The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and ReligionFrazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
could not return to the body and the man died. While his friends
were preparing to burn the body some one uncovered the pitcher to
get water. The lizard thus escaped and returned to the body, which
immediately revived; so the man rose up and asked his friends why
they were weeping. They told him they thought he was dead and were
about to burn his body. He said he had been down a well to get
water, but had found it hard to get out and had just returned. So
they saw it all.
It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper,
because his soul is away and might not have time to get back; so if
the man wakened without his soul, he would fall sick. If it is
absolutely necessary to rouse a sleeper, it must be done very
gradually, to allow the soul time to return. A Fijian in Matuku,
suddenly wakened from a nap by somebody treading on his foot, has
been heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to return. He had
just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga, and great was his
alarm on suddenly wakening to find his body in Matuku. Death stared
him in the face unless his soul could be induced to speed at once
across the sea and reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would
probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to
allay his terror.
Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive man to move a
sleeper or alter his appearance, for if this were done the soul on
its return might not be able to find or recognise its body, and so
the person would die. The Minangkabauers 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 recognise 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 colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For when
the soul returns it will not know its own body, and the person will
die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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