house. Hence at a house-warming among the Alfoors of Minahassa in Celebes
the priest performs a ceremony for the purpose of restoring their souls to
the inmates. He hangs up a bag at the place of sacrifice and then goes
through a list of the gods. There are so many of them that this takes him
the whole night through without stopping. In the morning he offers the
gods an egg and some rice. By this time the souls of the household are
supposed to be gathered in the bag. So the priest takes the bag, and
holding it on the head of the master of the house, says, “Here you have
your soul; go (soul) to-morrow away again.” He then does the same, saying
the same words, to the housewife and all the other members of the
family.(205) Amongst the same Alfoors one way of recovering a sick man’s
soul is to let down a bowl by a belt out of a window and fish for the soul
till it is caught in the bowl and hauled up.(206) And among the same
people, when a priest is bringing back a sick man’s soul which he has
caught in a cloth, he is preceded by a girl holding the large leaf of a
certain palm over his head as an umbrella to keep him and the soul from
getting wet, in case it should rain; and he is followed by a man
brandishing a sword to deter other souls from any attempt at rescuing the
captured spirit.(207)
(M44) In Nias, when a man dreams that a pig is fastened under a
neighbour’s house, it is a sign that some one in that house will die. They
think that the sun-god is drawing away the shadows or souls of that
household from this world of shadows to his own bright world of radiant
light, and a ceremony must needs be performed to win back these passing
souls to earth. Accordingly, while it is still night, the priest begins to
drum and pray, and he continues his orisons till about nine o’clock next
morning. Then he takes his stand at an opening in the roof through which
he can behold the sun, and spreading out a cloth waits till the beams of
the morning sun fall full upon it. In the sunbeams he thinks the wandering
souls have come back again; so he wraps the cloth up tightly, and quitting
the opening in the roof, hastens with his precious charge to the expectant
household. Before each member of it he stops, and dipping his fingers into
the cloth takes out his or her soul and restores it to the owner by
touching the person on the forehead.(208) The Thompson Indians of British
Columbia think that the setting sun draws the souls of men away towards
it; hence they will never sleep with their heads to the sunset.(209) The
Samoans tell how two young wizards, passing a house where a chief lay very
sick, saw a company of gods from the mountain sitting in the doorway. They
were handing from one to another the soul of the dying chief. It was wrapt
in a leaf, and had been passed from the gods inside the house to those
sitting in the doorway. One of the gods handed the soul to one of the
wizards, taking him for a god in the dark, for it was night. Then all the
gods rose up and went away; but the wizard kept the chief’s soul. In the
morning some women went with a present of fine mats to fetch a famous
physician. The wizards were sitting on the shore as the women passed, and
they said to the women, “Give us the mats and we will heal him.” So they
went to the chief’s house. He was very ill, his jaw hung down, and his end
seemed near. But the wizards undid the leaf and let the soul into him
again, and forthwith he brightened up and lived.(210)
(M45) The Battas or Bataks of Sumatra believe that the soul of a living
man may transmigrate into the body of an animal. Hence, for example, the
doctor is sometimes desired to extract the patient’s soul from the body of
a fowl, in which it has been hidden away by an evil spirit.(211)
(M46) Sometimes the lost soul is brought back in a visible shape. In
Melanesia a woman, knowing that a neighbour was at the point of death,
heard a rustling in her house, as of a moth fluttering, just at the moment
when a noise of weeping and lamentation told her that the soul was flown.
She caught the fluttering thing between her hands and ran with it, crying
out that she had caught the soul. But though she opened her hands above
the mouth of the corpse, it did not revive.(212) In Lepers’ Island, one of
the New Hebrides, for ten days after a birth the father is careful not to
exert himself or the baby would suffer for it. If during this time he goes
away to any distance, he will bring back with him on his return a little
stone representing the infant’s soul. Arrived at home he cries, “Come
hither,” and puts down the stone in the house. Then he waits till the
child sneezes, at which he cries, “Here it is”; for now he knows that the
little soul has not been lost after all.(213) The Salish or Flathead
Indians of Oregon believe that a man’s soul may be separated for a time
from his body without causing death and without the man being aware of his
loss. It is necessary, however, that the lost soul should be soon found
and restored to its owner or he will die. The name of the man who has lost
his soul is revealed in a dream to the medicine-man, who hastens to inform
the sufferer of his loss. Generally a number of men have sustained a like
loss at the same time; all their names are revealed to the medicine-man,
and all employ him to recover their souls. The whole night long these
soulless men go about the village from lodge to lodge, dancing and
singing. Towards daybreak they go into a separate lodge, which is closed
up so as to be totally dark. A small hole is then made in the roof,
through which the medicine-man, with a bunch of feathers, brushes in the
souls, in the shape of bits of bone and the like, which he receives on a
piece of matting. A fire is next kindled, by the light of which the
medicine-man sorts out the souls. First he puts aside the souls of dead
people, of which there are usually several; for if he were to give the
soul of a dead person to a living man, the man would die instantly. Next
he picks out the souls of all the persons present, and making them all to
sit down before him, he takes the soul of each, in the shape of a splinter
of bone, wood, or shell, and placing it on the owner’s head, pats it with
many prayers and contortions till it descends into the heart and so
resumes its proper place.(214) In Amboyna the sorcerer, to recover a soul
detained by demons, plucks a branch from a tree, and waving it to and fro
as if to catch something, calls out the sick man’s name. Returning he
strikes the patient over the head and body with the branch, into which the
lost soul is supposed to have passed, and from which it returns to the
patient.(215) In the Babar Islands offerings for evil spirits are laid at
the root of a great tree (_wokiorai_), from which a leaf is plucked and
pressed on the patient’s forehead and breast; the lost soul, which is in
the leaf, is thus restored to its owner.(216) In some other islands of the
same seas, when a man returns ill and speechless from the forest, it is
inferred that the evil spirits which dwell in the great trees have caught
and kept his soul. Offerings of food are therefore left under a tree and
the soul is brought home in a piece of wax.(217) Amongst the Dyaks of
Sarawak the priest conjures the lost soul into a cup, where it is seen by
the uninitiated as a lock of hair, but by the initiated as a miniature
human being. This the priest pokes back into the patient’s body through an
invisible hole in his skull.(218) In Nias the sick man’s soul is restored
to him in the shape of a firefly, visible only to the sorcerer, who
catches it in a cloth and places it on the forehead of the patient.(219)
Amongst the Indians of Santiago Tepehuacan, if a child has fallen from the
arms of its bearer and an illness has resulted from the fall, the parents
will take the child’s shirt, stretch it out on the spot where the little
one fell, and say, “Come, come, come back to the infant.” Then they bring
back a little of the earth wrapped up in the shirt, and put the shirt on
the child. They say that in this manner the spirit is replaced in the
child’s body and that he will recover.(220) With this we may compare an
Irish custom reported by Camden. When any one happens to fall, he springs
up again, and turning round thrice to the right, digs the earth with a
sword or knife, and takes up a turf, because they say the earth restores
his shade to him. But if he falls sick within two or three days
thereafter, a woman skilled in these matters is sent to the spot, and
there says: “I call thee, So-and-so, from the East and West, from the
South and North, from the groves, woods, rivers, marshes, fairies white,
red, and black,” and so forth. After uttering certain short prayers, she
returns home to the sick person, and whispering in his ear another prayer,
along with a _Pater Noster_, puts some burning coals into a cup of clean
water, and so decides whether the distemper has been inflicted by the
fairies.(221) Here, though Camden is not very explicit, and he probably
did not quite understand the custom he describes, it seems plain that the
shade or soul of a man who has fallen is conceived as adhering to the
ground where he fell. Accordingly he seeks to regain possession of it by
digging up the earth; but if he fails to recover it, he sends a wise woman
to the spot to win back his soul from the fairies who are detaining it.
(M47) The ancient Egyptians held that a dead man is not in a state to
enter on the life hereafter until his soul has been found and restored to
his mummified body. The vital spark had been commonly devoured by the
malignant god Sit, who concealed his true form in the likeness of a horned
beast, such as an ox or a gazelle. So the priests went in quest of the
missing spirit, slaughtered the animal which had devoured it, and cutting
open the carcase found the soul still undigested in its stomach.
Afterwards the son of the deceased embraced the mummy or the image of his
father in order to restore his soul to him. Formerly it was customary to
place the skin of the slain beast on the dead man for the purpose of
recruiting his strength with that of the animal.(222)
(M48) Again, souls may be extracted from their bodies or detained on their
wanderings not only by ghosts and demons but also by men, especially by
sorcerers. In Fiji, if a criminal refused to confess, the chief sent for a
scarf with which “to catch away the soul of the rogue.” At the sight or
even at the mention of the scarf the culprit generally made a clean
breast. For if he did not, the scarf would be waved over his head till his
soul was caught in it, when it would be carefully folded up and nailed to
the end of a chief’s canoe; and for want of his soul the criminal would
pine and die.(223) The sorcerers of Danger Island used to set snares for
souls. The snares were made of stout cinet, about fifteen to thirty feet
long, with loops on either side of different sizes, to suit the different
sizes of souls; for fat souls there were large loops, for thin souls there
were small ones. When a man was sick against whom the sorcerers had a
grudge, they set up these soul-snares near his house and watched for the
flight of his soul. If in the shape of a bird or an insect it was caught
in the snare the man would infallibly die.(224) When a Polynesian mother
desired that the child in her womb should grow up to be a great warrior or
a great thief, she repaired to the temple of the war-god Oro or of the
thief-god Hiro. There the priest obligingly caught the spirit of the god
in a snare made of coco-nut fibre, and then infused it into the woman.
When the child was born, the mother took it to the temple and dedicated it
to the god with whose divine spirit the infant was already possessed.(225)
The Algonquin Indians also used nets to catch souls, but only as a measure
of defence. They feared lest passing souls, which had just quitted the
bodies of dying people, should enter their huts and carry off the souls of
the inmates to deadland. So they spread nets about their houses to catch
and entangle these ghostly intruders in the meshes.(226)
(M49) Among the Sereres of Senegambia, when a man wishes to revenge
himself on his enemy he goes to the _Fitaure_ (chief and priest in one),
and prevails on him by presents to conjure the soul of his enemy into a
large jar of red earthenware, which is then deposited under a consecrated
tree. The man whose soul is shut up in the jar soon dies.(227) Among the
Baoules of the Ivory Coast it happened once that a chief’s soul was
extracted by the magic of an enemy, who succeeded in shutting it up in a
box. To recover it, two men held a garment of the sick man, while a witch
performed certain enchantments. After a time she declared that the soul
was now in the garment, which was accordingly rolled up and hastily
wrapped about the invalid for the purpose of restoring his spirit to
him.(228) Some of the Congo negroes think that enchanters can get
possession of human souls, and enclosing them in tusks of ivory, sell them
to the white man, who makes them work for him in his country under the
sea. It is believed that very many of the coast labourers are men thus
obtained; so when these people go to trade they often look anxiously about
for their dead relations. The man whose soul is thus sold into slavery
will die “in due course, if not at the time.”(229) In some parts of West
Africa, indeed, wizards are continually setting traps to catch souls that
wander from their bodies in sleep; and when they have caught one, they tie
it up over the fire, and as it shrivels in the heat the owner sickens.
This is done, not out of any grudge towards the sufferer, but purely as a
matter of business. The wizard does not care whose soul he has captured,
and will readily restore it to its owner if only he is paid for doing so.
Some sorcerers keep regular asylums for strayed souls, and anybody who has
lost or mislaid his own soul can always have another one from the asylum
on payment of the usual fee. No blame whatever attaches to men who keep
these private asylums or set traps for passing souls; it is their
profession, and in the exercise of it they are actuated by no harsh or
unkindly feelings. But there are also wretches who from pure spite or for
the sake of lucre set and bait traps with the deliberate purpose of
catching the soul of a particular man; and in the bottom of the pot,
hidden by the bait, are knives and sharp hooks which tear and rend the
poor soul, either killing it outright or mauling it so as to impair the
health of its owner when it succeeds in escaping and returning to him.
Miss Kingsley knew a Kruman who became very anxious about his soul,
because for several nights he had smelt in his dreams the savoury smell of
smoked crawfish seasoned with red pepper. Clearly some ill-wisher had set
a trap baited with this dainty for his dream-soul, intending to do him
grievous bodily, or rather spiritual, harm; and for the next few nights
great pains were taken to keep his soul from straying abroad in his sleep.
In the sweltering heat of the tropical night he lay sweating and snorting
under a blanket, his nose and mouth tied up with a handkerchief to prevent
the escape of his precious soul.(230)
(M50) When Dyaks of the Upper Melawie are about to go out head-hunting
they take the precaution of securing the souls of their enemies before
they attempt to kill their bodies, calculating apparently that mere bodily
death will soon follow the spiritual death, or capture, of the soul. With
this intention they clear a small space in the underwood of the forest,
and set up in the clearing one of those miniature houses in which it is
customary to deposit the ashes of the dead. Food is placed in the little
house, which, though raised on four posts, is connected with the ground by
a tiny inverted ladder of the sort up which spirits are believed to swarm.
When these preparations have been completed, the leader of the expedition
comes and sits down a little way from the miniature house, and addressing
the spirits of kinsmen who had the misfortune to be beheaded by their
enemies, he says, “O ghosts of So-and-so, come speedily back to our
village. We have rice in abundance. Our trees all bear ripe fruit. Our
baskets are full to the brim. O ghosts, come swiftly back and forget not
to bring your new friends and acquaintances with you.” But by the new
friends and acquaintances of the ghosts he means the souls of the enemies
against whom he is about to lead the expedition. Meantime the other
warriors have hidden themselves close by behind trees and bushes, and are
listening with all their ears. When the cry of an animal is heard in the
forest, or a humming sound seems to issue from the little house, it is a
sign that the ghosts of their friends have come, bringing with them the
souls of their enemies, which are accordingly at their mercy. At that the
lurking warriors leap forth from their ambush, and with brandished blades
hew and slash at the souls of their foemen swarming unseen in the air.
Taken completely by surprise, the panic-stricken souls flee in all
directions, and are fain to hide under every leaf and stone on the ground.
But even here their retreat is cut off. For now the leader of the
expedition is hard at work, grubbing up with his hands every stone and
leaf to right and left, and thrusting them with feverish haste into the
basket, which he at once ties up securely. He now flatters himself that he
has the souls of the enemy safe in his possession; and when in the course
of the expedition the heads of the foe are severed from their bodies, he
will pack them into the same basket in which their souls are already
languishing in captivity.(231)
(M51) In Hawaii there were sorcerers who caught souls of living people,
shut them up in calabashes, and gave them to people to eat. By squeezing a
captured soul in their hands they discovered the place where people had
been secretly buried.(232) Amongst the Canadian Indians, when a wizard
wished to kill a man, he sent out his familiar spirits, who brought him
the victim’s soul in the shape of a stone or the like. The wizard struck
the soul with a sword or an axe till it bled profusely, and as it bled the
man to whom it belonged fell ill and died.(233) In Amboyna if a doctor is
convinced that a patient’s soul has been carried away by a demon beyond
recovery, he seeks to supply its place with a soul abstracted from another
man. For this purpose he goes by night to a house and asks, “Who’s there?”
If an inmate is incautious enough to answer, the doctor takes up from
before the door a clod of earth, into which the soul of the person who
replied is thought to have passed. This clod the doctor lays under the
sick man’s pillow, and performs certain ceremonies by which the stolen
soul is conveyed into the patient’s body. Then as he goes home the doctor
fires two shots to frighten the soul from returning to its proper
owner.(234) A Karen wizard will catch the wandering soul of a sleeper and
transfer it to the body of a dead man. The latter, therefore, comes to
life as the former dies. But the friends of the sleeper in turn engage a
wizard to steal the soul of another sleeper, who dies as the first sleeper
comes to life. In this way an indefinite succession of deaths and
resurrections is supposed to take place.(235)
(M52) Nowhere perhaps is the art of abducting human souls more carefully
cultivated or carried to higher perfection than in the Malay Peninsula.
Here the methods by which the wizard works his will are various, and so
too are his motives. Sometimes he desires to destroy an enemy, sometimes
to win the love of a cold or bashful beauty. Some of the charms operate
entirely without contact; in others, the receptacle into which the soul is
to be lured has formed part of, or at least touched, the person of the
victim. Thus, to take an instance of the latter sort of charm, the
following are the directions given for securing the soul of one whom you
wish to render distraught. Take soil from the middle of his footprint;
wrap it up in pieces of red, black, and yellow cloth, taking care to keep
the yellow outside; and hang it from the centre of your mosquito curtain
with parti-coloured thread. It will then become your victim’s soul. To
complete the transubstantiation, however, it is needful to switch the
packet with a birch composed of seven leaf-ribs from a “green” coco-nut.
Do this seven times at sunset, at midnight, and at sunrise, saying, “It is
not earth that I switch, but the heart of So-and-so.” Then bury it in the
middle of a path where your victim is sure to step over it, and he will
unquestionably become distraught.(236) Another way is to scrape the wood
of the floor where your intended victim has been sitting, mix the
scrapings with earth from his or her footprint, and knead the whole with
wax from a deserted bees’ comb into a likeness of him or her. Then
fumigate the figure with incense and beckon to the soul every night for
three nights successively by waving a cloth, while you recite the
appropriate spell.(237) In the following cases the charm takes effect
without any contact whatever, whether direct or indirect, with the victim.
When the moon, just risen, looks red above the eastern horizon, go out,
and standing in the moonlight, with the big toe of your right foot on the
big toe of your left, make a speaking-trumpet of your right hand and
recite through it the following words:
“_OM. I loose my shaft, I loose it and the moon clouds over,_
_I loose it, and the sun is extinguished._
_I loose it, and the stars burn dim._
_But it is not the sun, moon, and stars that I shoot at,_
_It is the stalk of the heart of that child of the congregation,
So-and-so._
_Cluck! cluck! soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,_
_Come and sit with me,_
_Come and sleep and share my pillow._
_Cluck! cluck! soul._”
Repeat this thrice and after every repetition blow through your hollow
fist.(238) Or you may catch the soul in your turban, thus. Go out on the
night of the full moon and the two succeeding nights; sit down on an
ant-hill facing the moon, burn incense, and recite the following
incantation:
“_I bring you a betel leaf to chew,_
_Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious,_
_For Somebody, Prince Distraction’s daughter, to chew._
_Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me,_
_Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me._
_As you remember your parents, remember me;_
_As you remember your house and house-ladder, remember me._
_When thunder rumbles, remember me;_
_When wind whistles, remember me;_
_When the heavens rain, remember me;_
_When cocks crow, remember me;_
_When the dial-bird tells its tales, remember me;_
_When you look up at the sun, remember me;_
_When you look up at the moon, remember me,_
_For in that self-same moon I am there._
_Cluck! cluck! soul of Somebody come hither to me._
_I do not mean to let you have my soul,_
_Let your soul come hither to mine._”
Now wave the end of your turban towards the moon seven times each night.
Go home and put it under your pillow, and if you want to wear it in the
daytime, burn incense and say, “It is not a turban that I carry in my
girdle, but the soul of Somebody.”(239)
(M53) Perhaps the magical ceremonies just described may help to explain a
curious rite, of immemorial antiquity, which was performed on a very
solemn occasion at Athens. On the eve of the sailing of the fleet for
Syracuse, when all hearts beat high with hope, and visions of empire
dazzled all eyes, consternation suddenly fell on the people one May
morning when they rose and found that most of the images of Hermes in the
city had been mysteriously mutilated in the night. The impious
perpetrators of the sacrilege were unknown, but whoever they were, the
priests and priestesses solemnly cursed them according to the ancient
ritual, standing with their faces to the west and shaking red cloths up
and down.(240) Perhaps in these cloths they were catching the souls of
those at whom their curses were levelled, just as we have seen that Fijian
chiefs used to catch the souls of criminals in scarves and nail them to
canoes.(241)
(M54) The Indians of the Nass River, in British Columbia, are impressed
with a belief that a physician may swallow his patient’s soul by mistake.
A doctor who is believed to have done so is made by the other members of
the faculty to stand over the patient, while one of them thrusts his
fingers down the doctor’s throat, another kneads him in the stomach with
his knuckles, and a third slaps him on the back. If the soul is not in him
after all, and if the same process has been repeated upon all the medical
men without success, it is concluded that the soul must be in the
head-doctor’s box. A party of doctors, therefore, waits upon him at his
house and requests him to produce his box. When he has done so and
arranged its contents on a new mat, they take the votary of Aesculapius
and hold him up by the heels with his head in a hole in the floor. In this
position they wash his head, and “any water remaining from the ablution is
taken and poured upon the sick man’s head.”(242) Among the Kwakiutl
Indians of British Columbia it is forbidden to pass behind the back of a
shaman while he is eating, lest the shaman should inadvertently swallow
the soul of the passer-by. When that happens, both the shaman and the
person whose soul he has swallowed fall down in a swoon. Blood flows from
the shaman’s mouth, because the soul is too large for him and is tearing
his inside. Then the clan of the person whose soul is doing this mischief
must assemble and sing the song of the shaman. In time the suffering
sorcerer vomits out the soul, which he exhibits in the shape of a small
bloody ball in the open palms of his hands. He restores it to its owner,
who is lying prostrate on a mat, by throwing it at him and then blowing on
his head. The man whose soul was swallowed has very naturally to pay for
the damage he did to the shaman as well as for his own cure.(243)
§ 3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection.
(M55) But the spiritual dangers I have enumerated are not the only ones
which beset the savage. Often he regards his shadow or reflection as his
soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, and as such it is
necessarily a source of danger to him. For if it is trampled upon, struck,
or stabbed, he will feel the injury as if it were done to his person; and
if it is detached from him entirely (as he believes that it may be) he
will die. In the island of Wetar there are magicians who can make a man
ill by stabbing his shadow with a pike or hacking it with a sword.(244)
After Sankara had destroyed the Buddhists in India, it is said that he
journeyed to Nepaul, where he had some difference of opinion with the
Grand Lama. To prove his supernatural powers, he soared into the air. But
as he mounted up, the Grand Lama, perceiving his shadow swaying and
wavering on the ground, struck his knife into it and down fell Sankara and
broke his neck.(245) In the Babar Islands the demons get power over a
man’s soul by holding fast his shadow, or by striking and wounding
it.(246) Among the Tolindoos of central Celebes to tread on a man’s shadow
is an offence, because it is supposed to make the owner sick;(247) and for
the same reason the Toboongkoos of that region forbid their children to
play with their shadows.(248) The Ottawa Indians thought they could kill a
man by making certain figures on his shadow.(249) The Baganda of central
Africa regarded a man’s shadow as his ghost; hence they used to kill or
injure their enemies by stabbing or treading on their shadows.(250) Among
the Bavili of West Africa it used to be considered a crime to trample on
or even to cross the shadow of another, especially if the shadow were that
of a married woman.(251) Some Caffres are very unwilling to let anybody
stand on their shadow, believing that they can be influenced for evil
through it.(252) They think that “a sick man’s shadow dwindles in
intensity when he is about to die; for it has such an intimate relation to
the man that it suffers with him.”(253) The Ja-Luo tribes of Kavirondo, to
the east of Lake Victoria Nyanza, tell of the ancestor of all men, Apodtho
by name, who descended to earth from above, bringing with him cattle,
fowls, and seeds. When he was old, the Ja-Luo plotted to kill him, but for
a long time they did not dare to attack him. At last, hearing that he was
sick, they thought their chance had come, and sent a girl to see how he
was. She took a small horn, used for cupping blood, in her hand, and while
she talked with him she placed the cupping-horn on his shadow. To her
surprise it drew blood. So she returned and told her friends that, if they
wished to kill Apodtho, they must not touch his body, but spear his
shadow. They did so, and he died and turned into a rock, which has ever
since possessed the property of sharpening spears unusually well.(254) In
a Chinese book we read of a sage who examined human shadows by lamplight
in order to discover the fate of their owners. “A man’s shadow,” he said,
“ought to be deep, for, if so, he will attain honourable positions, and a
great age. Shadows are averse to being reflected in water, or in wells, or
in washing-basins. It was on such grounds that the ancients avoided
shadows, and that in old days _Khü-seu_, _twan-hu_, and other
shadow-treading vermin caused injury by hitting the shadows of men. In
recent times there have been men versed in the art of cauterizing the
shadows of their patients.” Another sapient Chinese writer observes: “I
have heard that, if the shadow of a bird is hit with a piece of wood that
was struck by thunder, the bird falls to the ground immediately. I never
tried it, but on account of the matter stated above I consider the thing
certain.”(255) The natives of Nias tremble at the sight of a rainbow,
because they think it is a net spread by a powerful spirit to catch their
shadows.(256)
(M56) In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, there are certain stones of a
remarkably long shape which go by the name of _tamate gangan_ or “eating
ghosts,” because certain powerful and dangerous ghosts are believed to
lodge in them. If a man’s shadow falls on one of these stones, the ghost
will draw his soul out from him, so that he will die. Such stones,
therefore, are set in a house to guard it; and a messenger sent to a house
by the absent owner will call out the name of the sender, lest the
watchful ghost in the stone should fancy that he came with evil intent and
should do him a mischief.(257) In Florida, one of the Solomon Islands,
there are places sacred to ghosts, some in the village, some in the
gardens, and some in the bush. No man would pass one of these places when
the sun was so low as to cast his shadow into it, for then the ghost would
draw it from him.(258) The Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River believe
that man has four souls, of which the shadow is one, though not the
principal, and that sickness is caused by the absence of one of the souls.
Hence no one will let his shadow fall on a sick shaman, lest the latter
should purloin it to replace his own lost soul.(259) At a funeral in
China, when the lid is about to be placed on the coffin, most of the
bystanders, with the exception of the nearest kin, retire a few steps or
even retreat to another room, for a person’s health is believed to be
endangered by allowing his shadow to be enclosed in a coffin. And when the
coffin is about to be lowered into the grave most of the spectators recoil
to a little distance lest their shadows should fall into the grave and
harm should thus be done to their persons. The geomancer and his
assistants stand on the side of the grave which is turned away from the
sun; and the grave-diggers and coffin-bearers attach their shadows firmly
to their persons by tying a strip of cloth tightly round their
waists.(260) In the Nicobar Islands burial usually takes place at sundown,
before midnight, or at early dawn. In no case can an interment be carried
out at noon or within an hour of it, lest the shadows of the bearers who
lower the body into the earth, or of the mourners taking their last look
at the shrouded figure, should fall into the grave; for that would cause
them to be sick or die. And when the dead has been laid in his last home,
but before the earth is shovelled in upon him, the leaves of a certain
jungle tree are waved over the grave, and a lighted torch is brandished
inside it, to disperse any souls of the sorrowing bystanders that may be
lingering with their departed friend in his narrow bed. Then the signal is
given, and the earth or sand is rapidly shovelled in by a party of young
men who have been standing in readiness to perform the duty.(261) When the
Malays are building a house, and the central post is being set up, the
greatest precautions are taken to prevent the shadow of any of the workers
from falling either on the post or on the hole dug to receive it; for
otherwise they think that sickness and trouble will be sure to
follow.(262) When members of some Victorian tribes were performing magical
ceremonies for the purpose of bringing disease and misfortune on their
enemies, they took care not to let their shadows fall on the object by
which the evil influence was supposed to be wafted to the foe.(263) In
Darfur people think that they can do an enemy to death by burying a
certain root in the earth on the spot where the shadow of his head happens
to fall. The man whose shadow is thus tampered with loses consciousness at
once and will die if the proper antidote be not administered. In like
manner they can paralyse any limb, as a hand or leg, by planting a
particular root in the earth in the shadow of the limb they desire to
maim.(264) Nor is it human beings alone who are thus liable to be injured
by means of their shadows. Animals are to some extent in the same
predicament. A small snail, which frequents the neighbourhood of the
limestone hills in Perak, is believed to suck the blood of cattle through
their shadows; hence the beasts grow lean and sometimes die from loss of
blood.(265) The ancients supposed that in Arabia, if a hyæna trod on a
man’s shadow, it deprived him of the power of speech and motion; and that
if a dog, standing on a roof in the moonlight, cast a shadow on the ground
and a hyæna trod on it, the dog would fall down as if dragged with a
rope.(266) Clearly in these cases the shadow, if not equivalent to the
soul, is at least regarded as a living part of the man or the animal, so
that injury done to the shadow is felt by the person or animal as if it
were done to his body. Even the shadows of trees are supposed by the
Caffres to be sensitive. Hence when a Caffre doctor seeks to pluck the
leaves of a tree for medicinal purposes, he “takes care to run up quickly,
and to avoid touching the shadow lest it should inform the tree of the
danger, and so give the tree time to withdraw the medicinal properties
from its extremities into the safety of the inaccessible trunk. The shadow
of the tree is said to feel the touch of the man’s feet.”(267)
(M57) Conversely, if the shadow is a vital part of a man or an animal, it
may under certain circumstances be as hazardous to be touched by it as it
would be to come into contact with the person or animal. Thus in the
North-West Provinces of India people believe that if the shadow of the
goat-sucker bird falls on an ox or a cow, but especially on a cow buffalo,
the beast will soon die. The remedy is for some one to kill the bird, rub
his hands or a stick in the blood, and then wave the stick over the
animal. There are certain men who are noted for their powers in this
respect all over the district.(268) The Kaitish of central Australia hold
that if the shadow of a brown hawk falls on the breast of a woman who is
suckling a child, the breast will swell up and burst. Hence if a woman
sees one of these birds in these circumstances, she runs away in
fear.(269) In the Central Provinces of India a pregnant woman avoids the
shadow of a man, believing that if it fell on her, the child would take
after him in features, though not in character.(270) In Shoa any obstinate
disorder, for which no remedy is known, such as insanity, epilepsy,
delirium, hysteria, and St. Vitus’s dance, is traced either to possession
by a demon or to the shadow of an enemy which has fallen on the
sufferer.(271) The Bushman is most careful not to let his shadow fall on
the dead game, as he thinks this would bring bad luck.(272) Amongst the
Caffres to overshadow the king by standing in his presence was an offence
worthy of instant death.(273) And it is a Caffre superstition that if the
shadow of a man who is protected by a certain charm falls on the shadow of
a man who is not so protected, the unprotected person will fall down,
overcome by the power of the charm which is transmitted through the
shadow.(274) In the Punjaub some people believe that if the shadow of a
pregnant woman fell on a snake, it would blind the creature
instantly.(275)
(M58) Hence the savage makes it a rule to shun the shadow of certain
persons whom for various reasons he regards as sources of dangerous
influence. Amongst the dangerous classes he commonly ranks mourners and
women in general, but especially his mother-in-law. The Shuswap Indians of
British Columbia think that the shadow of a mourner falling upon a person
would make him sick.(276) Amongst the Kurnai tribe of Victoria novices at
initiation were cautioned not to let a woman’s shadow fall across them, as
this would make them thin, lazy, and stupid.(277) An Australian native is
said to have once nearly died of fright because the shadow of his
mother-in-law fell on his legs as he lay asleep under a tree.(278) The awe
and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law
are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology. In the Yuin tribes of
New South Wales the rule which forbade a man to hold any communication
with his wife’s mother was very strict. He might not look at her or even
in her direction. It was a ground of divorce if his shadow happened to
fall on his mother-in-law: in that case he had to leave his wife, and she
returned to her parents.(279) In the Hunter River tribes of New South
Wales it was formerly death for a man to speak to his mother-in-law;
however, in later times the wretch who had committed this heinous crime
was suffered to live, but he was severely reprimanded and banished for a
time from the camp.(280) In the Kulin tribe it was thought that if a woman
looked at or spoke to her son-in-law or even his brother, her hair would
turn white. The same result, it was supposed, would follow if she ate of
game which had been presented to her husband by her son-in-law; but she
could obviate this ill consequence by blackening her face, and especially
her mouth, with charcoal, for then her hair would not turn white.(281)
Similarly in the Kurnai tribe of Victoria a woman is not permitted to see
her daughter’s husband in camp or elsewhere. When he is present, she keeps
her head covered with an opossum rug. The camp of the mother-in-law faces
in a different direction to that of her son-in-law. A screen of high
bushes is erected between both huts, so that no one can see over from
either. When the mother-in-law goes for firewood, she crouches down as she
goes out or in, with her head covered.(282) In Uganda a man may not see
his mother-in-law nor speak to her face to face. Should they meet by
accident, she must turn aside and cover her head with her clothes; or if
her garments are too scanty for that, she may squat on her haunches and
hide her face in her hands. If he wishes to hold any communication with
her, it must be done through a third person, or through a wall or closed
door. Were he to break these rules, he would certainly be seized with a
shaking of the hands and general debility.(283) Among some tribes of
eastern Africa which formerly acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan of
Zanzibar, before a young couple had children they might meet neither their
father-in-law nor their mother-in-law. To avoid them they must take a long
roundabout. But if they could not do that, they must throw themselves on
the ground and hide their faces till the father-in-law or mother-in-law
had passed by.(284) Among the Basutos a man may never meet his wife’s
mother, nor speak to her, nor see her. If his wife is ill and her mother
comes to nurse her, he must flee the house so long as she is in it;
sentinels are posted to warn him of her departure.(285) In New Britain the
native imagination fails to conceive the extent and nature of the
calamities which would result from a man’s accidentally speaking to his
wife’s mother; suicide of one or both would probably be the only course
open to them. The most solemn form of oath a New Briton can take is, “Sir,
if I am not telling the truth, I hope I may shake hands with my
mother-in-law.”(286) At Vanua Lava in the Banks Islands, a man would not
so much as follow his mother-in-law along the beach until the rising tide
had washed out her footprints in the sand.(287) To avoid meeting his
mother-in-law face to face a very desperate Apache Indian, one of the
bravest of the brave, has been seen to clamber along the brink of a
precipice at the risk of his life, hanging on to rocks from which had he
fallen he would have been dashed to pieces or at least have broken several
of his limbs.(288) Still more curious and difficult to explain is the rule
which forbids certain African kings, after the coronation ceremonies have
been completed, ever to see their own mothers again. This restriction was
imposed on the kings of Benin and Uganda. Yet the queen-mothers lived in
regal state with a court and lands of their own. In Uganda it was thought
that if the king were to see his mother again, some evil and probably
death would surely befall him.(289)
(M59) Where the shadow is regarded as so intimately bound up with the life
of the man that its loss entails debility or death, it is natural to
expect that its diminution should be regarded with solicitude and
apprehension, as betokening a corresponding decrease in the vital energy
of its owner. An elegant Greek rhetorician has compared the man who lives
only for fame to one who should set all his heart on his shadow, puffed up
and boastful when it lengthened, sad and dejected when it shortened,
wasting and pining away when it dwindled to nothing. The spirits of such
an one, he goes on, would necessarily be volatile, since they must rise or
fall with every passing hour of the day. In the morning, when the level
sun, just risen above the eastern horizon, stretched out his shadow to
enormous length, rivalling the shadows cast by the cypresses and the
towers on the city wall, how blithe and exultant would he be, fancying
that in stature he had become a match for the fabled giants of old; with
what a lofty port he would then strut and shew himself in the streets and
the market-place and wherever men congregated, that he might be seen and
admired of all. But as the day wore on, his countenance would change and
he would slink back crestfallen to his house. At noon, when his once
towering shadow had shrunk to his feet, he would shut himself up and
refuse to stir abroad, ashamed to look his fellow-townsmen in the face;
but in the afternoon his drooping spirits would revive, and as the day
declined his joy and pride would swell again with the length of the
evening shadows.(290) The rhetorician who thus sought to expose the vanity
of fame as an object of human ambition by likening it to an ever-changing
shadow, little dreamed that in real life there were men who set almost as
much store by their shadows as the fool whom he had conjured up in his
imagination to point a moral. So hard is it for the straining wings of
fancy to outstrip the folly of mankind. In Amboyna and Uliase, two islands
near the equator, where necessarily there is little or no shadow cast at
noon, the people make it a rule not to go out of the house at mid-day,
because they fancy that by doing so a man may lose the shadow of his
soul.(291) The Mangaians tell of a mighty warrior, Tukaitawa, whose
strength waxed and waned with the length of his shadow. In the morning,
when his shadow fell longest, his strength was greatest; but as the shadow
shortened towards noon his strength ebbed with it, till exactly at noon it
reached its lowest point; then, as the shadow stretched out in the
afternoon, his strength returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of
Tukaitawa’s strength and slew him at noon.(292) The savage Besisis of the
Malay Peninsula fear to bury their dead at noon, because they fancy that
the shortness of their shadows at that hour would sympathetically shorten
their own lives.(293) The Baganda of central Africa used to judge of a
man’s health by the length of his shadow. They said, “So-and-so is going
to die, his shadow is very small”; or, “He is in good health, his shadow
is large.”(294) Similarly the Caffres of South Africa think that a man’s
shadow grows very small or vanishes at death. When her husband is away at
the wars, a woman hangs up his sleeping-mat; if the shadow grows less, she
says her husband is killed; if it remains unchanged, she says he is
unscathed.(295) It is possible that even in lands outside the tropics the
observation of the diminished shadow at noon may have contributed, even if
it did not give rise, to the superstitious dread with which that hour has
been viewed by many peoples, as by the Greeks, ancient and modern, the
Bretons, the Russians, the Roumanians of Transylvania, and the Indians of
Santiago Tepehuacan.(296) In this observation, too, we may perhaps detect
the reason why noon was chosen by the Greeks as the hour for sacrificing
to the shadowless dead.(297) The loss of the shadow, real or apparent, has
often been regarded as a cause or precursor of death. Whoever entered the
sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia was believed to lose his
shadow and to die within the year.(298) In Lower Austria on the evening of
St. Sylvester’s day—the last day of the year—the company seated round the
table mark whose shadow is not cast on the wall, and believe that the
seemingly shadowless person will die next year. Similar presages are drawn
in Germany both on St. Sylvester’s day and on Christmas Eve.(299) The
Galelareese fancy that if a child resembles his father, they will not both
live long; for the child has taken away his father’s likeness or shadow,
and consequently the father must soon die.(300) Similarly among some
tribes of the Lower Congo, “if the child is like its mother, father, or
uncle, they think it has the spirit of the person it resembles, and that
that person will soon die. Hence a parent will resent it if you say that
the baby is like him or her.”(301)
(M60) Nowhere, perhaps, does the equivalence of the shadow to the life or
soul come out more clearly than in some customs practised to this day in
south-eastern Europe. In modern Greece, when the foundation of a new
building is being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram, or a lamb,
and to let its blood flow on the foundation-stone, under which the animal
is afterwards buried. The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and
stability to the building. But sometimes, instead of killing an animal,
the builder entices a man to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his
body, or a part of it, or his shadow, and buries the measure under the
foundation-stone; or he lays the foundation-stone upon the man’s shadow.
It is believed that the man will die within the year.(302) In the island
of Lesbos it is deemed enough if the builder merely casts a stone at the
shadow of a passer-by; the man whose shadow is thus struck will die, but
the building will be solid.(303) A Bulgarian mason measures the shadow of
a man with a string, places the string in a box, and then builds the box
into the wall of the edifice. Within forty days thereafter the man whose
shadow was measured will be dead and his soul will be in the box beside
the string; but often it will come forth and appear in its former shape to
persons who were born on a Saturday. If a Bulgarian builder cannot obtain
a human shadow for this purpose, he will content himself with measuring
the shadow of the first animal that comes that way.(304) The Roumanians of
Transylvania think that he whose shadow is thus immured will die within
forty days; so persons passing by a building which is in course of
erection may hear a warning cry, “Beware lest they take thy shadow!” Not
long ago there were still shadow-traders whose business it was to provide
architects with the shadows necessary for securing their walls.(305) In
these cases the measure of the shadow is looked on as equivalent to the
shadow itself, and to bury it is to bury the life or soul of the man, who,
deprived of it, must die. Thus the custom is a substitute for the old
practice of immuring a living person in the walls, or crushing him under
the foundation-stone of a new building, in order to give strength and
durability to the structure, or more definitely in order that the angry
ghost may haunt the place and guard it against the intrusion of enemies.
Thus when a new gate was made or an old gate was repaired in the walls of
Bangkok, it used to be customary to crush three men to death under an
enormous beam in a pit at the gateway. Before they were led to their doom,
they were regaled at a splendid banquet; the whole court came to salute
them; and the king himself charged them straitly to guard well the gate
that was to be committed to their care, and to warn him if enemies or
rebels came to assault the city. The next moment the ropes were cut and
the beam descended on them. The Siamese believed that these unfortunates
were transformed into the genii which they called _phi_.(306) It is said
that when the massive teak posts of the gateways of Mandalay were set up,
a man was bound and placed under each post and crushed to death. The
Burmese believe that men who die a violent death turn into _nats_ or
demons and haunt the spot where they were killed, doing a mischief to such
as attempt to molest the place. Thus their spirits become guardians of the
gates.(307) This theory would explain why such sacrifices appear to be
offered most commonly at thoroughfares, such as gates and bridges, where
ghostly warders may be deemed especially serviceable in keeping; watch on
the multitudes that go to and fro.(308) In Bima, a district of the East
Indian island of Sambawa, the custom is marked by some peculiar features,
which deserve to be mentioned. When a new flag-pole is set up at the
sultan’s palace a woman is crushed to death under it; but she must be
pregnant. If the destined victim should be brought to bed before her
execution, she goes free. The notion may be that the ghost of such a woman
would be more than usually fierce and vigilant. Again, when the wooden
doors are set up at the palace, it is customary to bury a child under each
of the door-posts. For these purposes officers are sent to scour the
country for a pregnant woman or little children, as the case may be, and
if they come back empty-handed they must give up their own wives or
children to serve as victims. When the gates are set up, the children are
killed, their bodies stript of flesh, and their bones laid in the holes in
which the door-posts are erected. Then the flesh is boiled with horse’s
flesh and served up to the officers. Any officer who refuses to eat of it
is at once cut down.(309) The intention of this last practice is perhaps
to secure the fidelity of the officers by compelling them to enter into a
covenant of the most solemn and binding nature with the ghosts of the
murdered children who are to guard the gates.
(M61) The practice of burying the measure of a man’s shadow, as a
substitute for the man himself, under the foundation-stone of a building
may perhaps throw light on the singular deity whom the people of Kisser,
an East Indian island, choose to guard their houses and villages. The god
in question is nothing more or less than the measuring-tape which was used
to measure the foundations of the house or of the village temple. After it
has served this useful purpose, the tape is wound about a stick shaped
like a paddle, and is then deposited in the thatch of the roof of the
house, where food is offered to it on all special occasions. The deified
measuring-tape of the whole village is that which was used to measure the
foundations of the first house or of the village temple. The handle of the
paddle-like stick on which it is wound is carved into the figure of a
person squatting in the usual posture; and the whole is kept in a rough
wooden box along with one or two figures to act as its guards.(310) It is
possible, though perhaps hardly probable, that these tapes may be thought
to contain the souls of men whose shadows they measured at the foundation
ceremony.
(M62) As some peoples believe a man’s soul to be in his shadow, so other
(or the same) peoples believe it to be in his reflection in water or a
mirror. Thus “the Andamanese do not regard their shadows but their
reflections (in any mirror) as their souls.”(311) According to one
account, some of the Fijians thought that man has two souls, a light one
and a dark one; the dark one goes to Hades, the light one is his
reflection in water or a mirror.(312) When the Motumotu of New Guinea
first saw their likenesses in a looking-glass they thought that their
reflections were their souls.(313) In New Caledonia the old men are of
opinion that a person’s reflection in water or a mirror is his soul; but
the younger men, taught by the Catholic priests, maintain that it is a
reflection and nothing more, just like the reflection of palm-trees in the
water.(314) The reflection-soul, being external to the man, is exposed to
much the same dangers as the shadow-soul. Among the Galelareese,
half-grown lads and girls may not look at themselves in a mirror; for they
say that the mirror takes away their bloom and leaves them ugly.(315) And
as the shadow may be stabbed, so may the reflection. Hence an Aztec mode
of keeping sorcerers from the house was to leave a vessel of water with a
knife in it behind the door. When a sorcerer entered he was so much
alarmed at seeing his reflection in the water transfixed by a knife that
he turned and fled.(316) In Corrèze, a district of the Auvergne, a cow’s
milk had dried up through the maleficent spells of a neighbouring witch,
so a sorcerer was called in to help. He made the woman whose cow was
bewitched sit in front of a pail of water with a knife in her hand till
she thought she saw the image of the witch in the water, whereupon he made
her stab the image with the knife. They say that if the knife strikes the
image fair in the eye, the person whose likeness it is will suffer a
corresponding injury in his or her eye. This procedure, we are informed,
has been successful in restoring milk to the udders of a cow when even
holy water had been tried in vain.(317) The Zulus will not look into a
dark pool because they think there is a beast in it which will take away
their reflections, so that they die.(318) The Basutos say that crocodiles
have the power of thus killing a man by dragging his reflection under
water. When one of them dies suddenly and from no apparent cause, his
relatives will allege that a crocodile must have taken his shadow some
time when he crossed a stream.(319) In Saddle Island, Melanesia, there is
a pool “into which if any one looks he dies; the malignant spirit takes
hold upon his life by means of his reflection on the water.”(320)
(M63) We can now understand why it was a maxim both in ancient India and
ancient Greece not to look at one’s reflection in water, and why the
Greeks regarded it as an omen of death if a man dreamed of seeing himself
so reflected.(321) They feared that the water-spirits would drag the
person’s reflection or soul under water, leaving him soulless to perish.
This was probably the origin of the classical story of the beautiful
Narcissus, who languished and died through seeing his reflection in the
water. The explanation that he died for love of his own fair image was
probably devised later, after the old meaning of the story was forgotten.
The same ancient belief lingers, in a faded form, in the English
superstition that whoever sees a water fairy must pine and die.
“_Alas, the moon should ever beam_
_To show what man should never see!—_
_I saw a maiden on a stream,_
_And fair was she!_
_I staid to watch, a little space,_
_Her parted lips if she would sing;_
_The waters closed above her face_
_With many a ring._
_I know my life will fade away,_
_I know that I must vainly pine,_
_For I am made of mortal clay,_
_But she’s divine!_”
(M64) Further, we can now explain the widespread custom of covering up
mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death has taken place in the
house. It is feared that the soul, projected out of the person in the
shape of his reflection in the mirror, may be carried off by the ghost of
the departed, which is commonly supposed to linger about the house till
the burial. The custom is thus exactly parallel to the Aru custom of not
sleeping in a house after a death for fear that the soul, projected out of
the body in a dream, may meet the ghost and be carried off by it.(322) In
Oldenburg it is thought that if a person sees his image in a mirror after
a death he will die himself. So all the mirrors in the house are covered
up with white cloth.(323) In some parts of Germany and Belgium after a
death not only the mirrors but everything that shines or glitters
(windows, clocks, etc.) is covered up,(324) doubtless because they might
reflect a person’s image. The same custom of covering up mirrors or
turning them to the wall after a death prevails in England, Scotland,
Madagascar,(325) and among the Karaits, a Jewish sect in the Crimea.(326)
The Suni Mohammedans of Bombay cover with a cloth the mirror in the room
of a dying man and do not remove it until the corpse is carried out for
burial. They also cover the looking-glasses in their bedrooms before
retiring to rest at night.(327) The reason why sick people should not see
themselves in a mirror, and why the mirror in a sick-room is therefore
covered up,(328) is also plain; in time of sickness, when the soul might
take flight so easily, it is particularly dangerous to project it out of
the body by means of the reflection in a mirror. The rule is therefore
precisely parallel to the rule observed by some peoples of not allowing
sick people to sleep;(329) for in sleep the soul is projected out of the
body, and there is always a risk that it may not return. “In the opinion
of the Raskolniks a mirror is an accursed thing, invented by the
devil,”(330) perhaps on account of the mirror’s supposed power of drawing
out the soul in the reflection and so facilitating its capture.
(M65) As with shadows and reflections, so with portraits; they are often
believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this
belief are naturally loth to have their likenesses taken; for if the
portrait is the soul, or at least a vital part of the person portrayed,
whoever possesses the portrait will be able to exercise a fatal influence
over the original of it. Thus the Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that
persons dealing in witchcraft have the power of stealing a person’s _inua_
or shade, so that without it he will pine away and die. Once at a village
on the lower Yukon River an explorer had set up his camera to get a
picture of the people as they were moving about among their houses. While
he was focusing the instrument, the headman of the village came up and
insisted on peeping under the cloth. Being allowed to do so, he gazed
intently for a minute at the moving figures on the ground glass, then
suddenly withdrew his head and bawled at the top of his voice to the
people, “He has all of your shades in this box.” A panic ensued among the
group, and in an instant they disappeared helter-skelter into their
houses.(331) The Dacotas hold that every man has several _wanagi_ or
“apparitions,” of which after death one remains at the grave, while
another goes to the place of the departed. For many years no Yankton
Dacota would consent to have his picture taken lest one of his
“apparitions” should remain after death in the picture instead of going to
the spirit-land.(332) An Indian whose portrait the Prince of Wied wished
to get, refused to let himself be drawn, because he believed it would
cause his death.(333) The Mandan Indians also thought that they would soon
die if their portraits were in the hands of another; they wished at least
to have the artist’s picture as a kind of hostage.(334) The Tepehuanes of
Mexico stood in mortal terror of the camera, and five days’ persuasion was
necessary to induce them to pose for it. When at last they consented, they
looked like criminals about to be executed. They believed that by
photographing people the artist could carry off their souls and devour
them at his leisure moments. They said that when the pictures reached his
country they would die or some other evil would befall them.(335) The
Canelos Indians of Ecuador think that their soul is carried away in their
picture. Two of them, who had been photographed, were so alarmed that they
came back next day on purpose to ask if it were really true that their
souls had been taken away.(336) Similar notions are entertained by the
Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia.(337) The Araucanians of Chili are
unwilling to have their portraits drawn, for they fancy that he who has
their portraits in his possession could, by means of magic, injure or
destroy themselves.(338)
(M66) The Yaos, a tribe of British Central Africa in the neighbourhood of
Lake Nyassa, believe that every human being has a _lisoka_, a soul, shade,
or spirit, which they appear to associate with the shadow or picture of
the person. Some of them have been known to refuse to enter a room where
pictures were hung on the walls, “because of the _masoka_, souls, in
them.” The camera was at first an object of dread to them, and when it was
turned on a group of natives they scattered in all directions with shrieks
of terror. They said that the European was about to take away their
shadows and that they would die; the transference of the shadow or
portrait (for the Yao word for the two is the same, to wit _chiwilili_) to
the photographic plate would involve the disease or death of the shadeless
body. A Yao chief, after much difficulty, allowed himself to be
photographed on condition that the picture should be shewn to none of his
subjects, but sent out of the country as soon as possible. He feared lest
some ill-wisher might use it to bewitch him. Some time afterwards he fell
ill, and his attendants attributed the illness to some accident which had
befallen the photographic plate in England.(339) The Ngoni of the same
region entertain a similar belief, and formerly exhibited a similar dread
of sitting to a photographer, lest by so doing they should yield up their
shades or spirits to him and they should die.(340) When Joseph Thomson
attempted to photograph some of the Wa-teita in eastern Africa, they
imagined that he was a magician trying to obtain possession of their
souls, and that if he got their likenesses they themselves would be
entirely at his mercy.(341) When Dr. Catat and some companions were
exploring the Bara country on the west coast of Madagascar, the people
suddenly became hostile. The day before the travellers, not without
difficulty, had photographed the royal family, and now found themselves
accused of taking the souls of the natives for the purpose of selling them
when they returned to France. Denial was vain; in compliance with the
custom of the country they were obliged to catch the souls, which were
then put into a basket and ordered by Dr. Catat to return to their
respective owners.(342)
(M67) Some villagers in Sikhim betrayed a lively horror and hid away
whenever the lens of a camera, or “the evil eye of the box” as they called
it, was turned on them. They thought it took away their souls with their
pictures, and so put it in the power of the owner of the pictures to cast
spells on them, and they alleged that a photograph of the scenery blighted
the landscape.(343) Until the reign of the late King of Siam no Siamese
coins were ever stamped with the image of the king, “for at that time
there was a strong prejudice against the making of portraits in any
medium. Europeans who travel into the jungle have, even at the present
time, only to point a camera at a crowd to procure its instant dispersion.
When a copy of the face of a person is made and taken away from him, a
portion of his life goes with the picture. Unless the sovereign had been
blessed with the years of a Methusaleh he could scarcely have permitted
his life to be distributed in small pieces together with the coins of the
realm.”(344) Similarly, in Corea, “the effigy of the king is not struck on
the coins; only a few Chinese characters are put on them. They would deem
it an insult to the king to put his sacred face on objects which pass into
the most vulgar hands and often roll on the ground in the dust or the mud.
When the French ships arrived for the first time in Corea, the mandarin
who was sent on board to communicate with them was dreadfully shocked to
see the levity with which these western barbarians treated the face of
their sovereign, reproduced on the coins, and the recklessness with which
they put it in the hands of the first comer, without troubling themselves
in the least whether or not he would shew it due respect.”(345) In
Minahassa, a district of Celebes, many chiefs are reluctant to be
photographed, believing that if that were done they would soon die. For
they imagine that, were the photograph lost by its owner and found by
somebody else, whatever injury the finder chose to do to the portrait
would equally affect the person whom it represented.(346) Mortal terror
was depicted on the faces of the Battas upon whom von Brenner turned the
lens of his camera; they thought he wished to carry off their shadows or
spirits in a little box.(347) When Dr. Nieuwenhuis attempted to photograph
the Kayans or Bahaus of central Borneo, they were much alarmed, fearing
that their souls would follow their photographs into the far country and
that their deserted bodies would fall sick. Further, they imagined that
possessing their likenesses the explorer would be able by magic art to
work on the originals at a distance.(348)
(M68) Beliefs of the same sort still linger in various parts of Europe.
Not very many years ago some old women in the Greek island of Carpathus
were very angry at having their likenesses drawn, thinking that in
consequence they would pine and die.(349) It is a German superstition that
if you have your portrait painted, you will die.(350) Some people in
Russia object to having their silhouettes taken, fearing that if this is
done they will die before the year is out.(351) In Albania Miss Durham
sketched an old man who boasted of being a hundred and ten years old. When
every one recognised the likeness, a look of great anxiety came over the
patriarch’s face, and most earnestly he besought the artist never to
destroy the sketch, for he was certain that the moment the sketch was torn
he would drop down dead.(352) An artist in England once vainly attempted
to sketch a gypsy girl. “I won’t have her drawed out,” said the girl’s
aunt. “I told her I’d make her scrawl the earth before me, if ever she let
herself be drawed out again.” “Why, what harm can there be?” “I know
there’s a fiz (a charm) in it. There was my youngest, that the gorja
drawed out on Newmarket Heath, she never held her head up after, but
wasted away, and died, and she’s buried in March churchyard.”(353) There
are persons in the West of Scotland “who refuse to have their likenesses
taken lest it prove unlucky; and give as instances the cases of several of
their friends who never had a day’s health after being photographed.”(354)