THE INDWELLING SPIRITS OF MEN. 799 



languages all belong to one family, and that the tribes now speak- 

 ing them are descended from one common stock. The question 

 then arises, Is this an isolated belief which will account for the 

 origin of Nature-worship in certain districts of West Africa, and 

 must be limited to them ; or is it a wide-spread belief which will 

 account for the origin of that form of worship generally ? Fur- 

 ther researches can alone determine this satisfactorily, but there 

 are certain indications which tend to show that the belief is wide- 

 spread. It must be remembered that it is unusual for students of 

 anthropology to come into direct contact with people in that con- 

 dition which we term savagery, and ordinary travelers possessing, 

 like all Europeans, the belief in one soul only, and perhaps never 

 having conceived the possibility of a man supposing himself to 

 possess a third element, would be very unlikely to make any in- 

 quiries in this direction. Even if a communicative native stated 

 to him his theory of an indwelling spirit, or third element, the 

 traveler would perhaps doubt if he really understood him ; but 

 people low in the stage of civilization are not communicative on 

 such points. Consequently, we can not expect to find many indi- 

 cations, but there are some. 



Cross tells us * that the Karens, who inhabit parts of Burmah, 

 Tenasserim, and Siam, believe in two elements in addition to the 

 corporeal man, viz., the thah, which seems to answer to the soul, 

 and the la or kelah, which is described as a " life-phantom " ; and 

 Williams,f that the Fijians say that a man's " shadow " or " dark- 

 spirit" goes to Dead-land, and that his "light- spirit" stays near 

 where he dies. These appear to be beliefs somewhat analogous to 

 that in the Tcra, but these different elements have not yet been 

 defined. The genius natalis of the Romans, too, presents many 

 points of resemblance to the kra. Like it, it entered the man at 

 birth, and attended him till death. It was regarded as a second 

 spiritual self, and the anniversary of the birthday of the man 

 was held as a day sacred to it, libations being offered to the image 

 by which it was represented among the household gods. At a 

 later period of the Roman dominion this belief was modified, and, 

 as among the Ga-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, a belief in 

 two indwelling spirits, one good and one bad, was formed. It 

 was the latter which appeared to Brutus in the camp at Sardis. 

 " What art thou ? " said Brutus ; " art thou god or man ? " The 

 apparition answered : " I am thy evil genius, Brutus. Thou wilt 

 see me at Philippi." \ 



It is, however, in America that we find the greater number of 

 indications. Foremost stands Dr. Washington Matthews's above- 

 mentioned account, in which the belief of the Navajo in the third 



* "Journal of the American Oriental Society," vol. iv, p. 310. 



f "Fiji," vol. i, p. 241. % " Plutarch's Lives" (Marcus Brutus), p. 684. 



