Introduction to the History of Religions Part 33

[47] _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, iv (the Karens).

[48] Cranz, _Greenland_ (Eng. tr.) i, 184.

[49] Examples in Frazer, _Golden Bough_, chap. ii.

[50] -- 25.

[51] For folk-tales of the hidden 'external' soul see Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 2d ed., iii, 389 ff.

[52] The coyote (in _Navaho Legends_, by W. Matthews, p. 91) kept his vital soul in the tip of his nose and in the end of his tail.

[53] _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xviii, 310.

[54] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 124. Andrew Lang (in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_) holds that this Australian view comes not from ignorance but from the desire to a.s.sign a worthy origin to man in distinction from the lower animals.

Some tribes in North Queensland think that the latter have not souls, and are born by s.e.xual union, but the human soul, they say, can come only from a spiritual being. Decision on this question must await further information.

[55] Spencer and Gillen, loc. cit.

[56] _Journal of American Folklore_, xvii, 4.

[57] Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 530 (the child is the returned soul of an ancestor).

[58] Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 154 (a spirit child enters a woman); cf. _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, viii, 297 (the Nusairi), and Lyde, in Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 115; Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, i, 50, and chap. 3 pa.s.sim.

[59] A. B. Ellis, _The E?e-speaking Peoples_, p. 15; _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 18.

[60] For the belief that the soul of the child comes from the shades see _Journal of American Folklore_, xiv, 83.

Further, Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, chap. xii; Lang, in article cited above; Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 96.

[61] Possibly a survival of the theory is to be recognized in the custom, prevalent among some peoples, of naming a male child after his grandfather; examples are given in Gray, _Hebrew Proper Names_, p. 2 f. All such theories appear to rest on a dim conception of the vital solidarity of the tribe or clan--the vital force is held to be transmissible; cf. the idea of _mana_, a force inherent in things.

[62] Gen. ii, 7; cf. Ezek. x.x.xvii, 10.

[63] _Timaeus_, 34 f.

[64] _De Sen._ 21, 77; _Tusc. Disp._ v, 13, 38.

[65] The term 'sacred' in early thought has no ethical significance; it involves only the idea that an object is imbued with some superhuman quality, and is therefore dangerous and not to be touched.

[66] On modes of burial, see article "Funerailles" in _La Grande Encyclopedie_. Other considerations, however (hygienic, for example), may have had influence on the treatment of corpses.

[67] In the Talmud the books of the Sacred Scriptures are said to "defile the hands," that is, they are taboo (_Yadaim_, Mishna, 3, 5).

[68] The lower animals also are sometimes credited with more than one soul: so the bear among the Sioux (Charlevoix, _Nouvelle France_, vi, 28; Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, iii, 229).

[69] Williams, _Fiji_, i, 241; Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 434, cf. Brinton, _Lenape_, p. 69; Cross, in _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, iv, 310 (Karens); W. Ellis, _Madagascar_, i, 393; A. B. Ellis, _The E?e-speaking Peoples_, p. 114, and _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 149 ff.; Kingsley, _West African Studies_, p. 200 ff.; Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 50.

[70] _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, iv, 310.

[71] Cf. Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 530.

[72] See below, -- 46 ff.

[73] See Maspero (1897), _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 108 f.; W. M. Muller in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, article "Egypt"; Petrie, _Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt_, pp. 30 ff., 48 ff.; Breasted, _History of Egypt_, p. 63 f.; Erman, _Handbook of Egyptian Religion_, pp. 86 f., 108; Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 234 ff.

[74] R. H. Charles in his _Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian_, p. 153, holds that the Hebrews made a distinction between soul and spirit (the former being "living" only when the latter is present), and that the recognition of this distinction is necessary for the understanding of the Old Testament conception of immortality. His discussion is valuable if not convincing.

[75] 1 Kings xxii, 21 f.

[76] For the New Testament usage see 1 Cor. vi, 17; 2 Cor.

iv, 21; xii, 18; Luke ix, 53 (in some MSS.); Rev. xix, 10; John vi, 63. Cf. Grimm, _Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament_, ed. J. H. Thayer, s. vv. _pneuma_ and _psyche_.

[77] Cf. Rohde, _Psyche_, 3d ed., i, 45 n.; ii, 141, n. 2.

[78] In philosophical thought the two are sometimes distinguished: the _anima_ is the principle of life, and the _animus_ of thinking mind (Lucretius, iii, 94-141).

[79] A curious resemblance to the cult of the 'genius' is found in the E?e (Dahomi) custom of consecrating a man's birthday to his "indwelling spirit" (A. B. Ellis, _The E?e-speaking Peoples_, 105). Compare Horace's designation of the genius as 'naturae deus humanae' (_Ep._ ii, 2, 188), and Servius on Verg., _Georg._ i, 302.

[80] So in Plato and Aristotle, and in Brahmanism.

[81] The evidence for this belief is found in hundreds of books that record observations of savage ideas, and it is unnecessary to cite particular examples.

[82] Ellis, _The E?e-speaking Peoples_, p. 108. Cf.

Hinde, _The Last of the Masai_, p. 99.

[83] D. Macdonald, _Africana_, i, 58 f.

[84] _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x, 283; cf.

Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 277.

[85] Rink, _Tales of the Eskimo_, p. 36.

[86] See above, -- 41.

[87] Thomas Williams, _Fiji_, i, 244. Cf. W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i, 303.

[88] Gill, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p. 160.

[89] _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xix, 118 f.

[90] Jarves, _History of the Sandwich Islands_, p. 42. Cf.

Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, 2d ed., ii, 22 f., and Codrington, _The Melanesians_ p. 256 ff.

[91] Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 530 f.

[92] Kingsley, _Travels_, p. 444.

[93] _Polynesian Researches_, p. 218.