little bird, and that to prevent the return of the bird or animal would be fatal to the sleeper.[126 - R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 266.] Hence in Transylvania they say that you should not let a child sleep with its mouth open, or its soul will slip out in the shape of a mouse, and the child will never wake.[127 - H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Berlin, 1893), p. 167.] Many causes may detain the sleeper's soul. Thus, his soul may meet the soul of another sleeper and the two souls may fight; if a Guinea negro wakens with sore bones in the morning, he thinks that his soul has been thrashed by another soul in sleep.[128 - J. L. Wilson, Western Africa (London, 1856), p. 220; A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 20.] Or it may meet the soul of a person just deceased and be carried off by it; hence in the Aru Islands the inmates of a house will not sleep the night after a death has taken place in it, because the soul of the deceased is supposed to be still in the house and they fear to meet it in a dream.[129 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 267. For detention of a sleeper's soul by spirits and consequent illness, see also Mason, quoted in A. Bastian's Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. 387 note.] Similarly among the Upper Thompson Indians of British Columbia, the friends and neighbours who gathered in a house after a death and remained there till the burial was over were not allowed to sleep, lest their souls should be drawn away by the ghost of the deceased or by his guardian spirit.[130 - J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) p. 327. The Koryak of North-Eastern Asia also keep awake so long as there is a corpse in the house. See W. Jochelson, “The Koryak, Religion and Myths,” Memoir of the American Museum for Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vi. part i. (Leyden and New York, 1905) p. 110.] The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco hold that the vagrant spirits of the dead may come to life again if only they can take possession of a sleeper's body during the absence of his soul in dreams. Hence, when the shades of night have fallen, the ghosts of the departed gather round the villages, watching for a chance to pounce on the bodies of dreamers and to enter into them through the gateway of the breast.[131 - G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,” Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xxiii. (1905) p. 18.] Again, the soul of the sleeper may be prevented by an accident or by physical force from returning to his body. When a Dyak dreams of falling into the water, he supposes that this accident has really befallen his spirit, and he sends for a wizard, who fishes for the spirit with a hand-net in a basin of water till he catches it and restores it to its owner.[132 - H. Ling Roth, “Low's Natives of Borneo,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxi. (1892) p. 112.] The Santals tell how a man fell asleep, and growing very thirsty, his soul, in the form of a lizard, left his body and entered a pitcher of water to drink. Just then the owner of the pitcher happened to cover it; so the soul could not return to the body and the man died. While his friends were preparing to burn the body some one uncovered the pitcher to get water. The lizard thus escaped and returned to the body, which immediately revived; so the man rose up and asked his friends why they were weeping. They told him they thought he was dead and were about to burn his body. He said he had been down a well to get water, but had found it hard to get out and had just returned. So they saw it all.[133 - Indian Antiquary, vii. (1878) p. 273; A. Bastian, Völkerstämme am Brahmaputra, p. 127. A similar story is told by the Hindoos and Malays, though the lizard form of the soul is not mentioned. See Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. p. 166, § 679; N. Annandale, “Primitive Beliefs and Customs of the Patani Fishermen,” Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology, part i. (April 1903) pp. 94 sq.] A similar story is reported from Transylvania as follows. In the account of a witch's trial at Mühlbach in the eighteenth century it is said that a woman had engaged two men to work in her vineyard. After noon they all lay down to rest as usual. An hour later the men got up and tried to waken the woman, but could not. She lay motionless with her mouth wide open. They came back at sunset and still she lay like a corpse. Just at that moment a big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut up in his leathern pouch. Then they tried again to waken the woman, but could not. Afterwards they let out the fly; it flew straight into the woman's mouth and she awoke. On seeing this the men had no further doubt that she was a witch.[134 - E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 27 sq. A similar story is told in Holland (J. W. Wolf, Nederlandsche Sagen, No. 250, pp. 343 sq.). The story of King Gunthram belongs to the same class; the king's soul comes out of his mouth as a small reptile (Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Langobardorum, iii. 34). In an East Indian story of the same type the sleeper's soul issues from his nose in the form of a cricket (G. A. Wilken, in De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 940). In a Swabian story a girl's soul creeps out of her mouth in the form of a white mouse (A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, i. 303). In a Saxon story the soul comes out of the sleeper's mouth in the shape of a red mouse. See E. Mogk, in R. Wuttke's Sächsische Volkskunde

(Dresden, 1901), p. 318.]

Danger of awaking a sleeper suddenly before his soul has time to return.

It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back; so if the man wakened without his soul, he would fall sick. If it is absolutely necessary to rouse a sleeper, it must be done very gradually, to allow the soul time to return.[135 - Shway Yoe, The Burman, ii. 103; M. and B. Ferrars, Burma (London, 1900), p. 77; R. G. Woodthorpe, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxvi. (1897) p. 23; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. 389; F. Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” Mittheilungen der Wiener Geogr. Gesellschaft, 1882, p. 209; J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 440; id., “Die Landschaft Dawan oder West-Timor,” Deutsche geographische Blätter, x. 280; A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en maatschapelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxix. (1895) p. 4; K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, pp. 340, 510; L. F. Gowing, Five Thousand Miles in a Sledge (London, 1889), p. 226; A. C. Hollis, The Masai (Oxford, 1905), p. 308. The rule is mentioned and a mystic reason assigned for it in the Satapatha Brâhmana (part v. p. 371, J. Eggeling's translation).] A Fijian in Matuku, suddenly wakened from a nap by somebody treading on his foot, has been heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to return. He had just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga, and great was his alarm on suddenly wakening to find his body in Matuku. Death stared him in the face unless his soul could be induced to speed at once across the sea and reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to allay his terror.[136 - Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author dated August 26, 1898.] Some Brazilian Indians explain the headache from which a man sometimes suffers after a broken sleep by saying that his soul is tired with the exertions it made to return quickly to the body.[137 - K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 340.] A Highland story, told to Hugh Miller on the picturesque shores of Loch Shin, well illustrates the haste made by the soul to regain its body when the sleeper has been prematurely roused by an indiscreet friend. Two young men had been spending the early part of a warm summer day in the open air, and sat down on a mossy bank to rest. Hard by was an ancient ruin separated from the bank on which they sat only by a slender runnel, across which there lay, immediately over a miniature cascade, a few withered stalks of grass. “Overcome by the heat of the day, one of the young men fell asleep; his companion watched drowsily beside him; when all at once the watcher was aroused to attention by seeing a little indistinct form, scarce larger than a humble-bee, issue from the mouth of the sleeping man, and, leaping upon the moss, move downwards to the runnel, which it crossed along the withered grass stalks, and then disappeared among the interstices of the ruin. Alarmed by what he saw, the watcher hastily shook his companion by the shoulder, and awoke him; though, with all his haste, the little cloud-like creature, still more rapid in its movements, issued from the interstice into which it had gone, and, flying across the runnel, instead of creeping along the grass stalks and over the sward, as before, it re-entered the mouth of the sleeper, just as he was in the act of awakening. ‘What is the matter with you?’ said the watcher, greatly alarmed, ‘what ails you?’ ‘Nothing ails me,’ replied the other; ‘but you have robbed me of a most delightful dream. I dreamed I was walking through a fine rich country, and came at length to the shores of a noble river; and, just where the clear water went thundering down a precipice, there was a bridge all of silver, which I crossed; and then, entering a noble palace on the opposite side, I saw great heaps of gold and jewels; and I was just going to load myself with treasure, when you rudely awoke me, and I lost all.’ ”[138 - Hugh Miller, My Schools and Schoolmasters (Edinburgh, 1854), ch. vi. pp. 106 sq.]

Danger of moving a sleeper or altering his appearance.

Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive man to move a sleeper or alter his appearance, for if this were done the soul on its return might not be able to find or recognise its body, and so the person would die. The Minangkabauers of Sumatra deem it highly improper to blacken or dirty the face of a sleeper, lest the absent soul should shrink from re-entering a body thus disfigured.[139 - J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxix. (1890) p. 50.] Patani Malays fancy that if a person's face be painted while he sleeps, the soul which has gone out of him will not recognise him, and he will sleep on till his face is washed.[140 - N. Annandale, in Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology, part i. (April 1903) p. 94.] In Bombay it is thought equivalent to murder to change the aspect of a sleeper, as by painting his face in fantastic colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For when the soul returns it will not know its own body and the person will die.[141 - Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. p. 116, § 530.] The Coreans are of opinion that in sleep “the soul goes out of the body, and that if a piece of paper is put over the face of the sleeper he will surely die, for his soul cannot find its way back into him again.”[142 - W. W. Rockhill, “Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of Korea,” American Anthropologist, iv. (1891) p. 183.] The Servians believe that the soul of a sleeping witch often leaves her body in the form of a butterfly. If during its absence her body be turned round, so that her feet are placed where her head was before, the butterfly soul will not find its way back into her body through the mouth, and the witch will die.[143 - W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 117 sq.; F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven (Münster i. W., 1890), p. 112. The latter writer tells us that the witch's spirit is also supposed to assume the form of a fly, a hen, a turkey, a crow, and especially a toad.] The Esthonians of the island of Oesel think that the gusts which sweep up all kinds of trifles from the ground and whirl them along are the souls of old women, who have gone out in this shape to seek what they can find. Meantime the beldame's body lies as still as a stone, and if you turn it round her soul will never be able to enter it again, until you have replaced the body in its original position. You can hear the soul whining and whimpering till it has found the right aperture.[144 - Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat, vii. (1872) No. 2, p. 53.] Similarly in Livonia they think that when the soul of a were-wolf is out on his hateful business, his body lies like dead; and if meanwhile the body were accidentally moved, the soul would never more find its way into it, but would remain in the body of a wolf till death.[145 - P. Einhorn, “Wiederlegunge der Abgötterey,” etc., reprinted in Scriptores rerum Livonicarun, ii. 645 (Riga and Leipsic, 1848).] In the picturesque but little known Black Mountain of southern France, which forms a sort of link between the Pyrenees and the Cevennes, they tell how a woman, who had long been suspected of being a witch, one day fell asleep at noon among the reapers in the field. Resolved to put her to the test, the reapers carried her, while she slept, to another part of the field, leaving a large pitcher on the spot from which they had moved her. When her soul returned, it entered the pitcher and cunningly rolled it over and over till the vessel lay beside her body, of which the soul thereupon took possession.[146 - A. de Nore, Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 88.]

The soul may quit the body in waking hours, thereby causing sickness, insanity or death. Recalling truant souls in Australia, Burma, China, Sarawak, Luzon and Mongolia.

But in order that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death will be the result. Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in Victoria lay at his last gasp because his spirit (murup) had departed from him. A medicine-man went in pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle just as it was about to plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by the souls of the dead as they pass in and out of the underworld, where the sun goes to rest. Having captured the vagrant spirit, the doctor brought it back under his opossum rug, laid himself down on the dying man, and put the soul back into him, so that after a time he revived.[147 - A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 387.] The Karens of Burma are perpetually anxious about their souls, lest these should go roving from their bodies, leaving the owners to die. When a man has reason to fear that his soul is about to take this fatal step, a ceremony is performed to retain or recall it, in which the whole family must take part. A meal is prepared consisting of a cock and hen, a special kind of rice, and a bunch of bananas. Then the head of the family takes the bowl which is used to skim rice, and knocking with it thrice on the top of the house-ladder says: “Prrrroo! Come back, soul, do not tarry outside! If it rains, you will be wet. If the sun shines, you will be hot. The gnats will sting you, the leeches will bite you, the tigers will devour you, the thunder will crush you. Prrrroo! Come back, soul! Here it will be well with you. You shall want for nothing. Come and eat under shelter from the wind and the storm.” After that the family partakes of the meal, and the ceremony ends with everybody tying their right wrist with a string which has been charmed by a sorcerer.[148 - Bringaud, “Les Karens de la Birmanie,” Missions Catholiques, xx. (1888) pp. 297 sq.] Similarly the Lolos, an aboriginal tribe of western China, believe that the soul leaves the body in chronic illness. In that case they read a sort of elaborate litany, calling on the soul by name and beseeching it to return from the hills, the vales, the rivers, the forests, the fields, or from wherever it may be straying. At the same time cups of water, wine, and rice are set at the door for the refreshment of the weary wandering spirit. When the ceremony is over, they tie a red cord round the arm of the sick man to tether the soul, and this cord is worn by him until it decays and drops off.[149 - A. Henry, “The Lolos and other tribes of Western China,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiii. (1903) p. 102.] So among the Kenyahs of Sarawak a medicine-man has been known to recall the stray soul of a child, and to fasten it firmly in its body by tying a string round the child's right wrist, and smearing its little arm with the blood of a fowl.[150 - C. Hose and W. M'Dougall, “The Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) pp. 183 sq.] The Ilocanes of Luzon think that a man may lose his soul in the woods or gardens, and that he who has thus lost his soul loses also his senses. Hence before they quit the woods or the fields they call to their soul, “Let us go! let us go!” lest it should loiter behind or go astray. And when a man becomes crazed or mad, they take him to the place where he is supposed to have lost his soul and invite the truant spirit to return to his body.[151 - De los Reyes y Florentino, “Die religiöse Anschauungen der Ilocanen (Luzon),” Mittheilungen der k. k. Geograph. Gesellschaft in Wien, xxxi (1888) pp. 569 sq.] The Mongols sometimes explain sickness by supposing that the patient's soul is absent, and either does not care to return to its body or cannot find the way back. To secure the return of the soul it is therefore necessary on the one hand to make its body as attractive as possible, and on the other hand to shew the soul the way home. To make the body attractive all the sick man's best clothes and most valued possessions are placed beside him; he is washed, incensed, and made as comfortable as may be; and all his friends march thrice round the hut calling out the sick man's name and coaxing his soul to return. To help the wanderer to find its way back a coloured cord is stretched from the patient's head to the door of the hut. The priest in his robes reads a list of the horrors of hell and the dangers incurred by souls which wilfully absent themselves from their bodies. Then turning to the assembled friends and the patient he asks, “Is it come?” All answer “Yes,” and bowing to the returning soul throw seed over the sick man. The cord which guided the soul back is then rolled up and placed round the patient's neck, who must wear it for seven days without taking it off. No one may frighten or hurt him, lest his soul, not yet familiar with its body, should again take flight.[152 - A. Bastian, Die Seele und ihre Erscheinungswesen in der Ethnographie, p. 36.]

Recalling truant souls in Africa and America.

Some of the Congo tribes believe that when a man is ill, his soul has left his body and is wandering at large. The aid of the sorcerer is then called in to capture the vagrant spirit and restore it to the invalid. Generally the physician declares that he has successfully chased the soul into the branch of a tree. The whole town thereupon turns out and accompanies the doctor to the tree, where the strongest men are deputed to break off the branch in which the soul of the sick man is supposed to be lodged. This they do and carry the branch back to the town, insinuating by their gestures that the burden is heavy and hard to bear. When the branch has been brought to the sick man's hut, he is placed in an upright position by its side, and the sorcerer performs the enchantments by which the soul is believed to be restored to its owner.[153 - H. Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals (London, 1890), pp. 53 sq.] The soul or shade of a Déné or Tinneh Indian in the old days generally remained invisible, but appeared wandering about in one form or another whenever disease or death was imminent. All the efforts of the sufferer's friends were therefore concentrated on catching the roving shade. The method adopted was simple. They stuffed the patient's moccasins with down and hung them up. If next morning the down was warm, they made sure that the lost soul was in the boots, with which accordingly they carefully and silently shod their suffering friend. Nothing more could reasonably be demanded for a perfect cure.[154 - A. G. Morice, “The Western Dénés, their Manners and Customs,” Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, Third Series, vii. (1888-1889) pp. 158 sq.; id., Au pays de l'ours noir, chez les sauvages de la Colombie Britannique (Paris and Lyons, 1897), p. 75.] An Ottawa medicine-man has been known to catch a stray soul in a little box, which he brought back and inserted in the patient's mouth.[155 - Clicteur, in Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, iv (1830) p. 479.]

Recalling truant souls in Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes.

Pining, sickness, great fright, and death are ascribed by the Battas or Bataks of Sumatra to the absence of the soul (tendi) from the body. At first they try to beckon the wanderer back, and to lure him, like a fowl, by strewing rice. Then the following form of words is commonly repeated: “Come back, O soul, whether thou art lingering in the wood, or on the hills, or in the dale. See, I call thee with a toemba bras, with an egg of the fowl Rajah moelija, with the eleven healing leaves. Detain it not, let it come straight here, detain it not, neither in the wood, nor on the hill, nor in the dale. That may not be. O come straight home!”[156 - M. Joustra, “Het leven, de zeden en gewoonten der Bataks,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlvi. (1902) p. 408.] Sometimes the means adopted by the Battas to procure the return of a sick person's soul are more elaborate. A procession sets out from the village to the tuck of drum to find and bring home the strayed soul. First goes a person bearing a basket which contains cakes of rice-meal, rice dyed yellow, and a boiled fowl's egg. The sorcerer follows carrying a chicken, and behind him walks a man with a black, red, and white flag. A crowd of sympathisers brings up the rear. On reaching the spot where the lost soul is supposed to tarry, they set up a small bamboo altar, and the sorcerer offers on it the chicken to the spirit of the place, the drums beating all the time. Then, waving his shawl to attract the soul of the sick man, he says: “Come hither, thou soul of So-and-So, whether thou sittest among the stones or in the mud. In the house is thy place. We have besought the spirit to let thee go.” After that the procession reforms and marches back to the village to the roll of drums and the clash of cymbals. On reaching the door of the house the sorcerer calls out to the inmates, “Has it come?” and a voice from within answers, “It is here, good sorcerer.” At evening the drums beat again.[157 - J. H. Meerwaldt, “Gebruiken der Bataks in het maatschappelijk leven,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, li. (1907) pp. 98 sq. The writer gives tondi as the form of the Batak word for “soul.”] A number of plants, including rice, a species of fig, and garlic, are supposed by the Battas to possess soul-compelling virtue and are accordingly made use of by them in rites for the recovery of lost souls. When a child is sick, the mother commonly waves a cloth to beckon home its wandering spirit, and when a cock crows or a hen cackles in the yard, she knows that the prodigal has returned. If the little sufferer persists in being ill in spite of these favourable omens, the mother will hang a bag of rice at the head of her bed when she goes to sleep, and next morning on getting up she measures the rice. If the rice has increased in volume during the night, as it may do in a moisture-laden atmosphere, she is confident that the lost soul has indeed come home to stay.[158 - Dr. R. Römer, “Bijdrage tot de Geneeskunst der Karo-Batak's,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, i. (1908) pp. 212 sq.] The Kayans of Borneo fasten packets of rice, flesh, and fish to the window in the roof through which the wandering soul of a sick man is expected to return home. The doctor sits cross-legged on a mat under the open window with a display of pretty things spread out temptingly before him as baits to entice the spirit back to its deserted tabernacle. From the window hangs a string of precious corals or pearls to serve the returning prodigal as a ladder and so facilitate his descent into the house. The lower end of the string is attached to a bundle composed of wooden hooks, a fowl's feather, little packets of rice, and so forth. Chanting his spells, the doctor strokes the soul down the string into the bundle, which he then deposits in a basket and hides in a corner till the dusk of the evening. When darkness has fallen, he blows the captured soul back into the patient's head and strokes the sufferer's arm downwards with the point of an old spear in order to settle the soul firmly in his body.[159 - A. W. Nieuwenhuis, In Centraal Borneo (Leyden, 1900), i. 148, 152 sq., 164 sq.; id., Quer durch Borneo (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 112 sq., 125.] Once when a popular traveller was leaving a Kayan village, the mothers, fearing that their children's souls might follow him on his journey, brought him the boards on which they carry their infants and begged him to pray that the souls of the little ones would return to the familiar boards and not go away with him into the far country. To each board was fastened a looped string for the purpose of tethering the vagrant spirits, and through the loop each baby was made to pass a chubby finger to make sure that its tiny soul would not wander away.[160 - A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, ii. 481.] When a Dyak is dangerously ill, the medicine-men may say that his soul has escaped far away, perhaps to the river; then they will wave a garment or cloth about to imitate the casting of a net, signifying thereby that they are catching the soul like a fish in a net. Or they may give out that the soul has escaped into the jungle; and then they will rush out of the house to circumvent and secure it there. Or again they may allege that it has been carried away over seas to some unknown land; and then they will play at paddling a boat to follow it across the great water. But more commonly their mode of treatment is as follows. A spear is set up in the middle of the verandah with a few leaves tied to it and the medicine-boxes of the medicine-men laid at its foot. Round this the doctors run at full speed, chanting the while, till one of them falls down and lies motionless. The bystanders cover him with a blanket, and wait while his spirit hies away after the errant soul and brings it back. Presently he comes to himself, stares vacantly about like a man awaking from sleep, and then rises, holding the soul in his clenched right hand. He then returns it to the patient through the crown of his head, while he mutters a spell.[161 - J. Perham, “Manangism in Borneo,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 19 (Singapore, 1887), p. 91, compare pp. 89, 90; H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, i. 274, compare pp. 272 sq.] Among the Dyaks of the Kayan and Lower Melawie districts you will often see, in houses where there are children, a basket of a peculiar shape with shells and dried fruits attached to it. These shells contain the remains of the children's navel-strings, and the basket to which they are fastened is commonly hung beside the place where the children sleep. When a child is frightened, for example by being bathed or by the bursting of a thunderstorm, its soul flees from its body and nestles beside its old familiar friend the navel-string in the basket, from which the mother easily induces it to return by shaking the basket and pressing it to the child's body.[162 - E. L. M. Kühr, “Schetsen uit Borneo's Westerafdeeling,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xlvii. (1897) pp. 60 sq.] The Toboongkoos of Central Celebes believe that sickness in general is caused by the departure of the soul. To recover the wanderer a priest will set out food in the courtyard of the sufferer's house and then invoke the soul, promising it many fine things if it will only come back. When he thinks it has complied with his request, he catches it in a cloth which he keeps ready for the purpose. This cloth he afterwards claps on the sick man's head, thereby restoring to him his lost soul.[163 - A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xliv. (1900) p. 225.]

Wandering souls in popular tales.

In an Indian story a king conveys his soul into the dead body of a Brahman, and a hunchback conveys his soul into the deserted body of the king. The hunchback is now king and the king is a Brahman. However, the hunchback is induced to shew his skill by transferring his soul to the dead body of a parrot, and the king seizes the opportunity to regain possession of his own body.[164 - Pantschatantra, übersetzt von Th. Benfey (Leipsic, 1859), ii. 124 sqq.] A tale of the same type, with variations of detail, reappears among the Malays. A king has incautiously transferred his soul to an ape, upon which the vizier adroitly inserts his own soul into the king's body and so takes possession of the queen and the kingdom, while the true king languishes at court in the outward semblance of an ape. But one day the false king, who played for high stakes, was watching a combat of rams, and it happened that the animal on which he had laid his money fell down dead. All efforts to restore animation proved unavailing till the false king, with the instinct of a true sportsman, transferred his own soul to the body of the deceased ram, and thus renewed the fray. The real king in the body of the ape saw his chance, and with great presence of mind darted back into his own body, which the vizier had rashly vacated. So he came to his own again, and the usurper in the ram's body met with the fate he richly deserved.[165 - J. Brandes, “Iets over het Pape-gaai-boek, zooals het bij de Maleiers voorkomt,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xli. (1899) pp. 480-483. A story of this sort is quoted from the Persian Tales in the Spectator (No. 578, Aug. 9, 1714).] In another Indian story a Brahman reanimates the dead body of a king by conveying his own soul into it. Meantime the Brahman's body has been burnt, and his soul is obliged to remain in the body of the king.[166 - Katha Sarit Ságara, translated by C. H. Tawney (Calcutta, 1880), i. 21 sq. For other Indian tales of the same general type, with variations in detail, see Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Nouvelle Édition, xii. 183 sq.; North Indian Notes and Queries, iv. p. 28, § 54.] In a Chinese story we read of a monk in a Buddhist monastery who used from time to time to send his soul away out of himself. Whenever he was thus absent from the body, he took the precaution of locking the door of his cell. On one of these occasions an envoy from the north arrived and put up at the monastery, but there was no cell for him to pass the night in. Then he looked into the cell of the brother whose soul was not at home, and seeing his body lying there motionless, he battered the door in and said, “I will lodge here. The man is dead. Take the body and burn it.” His servants obeyed his orders, the monks being powerless to interfere. That very night the soul came back, only to find its body reduced to ashes. Every night it could be heard crying, “Where shall I settle?” Those who knew him then opened their windows, saying, “Here I am.” So the soul came in and united itself with their body, and the result was that they became much cleverer than before.[167 - J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, iv. 104.] Similarly the Greeks told how the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae used to quit his body and roam far and wide, bringing back intelligence of what he had seen on his rambles to his friends at home; until one day, when his spirit was abroad, his enemies contrived to seize his deserted body and committed it to the flames.[168 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 174; Plutarch, De genio Socratis, 22; Lucian, Muscae encomium, 7. Plutarch calls the man Hermodorus. Epimenides, the Cretan seer, had also the power of sending his soul out of his body and keeping it out as long as he pleased. See Hesychius Milesius, in Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, v. 162; Suidas, s. v. Ἐπιμενίδης. On such reported cases in antiquity see further E. Rohde, Psyche,

ii. 91 sqq.] It is said that during the last seven years of his life Sultan Bayazid ate nothing that had life and blood in it. One day, being seized with a great longing for sheep's trotters, he struggled long in this glorious contest with his soul, until at last, a savoury dish of trotters being set before him, he said unto his soul, “My soul, the trotters are before thee; if thou wishest to enjoy them, leave the body and feed on them.” Hardly had he uttered these words when a living creature was seen to issue from his mouth and drink of the juice in the dish, after which it endeavoured to return whence it came. But the austere sultan, determined to mortify his carnal appetite, prevented it with his hand from entering his mouth, and when it fell to the ground commanded that it should be beaten. The pages kicked it to death, and after this murder of his soul the sultan remained in gloomy seclusion, taking no part or interest in the affairs of government.[169 - Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century by Evliyā Efendī, translated from the Turkish by the Ritter Joseph von Hammer (Oriental Translation Fund), vol. i. pt. ii. p. 3. I have not seen this work. An extract from it, containing the above narrative, was kindly sent me by Colonel F. Tyrrel, and the exact title and reference were supplied to me by Mr. R. A. Nicholson, who was so good as to consult the book for me in the British Museum.]

The wandering soul may be detained by ghosts.

The departure of the soul is not always voluntary. It may be extracted from the body against its will by ghosts, demons, or sorcerers. Hence, when a funeral is passing the house, the Karens of Burma tie their children with a special kind of string to a particular part of the house, lest the souls of the children should leave their bodies and go into the corpse which is passing. The children are kept tied in this way until the corpse is out of sight.[170 - E. B. Cross, “On the Karens,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, iv. (1854) p. 311.] And after the corpse has been laid in the grave, but before the earth has been shovelled in, the mourners and friends range themselves round the grave, each with a bamboo split lengthwise in one hand and a little stick in the other; each man thrusts his bamboo into the grave, and drawing the stick along the groove of the bamboo points out to his soul that in this way it may easily climb up out of the tomb. While the earth is being shovelled in, the bamboos are kept out of the way, lest the souls should be in them, and so should be inadvertently buried with the earth as it is being thrown into the grave; and when the people leave the spot they carry away the bamboos, begging their souls to come with them.[171 - A. R. McMahon, The Karens of the Golden Chersonese (London, 1876), p. 318.] Further, on returning from the grave each Karen provides himself with three little hooks made of branches of trees, and calling his spirit to follow him, at short intervals, as he returns, he makes a motion as if hooking it, and then thrusts the hook into the ground. This is done to prevent the soul of the living from staying behind with the soul of the dead.[172 - F. Mason, “Physical Character of the Karens,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1866, pt. ii. pp. 28 sq.] On the return of a Burmese or Shan family from a burial, old men tie up the wrists of each member of the family with string, to prevent his or her “butterfly” or soul from escaping; and this string remains till it is worn out and falls off.[173 - R. G. Woodthorpe, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxvi. (1897) p. 23.] When a mother dies leaving a young baby, the Burmese think that the “butterfly” or soul of the baby follows that of the mother, and that if it is not recovered the child must die. So a wise woman is called in to get back the baby's soul. She places a mirror near the corpse, and on the mirror a piece of feathery cotton down. Holding a cloth in her open hands at the foot of the mirror, she with wild words entreats the mother not to take with her the “butterfly” or soul of her child, but to send it back. As the gossamer down slips from the face of the mirror she catches it in the cloth and tenderly places it on the baby's breast. The same ceremony is sometimes observed when one of two children that have played together dies, and is thought to be luring away the soul of its playmate to the spirit-land. It is sometimes performed also for a bereaved husband or wife.[174 - C. J. S. F. Forbes, British Burma (London, 1878), pp. 99 sq.; Shway Yoe, The Burman (London, 1882), ii. 102; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. 389.] The Bahnars of eastern Cochin-China think that when a man is sick of a fever his soul has gone away with the ghosts to the tombs. At sunset a sorcerer attempts to lure the soul back by offering it sugar-cane, bananas, and other fruits, while he sings an incantation inviting the wanderer to return from among the dead to the land of the living. He pretends to catch the truant soul in a piece of cotton, which he then lays on the patient's head.[175 - Guerlach, “Mœurs et superstitions des sauvages Ba-hnars,” Missions Catholiques, xix. (1887) pp. 525 sq.] When the Karo-Bataks of Sumatra have buried somebody and are filling in the grave, a sorceress runs about beating the air with a stick. This she does in order to drive away the souls of the survivors, for if one of these souls happened to slip into the grave and to be covered up with earth, its owner would die.[176 - J. H. Neumann, “De begoe in de godsdienstige begrippen der Karo-Bataks in de Doesoen,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlvi. (1902) p. 27.] Among some of the Dyak tribes of south-eastern Borneo, as soon as the coffin is carried to the place of burial, the house in which the death occurred is sprinkled with water, and the father of the family calls out the names of all his children and the other members of his household. For they think that the ghost loves to decoy away the souls of his kinsfolk, but that his designs upon them can be defeated by calling out their names, which has the effect of bringing back the souls to their owners. The same ceremony is repeated on the return from the burial.[177 - F. Grabowsky, in Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii. (1889) p. 182.] It is a rule with the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia that a corpse must not be coffined in the house, or the souls of the other inmates would enter the coffin, and they, too, would die. The body is taken out either through the roof or through a hole made in one of the walls, and is then coffined outside the house.[178 - Fr. Boas, in Eleventh Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 6 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for 1896).] In the East Indian island of Keisar it is deemed imprudent to go near a grave at night, lest the ghosts should catch and keep the soul of the passer-by.[179 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 414.] The Kei Islanders believe that the spirits of their forefathers, angry at not receiving food, make people sick by detaining their souls. So they lay offerings of food on the grave and beg their ancestors to allow the soul of the sick to return, or to drive it home speedily if it should be lingering by the way.[180 - J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 221 sq.]

Attempts to rescue the lost soul from the spirits of the dead who are detaining it.

In Bolang Mongondo, a district in the west of Celebes, all sickness is ascribed to the ancestral spirits who have carried off the patient's soul. The object therefore is to bring back the soul of the sufferer and restore it to him. An eye-witness has thus described the attempted cure of a sick boy. The priestesses, who acted as physicians, made a doll of cloth and fastened it to the point of a spear, which an old woman held upright. Round this doll the priestesses danced, uttering charms, and chirruping as when one calls a dog. Then the old woman lowered the point of the spear a little, so that the priestesses could reach the doll. By this time the soul of the sick boy was supposed to be in the doll, having been brought into it by the incantations. So the priestesses approached it cautiously on tiptoe and caught the soul in the many-coloured cloths which they had been waving in the air. Then they laid the soul on the boy's head, that is, they wrapped his head in the cloth in which the soul was supposed to be, and stood still for some moments with great gravity, holding their hands on the patient's head. Suddenly there was a jerk, the priestesses whispered and shook their heads, and the cloth was taken off – the soul had escaped. The priestesses gave chase to it, running round and round the house, clucking and gesticulating as if they were driving hens into a poultry-yard. At last they recaptured the soul at the foot of the stair and restored it to its owner as before.[181 - N. Ph. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, “Het heidendom en de Islam in Bolaang Mongondou,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xi. (1867) pp. 263 sq.] Much in the same way an Australian medicine-man will sometimes bring the lost soul of a sick man into a puppet and restore it to the patient by pressing the puppet to his breast.[182 - James Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), pp. 57 sq.] In Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, the souls of the dead seem to have been credited with the power of stealing the souls of the living. For when a man was sick the soul-doctor would go with a large troop of men and women to the graveyard. Here the men played on flutes and the women whistled softly to lure the soul home. After this had gone on for some time they formed in procession and moved homewards, the flutes playing and the women whistling all the way, while they led back the wandering soul and drove it gently along with open palms. On entering the patient's dwelling they commanded the soul in a loud voice to enter his body.[183 - W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (London, 1876), pp. 171 sq.] In Madagascar when a man was sick or lunatic in consequence of the loss of his soul, his friends despatched a wizard in haste to fetch him a soul from the graveyard. The emissary repaired by night to the spot, and having made a hole in the wooden house which served as a tomb, begged the spirit of the patient's father to bestow a soul on his son or daughter, who had none. So saying he applied a bonnet to the hole, then folded it up and rushed back to the house of the sufferer, saying he had a soul for him. With that he clapped the bonnet on the head of the invalid, who at once said he felt much better and had recovered the soul which he had lost.[184 - De Flacourt, Histoire de la grande Isle Madagascar (Paris, 1658), pp. 101 sq.]

Rescuing the soul from the dead in Borneo and Melanesia.

When a Dyak or Malay of some of the western tribes or districts of Borneo is taken ill, with vomiting and profuse sweating as the only symptoms, he thinks that one of his deceased kinsfolk or ancestors is at the bottom of it. To discover which of them is the culprit, a wise man or woman pulls a lock of hair on the crown of the sufferer's head, calling out the names of all his dead relations. The name at which the lock gives forth a sound is the name of the guilty party. If the patient's hair is too short to be tugged with effect, he knocks his forehead seven times against the forehead of a kinsman who has long hair. The hair of the latter is then tugged instead of that of the patient and answers to the test quite as well. When the blame has thus been satisfactorily laid at the door of the ghost who is responsible for the sickness, the physician, who, as in other countries, is often an old woman, remonstrates with him on his ill behaviour. “Go back,” says she, “to your grave; what do you come here for? The soul of the sick man does not choose to be called by you, and will remain yet a long time in its body.” Then she puts some ashes from the hearth in a winnowing fan and moulds out of them a small figure or image in human likeness. Seven times she moves the basket with the little ashen figure up and down before the patient, taking care not to obliterate the figure, while at the same time she says, “Sickness, settle in the head, belly, hands, etc.; then quickly pass into the corresponding part of the image,” whereupon the patient spits on the ashen image and pushes it from him with his left hand. Next the beldame lights a candle and goes to the grave of the person whose ghost is doing all the mischief. On the grave she throws the figure of ashes, calling out, “Ghost, plague the sick man no longer, and stay in your grave, that he may see you no more.” On her return she asks the anxious relations in the house, “Has his soul come back?” and they must answer quickly, “Yes, the soul of the sick man has come back.” Then she stands beside the patient, blows out the candle which had lighted the returning soul on its way, and strews yellow-coloured rice on the head of the convalescent, saying, “Cluck, soul! cluck, soul! cluck, soul!” Last of all she fastens on his right wrist a bracelet or ring which he must wear for three days.[185 - E. L. M. Kühr, “Schetsen uit Borneo's Westerafdeeling,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xlvii. (1897) pp. 61 sq.] In this case we see that the saving of the soul is combined with a vicarious sacrifice to the ghost, who receives a puppet on which to work his will instead of on the poor soul. In San Cristoval, one of the Melanesian islands, the vicarious sacrifice takes the form of a pig or a fish. A malignant ghost of the name of Tapia is supposed to have seized on the sick man's soul and tied it up to a banyan-tree. Accordingly a man who has influence with Tapia takes a pig or fish to the holy place where the ghost resides and offers it to him, saying, “This is for you to eat in place of that man; eat this, don't kill him.” This satisfies the ghost; the soul is loosed from the tree and carried back to the sufferer, who naturally recovers.[186 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 138 sq.] A regular part of the stock-in-trade of a Dyak medicine-man is a crystal into which he gazes to detect the hiding-place of a lost soul or to identify the demon who is causing the sickness.[187 - Bishop Hose, “The Contents of a Dyak Medicine Chest,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 39, June 1903, p. 69.] In one of the New Hebrides a ghost will sometimes impound the souls of trespassers within a magic fence in his garden, and will only consent to pull up the fence and let the souls out on receiving an unqualified apology and a satisfactory assurance that no personal disrespect was intended.[188 - R. H. Codrington, op. cit. p. 208.] In Motlav, another Melanesian island, it is enough to call out the sick man's name in the sacred place where he rashly intruded, and then, when the cry of the kingfisher or some other bird is heard, to shout “Come back” to the soul of the sick man and run back with it to the house.[189 - R. H. Codrington, op. cit. pp. 146 sq.]

Buryat mode of recovering a lost soul from the nether world.

It is a comparatively easy matter to save a soul which is merely tied up to a tree or detained as a vagrant in a pound; but it is a far harder task to fetch it up from the nether world, if it once gets down there. When a Buryat shaman is called in to attend a patient, the first thing he does is to ascertain where exactly the soul of the invalid is; for it may have strayed, or been stolen, or be languishing in the prison of the gloomy Erlik, lord of the world below. If it is anywhere in the neighbourhood, the shaman soon catches and replaces it in the patient's body. If it is far away, he searches the wide world till he finds it, ransacking the deep woods, the lonely steppes, and the bottom of the sea, not to be thrown off the scent even though the cunning soul runs to the sheep-walks in the hope that its footprints will be lost among the tracks of the sheep. But when the whole world has been searched in vain for the errant soul, the shaman knows that there is nothing for it but to go down to hell and seek the lost one among the spirits in prison. At the stern call of duty he does not flinch, though he knows that the journey is toilsome, and that the travelling expenses, which are naturally defrayed by the patient, are very heavy. Sometimes the lord of the infernal regions will only agree to release the soul on condition of receiving another in its stead, and that one the soul of the sick man's dearest friend. If the patient consents to the substitution, the shaman turns himself into a hawk, pounces upon the soul of the friend as it soars from his slumbering body in the form of a lark, and hands over the fluttering, struggling thing to the grim warden of the dead, who thereupon sets the soul of the sick man at liberty. So the sick man recovers and his friend dies.[190 - V. M. Mikhailovskii, “Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 69 sq.]

American Indian modes of recovering a lost soul from the land of the dead.

When a shaman declares that the soul of a sick Thompson Indian has been carried off by the dead, the good physician, who is the shaman himself, puts on a conical mask and sets off in pursuit. He now acts as if on a journey, jumping rivers and such like obstacles, searching, talking, and sometimes engaging in a tussle for the possession of the soul. His first step is to repair to the old trail by which the souls of heathen Thompsons went to the spirit-land; for nowadays the souls of Christian Thompsons travel by a new road. If he fails to find the tracks of the lost soul there, he searches all the graveyards, one after the other, and almost always discovers it in one of them. Sometimes he succeeds in heading off the departing soul by taking a short cut to the other world. A shaman can only stay a short time there. So as soon as he lays hands on the soul he is after, he bolts with it. The other souls give chase, but he stamps with his foot, on which he wears a rattle made of deer's hoofs. At the rattle of the hoofs the ghosts retreat and he hurries on. A bolder shaman will sometimes ask the ghosts for the soul, and if they refuse to give it, he will wrest it from them. They attack him, but he clubs them and brings away the soul by force. When he comes back to the world, he takes off his mask and shews his club all bloody. Then the people know he had a desperate struggle. If he foresees that the harrowing of hell is likely to prove a tough job, he increases the number of wooden pins in his mask. The rescued soul is placed by him on the patient's head and so returned to his body.[191 - J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) pp. 363 sq.] Among the Twana Indians of Washington State the descent of the medicine-men into the nether world to rescue lost souls is represented in pantomime before the eyes of the spectators, who include women and children as well as men. The surface of the ground is often broken to facilitate the descent of the rescue party. When the adventurous band is supposed to have reached the bottom, they journey along, cross at least one stream, and travel till they come to the abode of the spirits. These they surprise, and after a desperate struggle, sustained with great ardour and a prodigious noise, they succeed in rescuing the poor souls, and so, wrapping them up in cloth, they make the best of their way back to the upper world and restore the recovered souls to their owners, who have been seen to cry heartily for joy at receiving them back.[192 - Rev. Myron Eels, “The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of Washington Territory,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1887, pt. i. pp. 677 sq.]