Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IVToy, Crawford Howell
HistoryHistory
Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV
Toy, Crawford Howell
Mythology; Religion -- History; Religions -- History; Rites and ceremonies
+39+. In the preceding section only the general fact of the existence of
the soul is considered. We find, however, a widespread belief among
savage and half-civilized peoples that every human body is inhabited by
several souls (two or more).[68] Thus, the Fijians, the Algonkins, and
the Karens recognize two souls; the Malagasy, the Dahomi, and the
Ashanti three; the Congoans three or four, the Chinese three, the
Dakotas four, the Malays (of the peninsula) seven; and this list is not
exhaustive.[69] To these various souls different procedures and
functions are assigned.
+40+. In general, as to place and function during the man's life, the
following classes of souls are distinguished: the vital soul, or the
principle of life, whose departure leaves the man insensible or dead
(Malagasy _aina_, Karen _kalah_, Eẃe 'ghost-soul'); the dream-soul,
which wanders while the man is asleep (probably a universal conception
in early stages of culture); the shadow-soul, which accompanies him by
day (also, probably, universal); the reflection-soul (similar to the
preceding); the beast-soul, or bush-soul, incarnate in a beast (among
the Congoans, the Eẃe, the Tshi, the Khonds), with which may be
compared the Egyptian view that revenant souls and Underworld shadows
may assume the form of animals, and the Hindu metempsychosis. A
particular responsible moral soul is also reported (among the
Karens),[70] but it is doubtful whether this is native; and still more
doubtful are the Karen 'reason' (_tsō_) and the Khond beatified
soul.[71]
+41+. In regard to procedure after the man's death, it is generally held
in early stages of culture that one soul stays with the body, or at the
tomb, or in the village, or becomes air, while another departs to the
land of the dead (Fijians, Algonkins, and others), or is reborn
(Khonds), and in some cases a soul is said to vanish.[72]
+42+. It is obvious that there was great flexibility and indefiniteness
in early theories of the soul. The savage mind, feeling its way among
its varied experiences, was disposed to imagine a separate interior
substance to account for anything that seemed to be a separate and
valuable manifestation of the man's personality. The number of souls
varies with the number of phenomena that it was thought necessary to
recognize as peculiar, and the lines of demarcation between different
souls are not always strictly drawn. As to the manner of the souls'
indwelling in the body, and as to their relations one to another,
savages have nothing definite to say, or, at least, have said nothing.
In general our information regarding savage psychical theories is
meager; it is not unlikely that with fuller acquaintance the details
given above would have to be modified, though the general fact of
polypsychism would doubtless remain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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