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Grand Mandarin. But the king's brother Tring put down the usurper and restored the king, retaining, however, for himself and his descendants the dignity of general of all the forces. Thence

forward the kings or dovas, though vested with the title and pomp of sovereignty, ceased to govern. While they lived secluded in their palaces, all real political power was wielded by the hereditary generals or chovas. The custom regularly observed by the Tahitian kings of abdicating on the birth of a son, who was immediately proclaimed sovereign and received his father's homage, may perhaps have originated, like the similar custom occasionally practised by the Mikados, in a wish to shift to other shoulders the irksome burden of royalty; for in Tahiti as elsewhere the sovereign was subjected to a system of vexatious restrictions." In Mangaia, another 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. To the latter were assigned the best lands, and he received daily offerings of the choicest food. American examples of the partition of authority between an emperor and a pope have already been cited from the early history of Mexico and Colombia.*

1 Richard, "History of Tonquin," in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ix. 744 $99.

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 99 $99. ed. 1836.

Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 293 $99. 4 Pp. 44, 113.

2.-The nature of the soul

But if the object of the taboos observed by a divine king or priest is to preserve his life, the question arises, How is their observance supposed to effect 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 the taboos 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 inside who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the is soul. And as the activity of an animal or man 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 secure that it shall return. The precautions adopted by savages to secure one or other of these ends take the form of 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 life

123

122

THE SOUL

CHAP.

* II

guards. 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 which is not visible. 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 two, 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 Eskimos believe that "the soul exhibits the same shape as the body it belongs to, but is of a more subtle and ethereal nature." So exact is the resemblance of the mannikin 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 (an island to the west of Sumatra) think that every man, before he is born, is asked how long or how heavy a soul he would like, and a soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to him.

1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vii. 282.

Relations des Jesuites, 1634, p. 17; id., 1636, p. 104; id., 1639, p. 43 (Canadian reprint).

H. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 36.

4 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 171.

:

THE SOUL

The heaviest soul ever given out weighs about ten grammes. The length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of his soul; children who die young had short souls. Sometimes, however, as we shall see, the human soul is conceived not in human but in animal form.

The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the body, especially the mouth and nostrils. Hence in Celebes they sometimes fasten fishhooks 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. One of the "properties" of a Haida medicine-man is a hollow bone, in which he bottles up departing souls, and so restores them to their owners." 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. When any one yawns in their presence the Hindus always snap their thumbs, believing that this will hinder the soul from issuing through the open mouth. The Itonamas in South America seal up the eyes, nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost should get out and carry off other people. In Southern Celebes, to prevent the escape of a woman's soul at childbirth, the nurse ties a band as tightly as possible round the body of the expectant mother.' And lest the soul of the babe should

1 H. Sundermann, "Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst," in Allgemeine Missions - Zeitschrift, bd. xi. October 1884, p. 453.

B. F. Matthes, Over de Bissoes of heidensche priesters en priesteressen der Boeginezen, p. 24.

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G. M. Dawson, "On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Is. lands," in Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1878-1879, pp. 123 B, 139 B.

Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 397 sq.

665.

Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. No.

• D'Orbigny, L'Homme Américain, ii. 241; Transact. Ethnol. Soc. of London, iii. 322 sq.; Bastian, Culturländer des alten Amerika, i. 476.

7 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes, p.

54.

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