 Chapter 17 of the Golden Bau, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Golden Bau by Sir James Frazier, Chapter 17, The Burden of Royalty 1. Royal and Priestly Taboose At a certain stage of early society, the king or priest is often thought to be endowed with supernatural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity. And consistently with this belief, the course of nature is supposed to be more or less under his control and he is held responsible for bad weather, failure of the crops and similar calamities. To some extent it appears to be assumed that the king's power over nature, like that over his subjects and slaves, is exerted through definite acts of will and therefore if drought, famine, pestilence or storms arise, the people attribute the misfortune to the negligence or guilt of the king and punish him accordingly with stripes and bonds or if he remains obdurate with deposition and death. Sometimes however, the course of nature, while regarded as dependent on the king, is supposed to be partly independent of his will. His person is considered, if we may express it so, as the dynamic center of the universe, from which lines of force radiate to all quarters of the heaven, so that any motion of his, the turning of his head, the lifting of his hand, instantaneously affects and may seriously disturb some part of nature. He is the point of support on which hangs the balance of the world and the slightest irregularity on his part may overthrow the delicate equipoise. The greatest care must therefore be taken both by and of him and his soul life, down to its minutest details, must be so regulated that no act of his, voluntary or involuntary, may disarrange or upset the established order of nature. Or this class of monarchs, the Mikado or Daeri, the spiritual emperor of Japan, is or rather used to be a typical example. He is an incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who rules the universe, gods and men included. Once a year all the gods wait upon him and spend a month at his court. During that month, the name of which means without the gods. No one frequents the temples for they are believed to be deserted. The Mikado receives many people and assumes in his official proclamations and decrees the title of Manifest or Incarnate Deity. And he claims a general authority over the gods of Japan. For example, in an official decree of the year 646, the emperor is described as the Incarnate God who governs the universe. The following description of the Mikados mode of life was written about 200 years ago. Even to this day the princess descended of this family, more particularly those who sit on the throne, are looked upon as persons most holy in themselves and as popes by birth. And in order to preserve these advantageous notions in the minds of their subjects, they are obliged to take an uncommon care of their sacred persons. And to do such things which, examined according to the customs of other nations, would be thought ridiculous or impertinent. It may not be improper to give a few instances of it. He thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his dignity and holiness to touch the ground with his feet. For this reason, when he intends to go anywhere, he must be carried thither on men's shoulders. Much less will they suffer that he should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There is such a holiness as described to all the parts of his body that he dares to cut off neither his hair nor his beard nor his nails. However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep, because they say that which is taken from his body at that time has been stolen from him, and that such a theft does not prejudice his holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning, with the imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a statue without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body, because by this means it was thought that he could preserve peace and tranquility in his empire, for if, unfortunately, he turned himself one side or the other, or if he looked a good while towards any part of his dominions, it was apprehended that war, famine, fire, or some other great misfortune was near at hand to desolate the country. But it having been afterwards discovered that the imperial crown was the Palladium, which by its immobility could preserve peace in the empire, it was thought expedient to deliver his imperial person, consecrated only to idleness and pleasures, from this burdensome duty, and therefore the crown is at present placed on the throne for some hours every morning. His victuals must be dressed every time in new pots, and served at table in new dishes. Both are very clean and neat, but made only of common clay, that without any considerable expense they may be laid aside or broke after they have served once. They are generally broke, for fair they should come into the hands of laymen, for they believe religiously that if any layman should presume to eat his foot out of these sacred dishes, he would swell and inflame his mouth and throat. The like ill effect is dreaded from the diary's sacred habits, for they believe that if a layman should wear them without the emperor's express leave or command, they would occasion swellings and pains in all parts of his body. To the same effect an earlier account of the Mikado says, It was considered as a shameful degradation for him even to touch the ground with his foot. The sun and moon were not even permitted to shine upon his head. None of the superfluities of the body were ever taken from him, neither his hair, his beard, nor his nails were cut. Whatever he ate was dressed in new vessels. Similar priestly or other divine kings are found, at a lower level of barbarism, on the west coast of Africa. A chalk-point in the Cape Padron in Lower Guinea lives the priestly king Kukulu, alone in a wood. He may not touch a woman nor leave his house, indeed he may not even quit his chair in which he is obliged to sleep sitting, for if he lay down no wind would arise and navigation would be stopped. He regulates storms and in general maintains a wholesome and equable state of the atmosphere. On Mount Agu in Togo there lives a fetish or spirit called Bagba, who is of great importance for the whole of the surrounding country. The power of giving or withholding rain is inscribed to him, and he is lord of the winds including the Harmatan, the dry hot wind which blows from the interior. His priest dwells in a house on the highest peak of the mountain, where he keeps the wind bottle up in huge jars. Applications for rain too are made to him, and he does a good business in amulets, which consists of the teeth and claws of leopards. Yet though his power is great and he is indeed the real chief of the land, the rule of the fetish forbids him ever to leave the mountain, and he must spend the whole of his life on its summit. Only once a year may he come down to make purchases in the market, but even then he may not set a foot in the hut of any mortal man, and must return to his place of exile the same day. The business of government in the villages conducted by subordinate chiefs were appointed by him. In the West African Kingdom of Congo there was a supreme pontiff called Chitome, or Chitombe, whom the Negroes regarded as a golden earth and all powerful in heaven. Hence before they would taste the new crops they offered him the first fruits, fearing that many follow misfortunes would befall them if they broke this rule. When he left his residence to visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people had to observe strict continents the whole time he was out, for it was supposed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal to him, and if he were to die a natural death, they thought that the world would perish and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit, would immediately be annihilated. Amongst the semi-barbarous nations of the New World, at the date of the Spanish conquest, there were found hierarchies or theocracies like those of Japan. In particular the high pontiff of the Zapotiks appears to have presented a close parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this spiritual lord governed Yopa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom with absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in which he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon. He profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their shoulders were members of the highest families. He hardly deigned to look on anything around him, and all who met him fell with their faces to the earth, fearing that death would overtake them if they even saw his shadow. A rule of continence was regularly imposed on the Zapotic priests, especially upon the high pontiff, but on certain days of each year, which were generally celebrated with feasts and dances, it was customary for the high priests to become drunk. While in this state, seeming to belong neither to heaven nor to earth, one of the most beautiful of the virgins consecrated to the service of the gods was brought to him. If child she bore him was a son, he was brought up as a prince of the blood, and the eldest son succeeded his father on the Pontifical throne. The supernatural powers attributed to this pontiff are not specified, but probably they resemble those of the Mikado and Chitomi. Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed that the order of nature and even the existence of the world is bound up with the life of the king or priest. It is clear that he must be regarded by his subjects as a source both of infinite blessing and of infinite danger. On the one hand, the people have to thank him for the rain and the sunshine which fostered the fruits of the earth, for the wind which it brings ships to their coasts and even for the solid ground beneath their feet. But what he gives, he can refuse, and so close is the dependence of nature on his person, so delicate the balance of the system of forces were of his descent, that the least irregularity on his part may set up a tremor which will shake the earth to its foundations. And if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act of the king, it is easy to conceive the convulsion which his death might provoke. The natural death of the Chitomi, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of all things, clearly, therefore, out of regard for their own safety, which might be imperiled by any rash act of the king, and still more by his death, the people will exact of their king or priest a strict conformity to those rules, the observance of which is deemed necessary for his own preservation and consequently for the preservation of his people and the world. The idea that early kingdoms are depotisms in which the people exist only for the sovereign is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects, and his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people's benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him sees and are changed into hatred and contempt. He is dismissed anonymously and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behavior of the people, there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is entirely of a peace. If their king is their god, he is or should be also their preserver, and if he will not preserve them, he must make room for another who will. So long however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they will take of him and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trampling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him. Of the supernaturally endowed king of Luangu, it is said that the more powerful a king is, the more taboos he is bound to observe. They regulate all his actions, his walking and his standing, his eating and drinking, his sleeping and waking. To these restraints, the heir to the throne is subject from infancy, but as he advances in life, the number of abstinences and ceremonies which he must observe increases, until at the moment that he ascends the throne, he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos. In the crater of an extinct volcano, enclosed on all sides by grassy slopes, lie the scattered huts and yam fields of Riabba, the capital of the native king of Fernando Paul. This mysterious being lives in the lowest depths of the crater, surrounded by a harem of forty women and covered, it is said, with old silver coins. Naked savage as he is, he yet exercises far more influence in the island than the Spanish governor at Santa Isabel. In him the conservative spirit of the boobies or Aboriginal inhabitants of the island is, as it were, in corporate. He has never seen a white man and, according to the firm conviction of all the boobies, the sight of a pale face would cause his instant death. He can't bear to look upon the sea, indeed it is said that he may never see it even in the distance and that therefore he wears away his life with shackles on his legs in the dim twilight of his hut. Certain it is that he has never set foot on the beach. With the exception of his musket and knife he uses nothing that comes from the whites. European cloth never touches his person and he scorns tobacco, rum and even salt. Among the eevee speaking peoples of the slave coast, the king is at the same time high priest. In this quality he was, particularly in former times, unapproachable by his subjects. Only by night was he allowed to quit his dwelling in order to bathe and so forth. None but his representative, the so-called visible king, with three chosen elders might converse with him and even they had to sit on an oxide with their backs turned to him. He might not see any European nor any horse nor might he look upon the sea, for which reason he was not allowed to quit his capital even for a few moments. These rules have been disregarded in recent times. The king of Dahomei himself is subject to the prohibition of beholding the sea and so are the kings of Luangu and Great Ardra in Guinea. The sea is the fetish of the Eios to the northwest of Dahomei and they are their king, are threatened with death by their priests, if ever they dare to look upon it. It is believed that the king of Cairo in Senegal would infallibly die within the year if he were ever to cross a river or an arm of the sea. In Machonalan, down to recent times, the chiefs would not cross certain rivers, particularly the Rurikwi and the Nyadiri, and the custom was still strictly observed by at least one chief within recent years. On no account will the chief cross the river. If it is absolutely necessary for him to do so, he is blindfolded and carried across with shouting and singing. Should he walk across, he will go blind or die and certainly lose the chieftainship. So among the Mahafalis and Sakalavas in the south of Madagascar, some kings are forbidden to sail on the sea or cross certain rivers. Among the Sakalavas, the chief is regarded as a sacred being, but he is held in a leash by a crowd of restrictions which regulate his behaviour like that of the Emperor of China. He can undertake nothing whatever unless the sorcerers have declared the omens favourable. He may not eat warm food. On certain days he may not quit his hut and so on. Among some of the hill tribes of Assam, both the headman and his wife have to observe many taboos in respect to food. Thus they may not eat buffalo, pork, dog, fowl or tomatoes. The headman must be chased, the husband of one wife, and he must separate himself from her on the eve of a general public observance of taboo. In one group of tribes the headman is forbidden to eat in a strange village, and under no provocation whatever may utter the word of abuse. Apparently the people imagine that the violation of any of these taboos by a headman would bring down misfortune on the whole village. The ancient kings of Ireland as well as the kings of the four provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster were subject to certain quaint prohibitions or taboos on the due observance of which the prosperity of the people of the country as well as their own was supposed to depend. Thus, for example, the son might not rise on the king of Ireland and his bed at Tara, the old capital of Errin. He was forbidden to alight on Wednesday at Mag Bragg, to traverse Mag Cullin after sunset, to incite his horses from Tumair, to go in a ship on the water the Monday after Beltine, Mayday, and to leave the track of his army upon Atmaigne the Tuesday after all Hallows. The king of Leinster might not go round to Atleghen left hand-wise on Wednesday, nor sleep between the Dothair, Dodder, and the Dujlimbin with his heading lining to one side, nor encamp for nine days on the plains of Kualan, nor travel the roads of Dujbling on Monday, nor ride a dirty black-hilled horse across Mag Mensten. The king of Munster was prohibited from enjoying the feast of Loch Lane from one Monday to another, from banqueting by night in the beginning of harvest before game at Leitriakha, from encamping for nine days upon the sewer, and from holding a boarder meeting at Gabbran. The king of Kornoth might not conclude a treaty respecting his ancient palace at Kruacan after making peace on all Hallows' day, nor go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heat of Daltchais, nor repair to an assembly of women at Sergais, nor sit in autumn on the sepulchral mounds of the wife of Main, nor contend in running with the rider of grey one-eyed horse at Altgolta between two posts. The king of Alster was forbidden to attend the horse fair at Ratline among the youths of Dal-Araidhe, to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn-Saelach after sunset, to celebrate the feast of the bull of Dair-Mikdair, to go into Magkhova in the month of March, and to drink the water of Bo-Namid between the two darknesses. If the kings of Ireland strictly observed these and many other customs, which were enjoined by immemorial usage, it was believed that they would never meet any misfortune or mistrans, and would live for ninety years without experiencing the decay of old age, that no epidemic or mortality would occur during their reigns, and that the seasons would be favourable and the earth yield its fruit in abundance. Whereas, if they set the ancient usages at naught, the country would be visited with plague, famine and bad weather. The kings of Egypt were worshipped as gods, and the routine of their daily life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying rules. The life of the kings of Egypt, says Deodorus, was not like that of other monarchs who are irresponsible and may do just what they choose. On the contrary, everything was fixed for them by law, not only their official duties, but even the details of their daily life. The hours both of day and night were arranged at which the king had to do, not what he pleased, but what was prescribed for him. For not only were the times appointed at which he should transact public business or sit in judgment, but the very hours for his walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife, and in short, performing every act of life were all settled. Customers joined a simple diet, the only flesh he might eat was veal and goose, and he might only drink prescribed quantity of wine. However, there is reason to think that these rules were observed, not by the ancient pharaohs, but by the priestly kings who reigned at Thebes and Ethiopia, the close of the 20th dynasty. On the taboos imposed on priests, we may see a striking example in the rules of life prescribed for the Flamen Dealis at Rome, who has been interpreted as a living image of Jupiter, or a human embodiment of the sky spirit. They were such as the following. The Flamen Dealis might not ride or even touch a horse, nor see an army under arms, nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor have a knot on any part of his garment. No fire except the sacred fire might be taken out of his house, he might not touch withen flower or liven bread, he might not touch or even name a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans and ivy, he might not walk under a vine, the feet of his bed had to be dubbed with mud, his hair could be cut only by a free man and with a bronze knife, and his hair nails, when cut, had to be buried under lucky tree, he might not touch a dead body, nor enter a place where one was burned, he might not see work being done on holy days, he might not be uncovered in the open air, if a man in bonds were taken into his house, the captive had to be unbound and the cords had to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let down into the street, his wife, the Flaminica, had to observe nearly the same rules and others of her own besides. She might not descend more than three steps of the kind of staircase called Greek, at a certain festival she might not comb her hair, the letter of her shoes might not be made of a beast that had died a natural death, but only from one that had been slain or sacrificed, if she heard thunder she was tabooed till she had offered an expiatory sacrifice. Among the Grebo-people of Sierra Leone, there is a pontiff who bears the title of Bodia and has been compared on somewhat slender grounds to the high priest of the Jews. He is appointed in accordance with the behest of an oracle, at an elaborate ceremony of installation he is anointed, a ring is put on his ankle as a badge of office and the door posts of his house are sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed goat. He has charge of public talismans and idols, which he feeds with rice and oil every new moon and he sacrifices on behalf of the town to the dead and the demons. Nominally his power is very great, but in practice it is very limited, for he dare not defy public opinion and he is held responsible even with his life for any adversity that we force the country. It is expected of him that he should cause the earth to bring forth abundantly the people to be healthy, war to be driven far away and witchcraft to be kept in abeyance. His life is trampled by the observance of certain restrictions or taboos. Thus he may not sleep in any house, but his own official residence, which is called the anointed house with reference to the ceremony of anointing him at the inauguration. He may not drink water on the highway, he may not eat while a corpse is in the town and he may not mourn for the dead. If he dies while in office, he must be buried at dead of night. Few may hear of his burial and none may mourn for him when his death is made public. Should he have fallen a victim to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of sassy wood as it is called, he must be buried under the running stream of water. Among the Todas of southern India, the holy milkman, who acts as priest of the sacred deity, is subject to a variety of irksome and burdensome restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency, which may last many years. Thus he must live at the sacred deity and may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be celibate, if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy deity. Such a touch would certify his holiness that he would forfeit his office. It is only of two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays, that a mere layman may even approach the milkman. On other days, if he has any business with him, he must stand as the assistant, some say a quarter of a mile and shout his message across the intervening space. Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pierces nails so long as he holds office. He never crosses a river by a bridge, but wades through a ford and only certain fords. If a death occurs in his clan, he may not attend any of the funeral ceremonies, unless he first resigns his office and descends from the exalted rank of milkman to that of a mere common mortal. Indeed, it appears that in old days he had to resign the seals or rather the pales of office whenever any member of his clan departed this life. However, these heavy restraints are laid in their entirety only on milkmen of the very highest class. Two, divorce of the spiritual from the temporal power. The burdensome observances attached to the royal or priestly office produced their natural effect. Either men refused to accept the office, which hence tended to fall into abeyance, or accepting it, they sank under its weight into spiritless creatures, cloistered recluses, from whose nervous fingers, reins of government, slipped into the firmer grasp of men who were often content to wield the reality of sovereignty without its name. In some countries, this rift into supreme power deepened into a total and permanent separation of the spiritual and temporal powers. The old royal house retaining their purely religious functions while the civil government passed into the hands of a younger and more vigorous race. To take examples. In the previous part of this work we saw that in Cambodia it is often necessary to force the kingship of fire and water upon the reluctant successors and that in Savage Island the monarchy actually came to an end because at last no one could be induced to accept the dangerous distinction. In some parts of West Africa when the king dies a family council is secretly held to determine his successor. He on whom the choice falls is suddenly seized, bound and thrown into the fetish house where he is kept in endurance till he consents to accept the crown. Sometimes the air finds means of evading the honour which it is sought to trust upon him. A ferocious chief has been known to go about constantly armed a resolute to resist by force in the attempt to set him on the throne. The savage timmes of Sierra Leone who elect the king reserve to themselves the right of beating him on the eve of his coronation and they avail themselves of this constitutional privilege with such hearty goodwill that sometimes the unhappy monarch does not long survive his elevation to the throne. Hence when the leading chiefs have a spite at a man and wish to rid themselves of him they elect him king. Formerly before a man was proclaimed king of Sierra Leone it used to be the custom to load him with chains and trash him. Then the fetters were knocked off the kingly robe was placed on him and he received in his hands the symbol of royal dignity which was nothing but the acts of the executioner. It is not therefore surprising to read that in Sierra Leone such customs have prevailed. Except among the Mandinguas and Tsutsis few kings are natives of the countries they govern. So different are their ideas from ours that very few are solicitors of the honor and competition is very seldom heard of. The Mikados of Japan seem early to have resorted to the expedient of transferring the honors and burdens of supreme power to their infant children and the rise of the tycoons long the temporal sovereigns of the country is traced to the abdication of a certain Mikado in favor of his 3 year old son. The sovereignty having been rest by an usurper from the infant prince the cause of the Mikado was championed by Yuritomo a man of spirit and conduct who overthrew the usurper and restored the Mikado the shadow while he retained for himself the substance of power. He bequeathed to his descendants the dignity he had won and thus became the founder of the line of tycoons or shoguns down the latter half of the 16th century the tycoons were active and efficient rulers but the same fate overtook them which had befallen the Mikados it meshed in the same inextricable web of custom and law they degenerated into mere puppets hardly stirring from their palaces and occupied in a perpetual round of empty ceremonies while the real business of government was managed by the council of state in Tonkwin the monarchy ran a similar course living like his predecessors in effeminacy and sloth the king was driven from the throne by an ambitious adventurer named Mak who from a fisherman had risen to be great Mandarin but the king's brother Tring put down the usurper and restored the king retaining power for himself and his descendants the dignity of general of all the forces then forward the kings though invested with the title and pompous sovereignty seats to govern while they lived secluded in their palaces all real political power was wielded by the hereditary generals in Mangaya a Polynesian island religious and civil authority were lodged in separate hands spiritual functions being discharged by a line of hereditary kings while the temporal government was entrusted from time to time to a victorious war chief whose investiture however had to be completed by the king similarly in Tonga besides the civil king whose right to the throne was partly hereditary and partially derived from his warlike reputation and the number of his fighting men there was a great divine chief who ranked above the king and the other chiefs in virtue of his supposed descent from one of the chief gods once a year the first fruits of the ground was a solemn ceremony and it was believed that if these offerings were not made the vengeance of the gods would fall in a signal manner on the people peculiar forms of speech such as were applied to no one else were used in speaking of him and everything that he chanced to touch became sacred or tabooed when he and the king met the monarch had to sit down on the ground in token of respect until his holiness had passed by yet though he enjoyed the highest veneration by reason of his divine origin this sacred personage possessed no political authority and if he ventured to meddle with affairs of state it was at the risk of receiving a rebuff from the king to whom the real power belonged and who finally succeeded in ridding himself of his spiritual rival in some parts of western Africa two kings reigned side by side a fetish or religious king and a civil king but the fetish king is really supreme he controls the weather and so forth and he can put a stop to everything when he lays his red staff on the ground no one may pass that way this division of power between a sacred and a secular ruler is to be met with wherever the true negro culture has been left unmalested but where the negro form of society has been disturbed as in Dahomey and Ashanti there is a tendency to consolidate the two powers in a single king in some parts of the east Indian island of Timor we meet with the partition of power like that which is represented by the civil king and the fetish king of western Africa some of the Timorese tribes recognize two rajas the ordinary or civil raja who governs the people and the fetish or taboo raja who is charged with the control of everything that concerns the earth and its products this latter ruler has the right of declaring anything taboo his permission must be obtained before new land may be brought under cultivation and he must perform certain necessary ceremonies when the work is being carried out if draught or blight threatens the crops, his help is invoked to save them though he ranks below the civil raja he exercises a momentous influence on the course of events for his secular colleges bound to consult him in all important matters in some of the neighboring islands such as Roti and Eastern Flores a spiritual ruler of the same sort is recognized under various native names which all mean lord of the ground similarly in the Mekkeo district of British New Guinea there is a double chieftainship the people are divided into two groups according to families and each of the groups has its chief one of the two is the world chief the other is the taboo chief the office of the latter is hereditary his duty is to impose a taboo on any of the crops such as the coconuts and the reikanuts whenever he thinks it is desirable to prohibit their use in his office we may perhaps detect the beginning of a priestly dynasty but as yet his functions appear to be more magical than religious being concerned with the control of the harvests rather than with the propitiation of higher powers end of chapter 17 recording by Monsbru Brulslux, Finland Chapter 18 of The Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 18 The Perils of the Soul One The Soul as Manikin 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 arises how is their observance supposed to affect 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 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 lifeguards these general statements will now be illustrated by examples 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 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 too 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 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 the Eskimo believe that the soul exhibits the same shape as the body it belongs to but is of a more subtle and ethereal nature according to the Newtkas 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 hail and hearty but when for many cause it loses its upright position he loses his senses 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 mannequin while the other three are shadows of it the Malays conceive the human soul as a little man mostly invisible and of the bigness of a thumb who corresponds exactly in shape and even in complexion to the man in whose body he resides this mannequin 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 so exact is the resemblance of the mannequin 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 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 think that every man before he is born is asked how long the heavier soul he would like and the soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to him the heaviest soul ever given out weighs 10 grams the length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of his soul children who die young had short souls 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 riverside where the ghostly ferriman 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 people in the Punjab 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 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 the soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the body especially the mouth and nostrils hence in celibies they sometimes fasten fish hooks 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 a touric 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 when a sea-dye 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 but hooks it is plain may be used to catch the souls of enemies as well as of friends acting on this principle headhunters 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 one of the implements of a hider medicine man is a hollow bone in which he bottles up departing souls and so restores them to their owners when anyone yawns in their presence the Hindus always snap their thumbs believing this will hinder the soul from issuing through the open mouth 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 the same custom is reported by the New Caledonians and with the like intention the bagobos of the Philippine islands put rings of brass wire on the wrists or ankles of their sick on the other hand the itonamas of South America seal up the eyes nose and mouth of a dying person in case his ghost should get out and carry off others and for a similar reason the people of Nias who fear the spirits of the recently deceased identify them with the breath seek to confine the vagrant soul in its earthly tabernacle by banging up the nose or tying up the jaws of the corpse before leaving a corpse the Wackelbura of 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 in southern Salibis to hinder the escape of a woman's soul in child bed the nurse ties a band as tightly as possible round the body of the expectant mother the Minankabawas 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 child bed so that when her soul seeks to depart in her hour of travail it may find the egress bard and lest the soul of a babe and be lost as soon as it is born the alphoes of Salibis 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 mouth 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 popular expressions in the language of civilized peoples such as to have one's heart in one's mouth or the soul on the lips or in the nose show how natural is the idea that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight this conception has probably left traces in most languages and it lingers as a metaphor in poetry the malaise 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 flying away 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 and in Sintang a district of Borneo when a person, whether man woman or child has fallen out of her 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 here the intention clearly is to decoy back the loitering bird soul and replace it in the head of its owner the soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from his body and actually to visit the places to see the persons the acts of which he dreams for example when an Indian of Brazil or Guyana 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 dreamt 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 and he dreamt that he saw enemies stealthily approaching it a Makusi Indian in weak health who dreamt 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 the Indians of the Grand 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 now the absence of the soul in sleep has its dangers for many cause the soul should be permanently detained away from the body the person thus deprived of the vital principle must die 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 hence in Transylvania they say that you should not let a child sleep with its mouth open it may slip out in the shape of a mouse and the child will never wake 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 awakens with sore bones in the morning he thinks that his soul has been thrashed by another soul in sleep or it may meet the soul of a person just deceased and be carried off by it hence in the Haroo 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 again the soul of the sleeper may be prevented by accident or by physical force from returning to his body when a dyac 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 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 into a picture of water to drink just then the owner of the picture 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 someone uncovered the picture 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 it is a common rule with primitive people not to awaken 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 a phygeon 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 waking 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 re-animate its deserted tenement the man would probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to allay his terror still more dangerous is it in the opinion of a 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 recognize its body and so the person would die the Minankabawas 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 Patani Malays fancy that if a person's face be painted while he sleeps the soul which has gone out of him will not recognize him and he will sleep on till his face is washed in Bombay it is thought equivalent to murder to change the aspect of a sleeper as by painting his face in fantastic colors or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman for when the soul returns it will not know its own body and the person will die 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 Wudangeli tribe in Australia lay at his last gasp because his spirit 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 the Karen's 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 BRUH! 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 BRUH! come back soul here it will be well with you you shall want for nothing come and eat under the shelter from the wind and the storm after that the family partakes of the meal and the ceremony ends with everybody tying his right wrist with a string which has been charmed by a sorcerer similarly the lolos of south-western china believe that the soul leaves the body in chronic illness in that case they read a sort of horror at litany calling on the soul by name and beseeching it to return from the hills the veils the rivers the forests the fields or from wherever it may be straying at the same time cups of water, wine and rice are sat 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 or drops off 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 pining sickness, great fright and death are ascribed by the batax of Sumatra to the absence of the soul from the body at first they try to beckon the wanderer back and to lure him like a fowl by stirring rice then the following form of words is commonly repeated come back oh soul whether thou art lingering in the wood or on the hills or in the dale see I call thee with a toemba brass with an egg of the fowl Raja Moaliyah 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 oh come straight home 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 carried 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 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 show his skill by transferring his soul to the dead body of a parrot and the king seizes the opportunity to regain the possession of his own body a tale of the same type with variations of detail reappears among the malaise a king has in cautiously 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 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 similarly the greeks told how the soul of Hermotimus of cladzomeni 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 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 carrens tie the children with a special kind of string to a particular part of the house 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 and after the corpse has been laid in the grave but before the earth has been shoveled 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 the proof 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 shoveled 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 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 when the carob attacks have buried somebody and are filling in the grave the carob 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 in U'et'ah 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 group 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 patients dwelling they commanded the soul in a loud voice to enter his body often the abduction of a man's soul is set down to demons thus fits and convulsions are generally ascribed 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 with striding galloping horses and literary graduates residing half way 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 went to 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 similarly some Indians catch a man's lost soul in his boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into them in the malakas 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 say, we come to offer 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 have 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 demons are especially feared by persons who have just entered a new house hence at a house warming among the Alphours of Minahasa in Salibis 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, tomorrow away again he then does the same saying the same words to the housewife and all the other members of the family amongst the same Alphours 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 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 sometimes the lost soul is brought back in a visible shape the Salish or flat head 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 its 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 in with many prayers and contortions till it descends into the heart and so resumes its proper place 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 refuses to confess the chief sent for a scarf with which to catch away the soul of the rogue at the site 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 the sorcerers of Danger Island used to set snares for souls the snares were made of stout cinnette about 15 to 30 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 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 sickenes 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 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 from the sake of Luca set and bait traps for 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 mourning it so as to impair the health of its owner when it succeeds in escaping and returning to him Miss Kingsley knew a crewman who became very anxious to smelt 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 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 middle 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 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 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 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 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 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 share my pillow cluck cluck soul repeat this thrice and after every repetition blow through your hollow fist or you may catch the soul in your turban thus go out on the first night of the full moon and the two succeeding nights sit down on an anthill facing the moon burn incense and recite the following incantation bring you beetle leaf to chew dab the line onto it prince ferocious for somebody, prince distractions 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 the 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 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 the Indians of the Nass River in British Columbia are impressed with the 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 needs 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 Isculapius 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 no doubt the lost soul is in the water three the soul as a shadow and a reflection 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 Weta there are magicians who can make a man ill by stabbing his shadow with a pike or hacking it with a sword after Sankara had destroyed the Buddhists in India it is said that he journeyed to Nepal 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 in the Banks Islands there are some stones of a remarkably long shape which go by the name of eating ghosts 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 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 wastes 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 the ancients supposed that in Arabia if a hyena 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 hyena trod on it the dog would fall down as if dragged with a rope 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 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 a person or animal 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 think that the shadow of a mourner falling upon a person would make him sick amongst the Kournai of Victoria novices at the initiation were cautioned not to let a woman's shadow fall across them as this would make them thin lazy and stupid 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 the awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology in the Ewing tribes of New South Wales the rules 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 or in that case he had to leave his wife and she returned to her parents 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 or one or both would probably be the only cause open to them the most solemn form of oath a New Britain can take is sir if I am not telling the truth I hope I may shake hands with my mother-in-law 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 in Ambuena 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 midday because they fancy that by doing so a man may lose the shadow of his soul the Mangaians tell of a mighty warrior Tuka Itawa whose strength waxed and waned with the length of his shadow in the morning when his shadow fell longest his strength was the 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 Tuka Itawa's strength and slew him at noon the savage Bessissis 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 nowhere perhaps does the equivalence of the shadow to the life or soul come out more clearly than in some customs practiced to this day in southeastern 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 set 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 on the man's shadow it is believed that the man will die within the year the Romanians of Transylvania think that he who's shadow is thus immured will die within 40 days so persons passing by a building which is in the course of erection may hear a warning cry beware lest they take thy shadow not long ago there were still shadow traders whose business was to provide architects with the shadows necessary for securing their walls in these cases the measure of the shadow is looked on as equivalent to the shadow of 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 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 when the Motumoto of New Guinea first saw their likenesses in a looking glass they thought that their reflections were their souls 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 maintained that it is a reflection and nothing more just like the reflection of palm trees in the water the reflection soul being external to the man is exposed to much the same dangers as the shadow soul 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 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 in Saddle Island Melanesia there is a pool into which if anyone looks he dies the malignant spirit takes hold of his life by means of his reflection on the water 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 but the Greeks regarded it as an omen of death if a man dreamt of seeing himself so reflected 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 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 burial the custom is thus exactly parallel to the adult 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 the reason why sick people should not see themselves in a mirror and why the mirror in a sick room is therefore covered up 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 for in sleep the soul is projected out of the body and there is always a risk that it may not return 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 loathed to have their likenesses taken for if the portrait is the soul the 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 eskimos of bearing straight believe that persons dealing in witchcraft have the power of stealing a persons 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 head man 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 then in an instant they disappeared helter skelter into their houses the tepehuanis 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 when Dr. Cata and some companions were exploring the barra 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. Cata to return to their respective owners some villagers in Sikkim 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 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 matthusila he could scarcely have permitted his life to be distributed in small pieces together with the coins of the realm beliefs of the same sort still linger in various parts of Europe not 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 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 End of chapter 18