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

Extracting a patient's soul from the stomach of his doctor.

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 - J. B. McCullagh, in The Church Missionary Gleaner, xiv. No. 164 (August 1887), p. 91. The same account is copied from the “North Star” (Sitka, Alaska, December 1888) in Journal of American Folk-lore, ii. (1889) pp. 74 sq. Mr. McCullagh's account (which is closely followed in the text) of the latter part of the custom is not quite clear. It would seem that failing to find the soul in the head-doctor's box it occurs to them that he may have swallowed it, as the other doctors were at first supposed to have done. With a view of testing this hypothesis they hold him up by the heels to empty out the soul; and as the water with which his head is washed may possibly contain the missing soul, it is poured on the patient's head to restore the soul to him. We have already seen that the recovered soul is often conveyed into the sick person's head.] 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 - Fr. Boas in Eleventh Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 571 (Report of the British Association for 1896). For other examples of the recapture or recovery of lost, stolen, and strayed souls, in addition to those which have been cited in the preceding pages, see J. N. Vosmaer, Korte Beschrijving van het Zuid-oostelijk Schiereiland van Celebes, pp. 119-123 (this work, of which I possess a copy, forms part of a Dutch journal which I have not identified; it is dated Batavia, 1835); J. G. F. Riedel, “De Topantunuasu of oorspronkelijke volksstammen van Central Selebes,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxv. (1886) p. 93; J. B. Neumann, “Het Pane- en Bilastroom-gebeid,” Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, dl. iii., Afdeeling, meer uitgebreide artikelen, No. 2 (1886), pp. 300 sq.; J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bei den Minangkabauer,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxix. (1890) pp. 51 sq.; H. Ris, “De onderafdeeling Klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xlvi. (1896) p. 529; C. Snouck Hurgronje, De Atjéhers (Batavia and Leyden, 1893-4), i. 426 sq.; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, pp. 49-51, 452-455, 570 sqq.; Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 128, 287; Chimkievitch, “Chez les Bouriates de l'Amoor,” Tour du monde, N.S. iii. (1897) pp. 622 sq.; Father Ambrosoli, “Notice sur l'île de Rook,” Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xxvii. (1855) p. 364; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. 388, iii. 236; id., Völkerstämme am Brahmaputra, p. 23; id., “Hügelstämme Assam's,” Verhandlungen der Berlin. Gesell. für Anthropol., Ethnol. und Urgeschichte, 1881, p. 156; Shway Yoe, The Burman, i. 283 sq., ii. 101 sq.; G. M. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 214; J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, pp. 110 sq. (ed. Paxton Hood); T. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,

i. 242; E. B. Cross, “On the Karens,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, iv. (1854) pp. 309 sq.; A. W. Howitt, “On some Australian Beliefs,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) pp. 187 sq.; id., “On Australian Medicine Men,” Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xvi. (1887) p. 41; E. P. Houghton, “On the Land Dayaks of Upper Sarawak,” Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, iii. (1870) pp. 196 sq.; L. Dahle, “Sikidy and Vintana,” Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Annual, xi. (1887) pp. 320 sq.; C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Finmarchiae eorumque lingua, vita et religione pristina commentatio (Copenhagen, 1767), pp. 416 sq.; A. E. Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot (Manilla, 1905), pp. 199 sq.; C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 185 sq. My friend W. Robertson Smith suggested to me that the practice of hunting souls, which is denounced in Ezekiel xiii. 17 sqq., may have been akin to those described in the text.]

§ 3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection

A man's soul conceived as his shadow, so that to injure the shadow is to injure the man.

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 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 440.] 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 - A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, v. 455.] 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 - J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. p. 340.] 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 - N. Adriani en A. C. Kruijt, “Van Posso naar Parigi, Sigi en Lindoe,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlii. (1898) p. 511; compare A. C. Kruijt, ib. xliv. (1900) p. 247.] and for the same reason the Toboongkoos of that region forbid their children to play with their shadows.[248 - A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” op. cit. xliv. (1900) p. 226.] The Ottawa Indians thought they could kill a man by making certain figures on his shadow.[249 - Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, iv. (1830) p. 481.] 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 - Rev. J. Roscoe, in a letter to me dated Mengo, Uganda, May 26, 1904.] 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 - R. E. Dennett, “Bavili Notes,” Folk-lore, xvi. (1905) p. 372; id., At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), p. 79.] Some Caffres are very unwilling to let anybody stand on their shadow, believing that they can be influenced for evil through it.[252 - Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 84.] 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 - Dudley Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 68.] 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 - C. W. Hobley, “British East Africa,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiii. (1903) pp. 327 sq.] 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 - J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, iv. 84 sq.] 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 - E. Modigliani, Viaggio a Nías, p. 620, compare p. 624.]

Danger to a person of letting his shadow fall on certain things. Animals and trees also may be injured through their shadows.

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 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 184.] 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 - R. H. Codrington, op. cit. p. 176.] 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 - Fr. Boas, in Ninth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp. 461 sq. (Report of the British Association for 1894).] 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 - J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, i. 94, 210 sq.] 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 - E. H. Man, “Notes on the Nicobarese,” Indian Antiquary, xxviii. (1899) pp. 257-259. Compare Sir R. C. Temple, in Census of India, 1901, iii. 209.] 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 - W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 143.] 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 - J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 54.] 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 - Mohammed Ebn-Omar El-Tounsy, Voyage au Darfour, traduit de l'Arabe par le Dr. Perron (Paris, 1845), p. 347.] 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 - W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 306.] 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 - [Aristotle] Mirab. Auscult. 145 (157); Geoponica, xv. 1. In the latter passage, for κατάγει ἑαυτήν we must read κατάγει αὐτόν, an emendation necessitated by the context, and confirmed by the passage of Damïrï quoted and translated by Bochart, Hierozoicon, i. col. 833, “cum ad lunam calcat umbram canis, qui supra tectum est, canis ad eam [scil. hyaenam] decidit, et ea illum devorat.” Compare W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites,

p. 129.] 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 - Dudley Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 71.]

Danger of being overshadowed by certain birds or people.

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 - W. Crooke, in Indian Antiquary, xix. (1890) p. 254.] 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 - Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 612.] 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 - M. R. Pedlow, in Indian Antiquary, xxix. (1900) p. 60.] 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 - W. Cornwallis Harris, The Highlands of Aethiopia (London, 1844), i. 158.] The Bushman is most careful not to let his shadow fall on the dead game, as he thinks this would bring bad luck.[272 - Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 313.] Amongst the Caffres to overshadow the king by standing in his presence was an offence worthy of instant death.[273 - D. Kidd, op. cit. p. 356.] 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 - Dudley Kidd, Savage Childhood, p. 70.] 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 - Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 15, § 122.]

The shadows of certain persons are regarded as peculiarly dangerous. The savage's dread of his mother in-law.

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 - Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp. 92, 94 (separate reprint from the Report of the British Association for 1890); compare id. in Seventh Report, etc., p. 13 (separate reprint from the Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1891).] 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 - A. W. Howitt, “The Jeraeil, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai Tribe,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiv. (1885) p. 316.] 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 - Miss Mary E. B. Howitt, Folk-lore and Legends of some Victorian Tribes (in manuscript).] 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 - A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 266.] 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 - A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 267.] 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 - A. W. Howitt, op. cit. pp. 256 sq.] 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 - A. W. Howitt, op. cit. pp. 280 sq. Compare J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, pp. 32 sq.] 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 - Partly from notes sent me by my friend the Rev. J. Roscoe, partly from Sir H. Johnston's account (The Uganda Protectorate, ii. 688). In his printed notes (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 39) Mr. Roscoe says that the mother-in-law “may be in another room out of sight and speak to him through the wall or open door.”] 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 - Father Picarda, “Autour du Mandera, Notes sur l'Ouzigoua, l'Oukwéré et l'Oudoé (Zanguebar),” Missions Catholiques, xviii. (1886) p. 286.] 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 - Father Porte, “Les Réminiscences d'un missionnaire du Basutoland,” Missions Catholiques, xxviii. (1896) p. 318.] 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 - H. H. Romily and Rev. George Brown, in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, N.S. ix. (1887) pp. 9, 17.] 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 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 43.] 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 - J. G. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, p. 132. More evidence of the mutual avoidance of mother-in-law and son-in-law among savages is collected in my Totemism and Exogamy; see the Index, s. v. “Mother-in-law.” The custom is probably based on a fear of incest between them. To the almost universal rule of savage life that a man must avoid his mother-in-law there is a most remarkable exception among the Wahehe of German East Africa. In that tribe a bridegroom must sleep with his mother-in-law before he may cohabit with her daughter. See Rev. H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 312.] 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 - O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique, p. 312; H. Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 119; Missions Catholiques, xv. (1883) p. 110; J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 67.]

A man's health and strength supposed to vary with the length of his shadow. Fear of the loss of the shadow. Fear of the resemblance of a child to its parents.

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 - Dio Chrysostom, Or. lxvii. vol. ii. p. 230, ed. L. Dindorf.] 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 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 61.] 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 - W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, pp. 284 sqq.] 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 - W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden. Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1906), ii. 110.] 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 - The Rev. J. Roscoe, in a letter to me dated Mengo, Uganda, May 26, 1904.] 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 - T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, Voyage d'exploration (Paris, 1842), p. 291; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, pp. 83, 303; id., Savage Childhood, p. 69. In the last passage Mr. Kidd tells us that “the mat was not held up in the sun, but was placed in the hut at the marked-off portion where the itongo or ancestral spirit was supposed to live; and the fate of the man was divined, not by the length of the shadow, but by its strength.”] 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 - Theocritus, i. 15 sqq.; Philostratus, Heroic. i. 3; Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 26; Lucan, iii. 423 sqq.; Drexler, s. v. “Meridianus daemon,” in Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, ii. 2832 sqq.; Bernard Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp. 94 sqq., 119 sq.; Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 342; A. de Nore, Coutumes, mythes, et traditions des provinces de France, pp. 214 sq.; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

ii. 972; C. L. Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 62 sqq.; E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, i. 331; “Lettre du curé de Santiago Tepehuacan,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), IIme Série, ii. (1834) p. 180; N. von Stenin, “Die Permier,” Globus, lxxi. (1897) p. 374; D. Louwerier, “Bijgeloovige gebruiken, die door die Javanen worden in acht genomen,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlix. (1905) p. 257.] 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 - Schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs, 293.] 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 - Pausanias, viii. 38. 6; Polybius, xvi. 12. 7; Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 39.] 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 - Th. Vernaleken, Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Österreich, p. 341; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 401; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube,

p. 207, § 314.] 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 - M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xlv. (1895) p. 459.] 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 - J. H. Weeks, “Notes on some Customs of the Lower Congo People,” Folk-lore, xix. (1908) p. 422.]

The shadows of people built into foundations to strengthen the edifices.

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 - B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen (Leipsic, 1871), pp. 196 sq.] 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 - Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, pp. 346 sq.] 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 - A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic, 1898), p. 199; W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 127.] 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 - W. Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und Brauch der Romänen Siebenbürgens (Hermannstadt, 1866), p. 27; E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 17 sq. Compare F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven, p. 161.] 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 - Mgr. Bruguière, in Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, v. (1831) pp. 164 sq.; Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam, ii. 50-52.] 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 - A. Fytche, Burma, Past and Present (London, 1878), i. 251 note.] 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 - On such practices in general, see E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,

i. 104 sqq.; F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 284-296; F. S. Krauss, “Der Bauopfer bei den Südslaven,” Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, xvii. (1887) pp. 16-24; P. Sartori, “Über das Bauopfer,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xxx. (1898) pp. 1-54; E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (London, 1906-1908), i. 461 sqq. For some special evidence, see H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 363 sqq. (as to ancient India); Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, ii. 47 (as to Pegu); Guerlach, “Chez les sauvages Bahnars,” Missions Catholiques, xvi. (1884) p. 82 (as to the Sedans of Cochin-China); W. H. Furness, Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters, p. 3 (as to the Kayans and Kenyahs of Burma); A. C. Kruijt, “Van Paloppo naar Posso,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xlii. (1898) p. 56 note (as to central Celebes); L. Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (London, 1894), i. 148 sq.; H. Ternaux-Compans, Essai sur l'ancien Cundinamarca, p. 70 (as to the Indians of Colombia). These customs are commonly called foundation-sacrifices. But the name is inappropriate, as Prof. H. Oldenberg has rightly observed, since they are not sacrifices but charms.] 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 - D. F. van Braam Morris, in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxxiv. (1891) p. 224.] 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.

Deification of a measuring tape.

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 - J. H. de Vries, “Reis door eenige eilandgroepen der Residentie Amboina,” Tijdschrift van het koninklijk Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweedie Serie, xvii. (1900) pp. 612 sq.] 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.

The soul sometimes supposed to be in the reflection. Dangers to which the reflection-soul is exposed.

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 - E. H. Mann, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, p. 94.] 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 - T. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,

i. 241. However, the late Mr. Lorimer Fison wrote to me that this reported belief in a bright soul and a dark soul “is one of Williams' absurdities. I inquired into it on the island where he was, and found that there was no such belief. He took the word for ‘shadow,’ which is a reduplication of yalo, the word for soul, as meaning the dark soul. But yaloyalo does not mean the soul at all. It is not part of a man as his soul is. This is made certain by the fact that it does not take the possessive suffix yalo-na = his soul; but nona yaloyalo = his shadow. This settles the question beyond dispute. If yaloyalo were any kind of soul, the possessive form would be yaloyalona” (letter dated August 26, 1898).] When the Motumotu of New Guinea first saw their likenesses in a looking-glass they thought that their reflections were their souls.[313 - James Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea (London, 1887), p. 170.] 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 - Father Lambert, Mœurs et superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens (Nouméa, 1900), pp. 45 sq.] 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 - M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xlv. (1895) p. 462.] 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 - B. de Sahagun, Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle-Espagne (Paris, 1880), p. 314. The Chinese hang brass mirrors over the idols in their houses, because it is thought that evil spirits entering the house and seeing themselves in the mirrors will be scared away (China Review, ii. 164).] 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 - G. Vuillier, “Chez les magiciens et les sorciers de la Corrèze,” Tour du monde, N.S. v. (1899) pp. 522, 524.] 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 - H. Callaway, Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (Natal and London, 1868), p. 342.] 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 - T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, Voyage d'exploration au nord-est de la colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance, p. 12; T. Lindsay Fairclough, “Notes on the Basuto,” Journal of the African Society, No. 14 (January 1905), p. 201.] 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 - R. H. Codrington, “Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia,” Journ. Anthrop. Inst. x. (1881) p. 313; id., The Melanesians, p. 186.]

Dread of looking at one's reflection in 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, and why the Greeks regarded it as an omen of death if a man dreamed of seeing himself so reflected.[321 - Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum, ed. F. G. A. Mullach, i. 510; Artemidorus, Onirocr. ii. 7; Laws of Manu, iv. 38 (p. 135, G. Bühler's translation, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv.).] 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!”

Reason for covering up mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death.

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 - See above, p. 37 (#x_5_i7).] 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 - A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube,

pp. 429 sq., § 726.] 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 - A. Wuttke, l. c.; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon, p. 40.] 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 - Folk-lore Journal, iii. (1885) p. 281; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, English Folk-lore, p. 109; J. Napier, Folk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, p. 60; W. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 238. Compare A. Grandidier, “Des rites funéraires chez les Malgaches,” Revue d'Ethnographie, v. (1886) p. 215.] and among the Karaits, a Jewish sect in the Crimea.[326 - S. Weissenberg, “Die Karäer der Krim,” Globus, lxxxiv. (1903) p. 143; id. “Krankheit und Tod bei den südrussischen Juden,” Globus, xci. (1907) p. 360.] 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 - Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. 169, § 906.] 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 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren, p. 151, § 1097; Folk-lore Journal, vi. (1888) pp. 145 sq.: Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. 61, § 378.] 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 - J. G. Frazer, “On certain Burial Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. (1886) pp. 82 sqq. Among the heathen Arabs, when a man had been stung by a scorpion, he was kept from sleeping for seven days, during which he had to wear a woman's bracelets and earrings (Rasmussen, Additamenta ad historiam Arabum ante Islamismum, p. 65, compare p. 69). The old Mexican custom of masking and the images of the gods so long as the king was sick (Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale, iii. 571 sq.) may perhaps have been intended to prevent the images from drawing away the king's soul.] 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 - W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 117. The objection, however, may be merely Puritanical. W. Robertson Smith informed me that the peculiarities of the Raskolniks are largely due to exaggerated Puritanism.] perhaps on account of the mirror's supposed power of drawing out the soul in the reflection and so facilitating its capture.

The soul sometimes supposed to be in the portrait. This belief among the Esquimaux and American Indians.

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 - E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part I. (Washington, 1899) p. 422.] 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 - J. Owen Dorsey, “A Study of Siouan Cults,” Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1894), p. 484; id. “Teton Folk-lore,” American Anthropologist, ii. (1889) p. 143.] 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 - Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-America, i. 417.] 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 - Ibid. ii. 166.] 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 - C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico (London, 1903), i. 459 sq.] 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 - A. Simson, “Notes on the Jivaros and Canelos Indians,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, ix. (1880) p. 392.] Similar notions are entertained by the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia.[337 - D. Forbes, in Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, ii. (1870) p. 236.] 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 - E. R. Smith, The Araucanians (London, 1855), p. 222.]

The same belief in Africa.

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 - Rev. A. Hetherwick, “Some Animistic Beliefs among the Yaos of British Central Africa,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 89 sq.] 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 - W. A. Elmslie, Among the Wild Ngoni (Edinburgh and London, 1899), pp. 70 sq.] 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 - J. Thomson, Through Masai Land (London, 1885), p. 86.] 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 - E. Clodd, in Folk-lore, vi. (1895) pp. 73 sq., referring to The Times of March 24, 1891.]

The same belief in Asia and the East Indies.

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 - L. A. Waddell, Among the Himalayas (Westminster, 1899), pp. 85 sq.] 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 - E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), p. 140.] 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 - Ch. Dallet, Histoire de l'Église de Corée (Paris, 1874), i. p. xxv. This account of Corea was written at a time when the country was still almost secluded from European influence. The events of recent years have naturally wrought great changes in the habits and ideas of the people.] 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 - “Iets over het bijgeloof in de Minahasa,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië, III. Série, iv. (1870) pp. 8 sq.] 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 - J. Freiherr von Brenner, Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras (Würzburg, 1894), p. 195.] 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 - A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, i. 314.]

The same belief in Europe.

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 - “A Far-off Greek Island,” Blackwood's Magazine, February 1886, p. 235.] It is a German superstition that if you have your portrait painted, you will die.[350 - J. A. E. Köhler, Volksbrauch, Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte Überlieferungen im Voigtlande (Leipsic, 1867), p. 423.] 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 - W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 117.] 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 - Miss M. E. Durham, High Albania (London, 1909), p. 107.] 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 - F. H. Groome, In Gipsy Tents (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 337 sq.] 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 - James Napier, Folk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, p. 142. For more examples of the same sort, see R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge (Leipsic, 1889), pp. 18 sqq.]

Chapter III. Tabooed Acts

§ 1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers

Primitive conceptions of the soul helped to mould early kingships by dictating rules to be observed by the king for his soul's salvation.

So much for the primitive conceptions of the soul and the dangers to which it is exposed. These conceptions are not limited to one people or country; with variations of detail they are found all over the world, and survive, as we have seen, in modern Europe. Beliefs so deep-seated and so widespread must necessarily have contributed to shape the mould in which the early kingship was cast. For if every person was at such pains to save his own soul from the perils which threatened it on so many sides, how much more carefully must he have been guarded upon whose life hung the welfare and even the existence of the whole people, and whom therefore it was the common interest of all to preserve? Therefore we should expect to find the king's life protected by a system of precautions or safeguards still more numerous and minute than those which in primitive society every man adopts for the safety of his own soul. Now in point of fact the life of the early kings is regulated, as we have seen and shall see more fully presently, by a very exact code of rules. May we not then conjecture that these rules are in fact the very safeguards which we should expect to find adopted for the protection of the king's life? An examination of the rules themselves confirms this conjecture. For from this it appears that some of the rules observed by the kings are identical with those observed by private persons out of regard for the safety of their souls; and even of those which seem peculiar to the king, many, if not all, are most readily explained on the hypothesis that they are nothing but safeguards or lifeguards of the king. I will now enumerate some of these royal rules or taboos, offering on each of them such comments and explanations as may serve to set the original intention of the rule in its proper light.