The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12). Frazer James George
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American Indian modes of recovering a lost soul from the land of the dead.
When a shaman declares that the soul of a sick Thompson Indian has been carried off by the dead, the good physician, who is the shaman himself, puts on a conical mask and sets off in pursuit. He now acts as if on a journey, jumping rivers and such like obstacles, searching, talking, and sometimes engaging in a tussle for the possession of the soul. His first step is to repair to the old trail by which the souls of heathen Thompsons went to the spirit-land; for nowadays the souls of Christian Thompsons travel by a new road. If he fails to find the tracks of the lost soul there, he searches all the graveyards, one after the other, and almost always discovers it in one of them. Sometimes he succeeds in heading off the departing soul by taking a short cut to the other world. A shaman can only stay a short time there. So as soon as he lays hands on the soul he is after, he bolts with it. The other souls give chase, but he stamps with his foot, on which he wears a rattle made of deer's hoofs. At the rattle of the hoofs the ghosts retreat and he hurries on. A bolder shaman will sometimes ask the ghosts for the soul, and if they refuse to give it, he will wrest it from them. They attack him, but he clubs them and brings away the soul by force. When he comes back to the world, he takes off his mask and shews his club all bloody. Then the people know he had a desperate struggle. If he foresees that the harrowing of hell is likely to prove a tough job, he increases the number of wooden pins in his mask. The rescued soul is placed by him on the patient's head and so returned to his body.191 Among the Twana Indians of Washington State the descent of the medicine-men into the nether world to rescue lost souls is represented in pantomime before the eyes of the spectators, who include women and children as well as men. The surface of the ground is often broken to facilitate the descent of the rescue party. When the adventurous band is supposed to have reached the bottom, they journey along, cross at least one stream, and travel till they come to the abode of the spirits. These they surprise, and after a desperate struggle, sustained with great ardour and a prodigious noise, they succeed in rescuing the poor souls, and so, wrapping them up in cloth, they make the best of their way back to the upper world and restore the recovered souls to their owners, who have been seen to cry heartily for joy at receiving them back.192
Abduction of souls by demons in Annam, Cochin-China, and China.
Often the abduction of a man's soul is set down to demons. The Annamites believe that when a man meets a demon and speaks to him, the demon inhales the man's breath and soul.193 The souls of the Bahnars of eastern Cochin-China are apt to be carried off by evil spirits, and the modes of recovering them are various. If a man suffers from a colic, the sorcerer may say that in planting sugar-cane, maize or what-not, he has pierced the stomach of a certain god who lives like a mole in the ground, and that the injured deity has punished him by abstracting his soul and burying it under a plant. Hence the cure for the colic is to pull up the plant and water the hole with millet wine and the blood of a fowl, a goat, or a pig. Again, if a child falls ill in the forest or the fields, it is because some devil has made off with its soul. To retrieve this spiritual loss the sorcerer constructs an apparatus which comprises an egg-shell in an egg-holder, a little waxen image of the sick child, and a small bamboo full of millet wine. This apparatus he sets up at a cross-road, praying the devil to drink the wine and surrender the stolen soul by depositing it in the egg-shell. Then he returns to the house, and putting a little cotton to the child's head restores the soul to its owner. Sometimes the sorcerer lays a trap for the thievish demon, the bait consisting of the liver of a pig or a fowl and the blood-smeared handle of a little mattock. At nightfall he sets the trap at a cross-road and lies in wait hard by. While the devil is licking the blood and munching the liver, the artful sorcerer pounces out on him, and after a severe struggle wrests the soul from his clutches, returning to the village victorious, but breathless and bleeding from his terrific encounter with the enemy of souls.194 Fits and convulsions are generally set down 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 bestriding galloping horses” and “literary graduates residing halfway 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 bangs away at a 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.195 Similarly we saw that some Indians catch a man's lost soul in his boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into them.196
Abduction of souls by demons in the East Indies.
If Galelareese mariners are sailing past certain rocks or come to a river where they never were before, they must wash their faces, for otherwise the spirits of the rocks or the river would snatch away their souls.197 When a Dyak is about to leave a forest through which he has been walking alone, he never forgets to ask the demons to give him back his soul, for it may be that some forest-devil has carried it off. For the abduction of a soul may take place without its owner being aware of his loss, and it may happen either while he is awake or asleep.198 The Papuans of Geelvink Bay in New Guinea are apt to think that the mists which sometimes hang about the tops of tall trees in their tropical forests envelop a spirit or god called Narbrooi, who draws away the breath or soul of those whom he loves, thus causing them to languish and die. Accordingly, when a man lies sick, a friend or relation will go to one of these mist-capped trees and endeavour to recover the lost soul. At the foot of the tree he makes a peculiar sound to attract the attention of the spirit, and lights a cigar. In its curling smoke his fancy discerns the fair and youthful form of Narbrooi himself, who, decked with flowers, appears and informs the anxious enquirer whether the soul of his sick friend is with him or not. If it is, the man asks, “Has he done any wrong?” “Oh no!” the spirit answers, “I love him, and therefore I have taken him to myself.” So the man lays down an offering at the foot of the tree, and goes home with the soul of the sufferer in a straw bag. Arrived at the house, he empties the bag with its precious contents over the sick man's head, rubs his arms and hands with ginger-root, which he had first chewed small, and then ties a bandage round one of the patient's wrists. If the bandage bursts, it is a sign that Narbrooi has repented of his bargain, and is drawing away the sufferer once more to himself.199
Abduction of souls by demons in the Moluccas.
In the Moluccas 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 pray, saying: “We come to offer to 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 are 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.”200 A more modern account from the same region describes how the friend of the patient, after depositing his offerings on the spot where the missing soul is supposed to be, calls out thrice the name of the sick person, adding, “Come with me, come with me.” Then he returns, making a motion with a cloth as if he had caught
J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,”
Rev. Myron Eels, “The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of Washington Territory,”
A. Landes, “Contes et légendes annamites,” No. 76 in
Guerlach, “Chez les sauvages Ba-hnars,”
J. J. M. de Groot,
See above, p. 45.
M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,”
M. T. H. Perelaer,
“Eenige bijzonderheden betreffende de Papoeas van de Geelvinksbaai van Nieuw-Guinea,”
Fr. Valentyn,