§ 1. The Soul as a Mannikin.
(M19) 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?
(M20) 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.
(M21) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M22) 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)
(M23) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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.
(M24) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) the same custom is reported of the New Caledonians;(97) 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) 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) 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) 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) Esquimaux mourners plug their nostrils with deerskin, hair, or
hay for several days,(102) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M25) Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight. This
conception has probably left traces in most languages,(110) 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) 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) 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) The soul
of Aristeas of Proconnesus was seen to issue from his mouth in the shape
of a raven.(114) There is a popular opinion in Bohemia that the parting
soul comes forth from the mouth like a white bird.(115) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M26) 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) 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)
(M27) 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) 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) 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)
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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M28) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M29) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
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) 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)
(M30) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M31) 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) 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) 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)
(M32) 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)
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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
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) 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)
(M33) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M34) 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) 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) 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) 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)
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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M35) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M36) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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)
(M37) 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)
(M38) 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) 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)
(M39) Often the abduction of a man’s soul is set down to demons. The
Annamites believe that when a man meets a demon and speaks to him, the
demon inhales the man’s breath and soul.(193) The souls of the Bahnars of
eastern Cochin-China are apt to be carried off by evil spirits, and the
modes of recovering them are various. If a man suffers from a colic, the
sorcerer may say that in planting sugar-cane, maize or what-not, he has
pierced the stomach of a certain god who lives like a mole in the ground,
and that the injured deity has punished him by abstracting his soul and
burying it under a plant. Hence the cure for the colic is to pull up the
plant and water the hole with millet wine and the blood of a fowl, a goat,
or a pig. Again, if a child falls ill in the forest or the fields, it is
because some devil has made off with its soul. To retrieve this spiritual
loss the sorcerer constructs an apparatus which comprises an egg-shell in
an egg-holder, a little waxen image of the sick child, and a small bamboo
full of millet wine. This apparatus he sets up at a cross-road, praying
the devil to drink the wine and surrender the stolen soul by depositing it
in the egg-shell. Then he returns to the house, and putting a little
cotton to the child’s head restores the soul to its owner. Sometimes the
sorcerer lays a trap for the thievish demon, the bait consisting of the
liver of a pig or a fowl and the blood-smeared handle of a little mattock.
At nightfall he sets the trap at a cross-road and lies in wait hard by.
While the devil is licking the blood and munching the liver, the artful
sorcerer pounces out on him, and after a severe struggle wrests the soul
from his clutches, returning to the village victorious, but breathless and
bleeding from his terrific encounter with the enemy of souls.(194) Fits
and convulsions are generally set down by the Chinese to the agency of
certain mischievous spirits who love to draw men’s souls out of their
bodies. At Amoy the spirits who serve babies and children in this way
rejoice in the high-sounding titles of “celestial agencies bestriding
galloping horses” and “literary graduates residing halfway up in the sky.”
When an infant is writhing in convulsions, the frightened mother hastens
to the roof of the house, and, waving about a bamboo pole to which one of
the child’s garments is attached, cries out several times, “My child
So-and-so, come back, return home!” Meantime, another inmate of the house
bangs away at a gong in the hope of attracting the attention of the
strayed soul, which is supposed to recognise the familiar garment and to
slip into it. The garment containing the soul is then placed on or beside
the child, and if the child does not die recovery is sure to follow sooner
or later.(195) Similarly we saw that some Indians catch a man’s lost soul
in his boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into
them.(196)
(M40) If Galelareese mariners are sailing past certain rocks or come to a
river where they never were before, they must wash their faces, for
otherwise the spirits of the rocks or the river would snatch away their
souls.(197) When a Dyak is about to leave a forest through which he has
been walking alone, he never forgets to ask the demons to give him back
his soul, for it may be that some forest-devil has carried it off. For the
abduction of a soul may take place without its owner being aware of his
loss, and it may happen either while he is awake or asleep.(198) The
Papuans of Geelvink Bay in New Guinea are apt to think that the mists
which sometimes hang about the tops of tall trees in their tropical
forests envelop a spirit or god called Narbrooi, who draws away the breath
or soul of those whom he loves, thus causing them to languish and die.
Accordingly, when a man lies sick, a friend or relation will go to one of
these mist-capped trees and endeavour to recover the lost soul. At the
foot of the tree he makes a peculiar sound to attract the attention of the
spirit, and lights a cigar. In its curling smoke his fancy discerns the
fair and youthful form of Narbrooi himself, who, decked with flowers,
appears and informs the anxious enquirer whether the soul of his sick
friend is with him or not. If it is, the man asks, “Has he done any
wrong?” “Oh no!” the spirit answers, “I love him, and therefore I have
taken him to myself.” So the man lays down an offering at the foot of the
tree, and goes home with the soul of the sufferer in a straw bag. Arrived
at the house, he empties the bag with its precious contents over the sick
man’s head, rubs his arms and hands with ginger-root, which he had first
chewed small, and then ties a bandage round one of the patient’s wrists.
If the bandage bursts, it is a sign that Narbrooi has repented of his
bargain, and is drawing away the sufferer once more to himself.(199)
(M41) In the Moluccas when a man is unwell it is thought that some devil
has carried away his soul to the tree, mountain, or hill where he (the
devil) resides. A sorcerer having pointed out the devil’s abode, the
friends of the patient carry thither cooked rice, fruit, fish, raw eggs, a
hen, a chicken, a silken robe, gold, armlets, and so forth. Having set out
the food in order they pray, saying: “We come to offer to you, O devil,
this offering of food, clothes, gold, and so on; take it and release the
soul of the patient for whom we pray. Let it return to his body, and he
who now is sick shall be made whole.” Then they eat a little and let the
hen loose as a ransom for the soul of the patient; also they put down the
raw eggs; but the silken robe, the gold, and the armlets they take home
with them. As soon as they are come to the house they place a flat bowl
containing the offerings which have been brought back at the sick man’s
head, and say to him: “Now is your soul released, and you shall fare well
and live to grey hairs on the earth.”(200) A more modern account from the
same region describes how the friend of the patient, after depositing his
offerings on the spot where the missing soul is supposed to be, calls out
thrice the name of the sick person, adding, “Come with me, come with me.”
Then he returns, making a motion with a cloth as if he had caught the soul
in it. He must not look to right or left or speak a word to any one he
meets, but must go straight to the patient’s house. At the door he stands,
and calling out the sick person’s name, asks whether he is returned. Being
answered from within that he is returned, he enters and lays the cloth in
which he has caught the soul on the patient’s throat, saying, “Now you are
returned to the house.” Sometimes a substitute is provided; a doll,
dressed up in gay clothing and tinsel, is offered to the demon in exchange
for the patient’s soul, with these words, “Give us back the ugly one which
you have taken away and receive this pretty one instead.”(201)
(M42) Among the Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso, in Central Celebes, a wooden
puppet is offered to the demon as a substitute for the soul which he has
abstracted, and the patient must touch the puppet in order to identify
himself with it. The effigy is then hung on a bamboo pole, which is
planted at the place of sacrifice outside of the house. Here too are
deposited offerings of rice, an egg, a little wood (which is afterwards
kindled), a sherd of a broken cooking-pot, and so forth. A long rattan
extends from the place of sacrifice to the sufferer, who grasps one end of
it firmly, for along it his lost soul will return when the devil has
kindly released it. All being ready, the priestess informs the demon that
he has come to the wrong place, and that there are no doubt much better
quarters where he could reside. Then the father of the patient, standing
beside the offerings, takes up his parable as follows: “O demon, we forgot
to sacrifice to you. You have visited us with this sickness; will you now
go away from us to some other place? We have made ready provisions for you
on the journey. See, here is a cooking-pot, here are rice, fire, and a
fowl. O demon, go away from us.” With that the priestess strews rice
towards the bamboo-pole to lure back the wandering soul; and the fowl
promised to the devil is thrown in the same direction, but is instantly
jerked back again by a string which, in a spirit of intelligent economy,
has been previously attached to its leg. The demon is now supposed to
accept the puppet, which hangs from the pole, and to release the soul,
which, sliding down the pole and along the rattan, returns to its proper
owner. And lest the evil spirit should repent of the barter which has just
been effected, all communication with him is broken off by cutting down
the pole.(202) Similarly the Mongols make up a horse of birch-bark and a
doll, and invite the demon to take the doll instead of the patient and to
ride away on the horse.(203) A Yakut shaman, rigged out in his
professional costume, with his drum in his hand, will boldly descend into
the lower world and haggle with the demon who has carried off a sick man’s
soul. Not uncommonly the demon proves amenable to reason, and in
consideration of the narrow circumstances of the patient’s family will
accept a more moderate ransom than he at first demanded. For instance, he
may be brought to put up with the skin of an Arctic hare or Arctic fox
instead of a foal or a steer. The bargain being struck, the shaman hurries
back to the sufferer’s bedside, from which to the merely carnal eye he has
never stirred, and informs the anxious relatives of the success of his
mission. They in turn gladly hasten to provide the ransom.(204)