204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



had a similar experience. Aristophanes * tells ns that Pisander 

 betook himself to a certain lake to see his own soul, which had 

 deserted him, evoked by Socrates. 



The belief of savages in the possibility of the sonl leaving the 

 body during life has been widely traced. In western Africa, when 

 a man wakes up with a pain in his body or muscles, it is because 

 his spirit has wandered abroad in the night and been flogged by 

 some other spirit, f The Feejeeans believe that the spirit of a man 

 will leave the body to trouble other people when asleep, and, when 

 any one faints or dies, his spirit can be brought back by call- 

 ing after it. J Du Bose * tells us that in China often at night is 

 heard the weird sound of a man calling back the body of a sick 

 child. In the streets a cloth will be spread on the ground, with 

 some beans thrown on it. An old woman stands by it, and calls 

 the child by name : " Ah, do come back ! " A voice up-stairs re- 

 sponds, " Ah ! " Or the mother goes in front with a lighted lan- 

 tern in hand, burning paper money at every corner. The father 

 follows with the sick boy's clothing in his hat, crying, " My son, 

 come back, come back ! " An insect on the roof is caught, folded 

 nicely in paper, and put beside the sick boy's pillow, and thus the 

 lost soul is found. Sickness comes from losing his soul, and re- 

 covery follows its return home. Le Clerc recounts a story, cur- 

 rent among the Algonquins, of an old Indian chief, whose favorite 

 son having died, journeyed to the land of souls for his recovery. 

 When once there, he begged so hard for his son's soul that the 

 Indian Pluto finally gave it to him in the form and size of a nut, 

 which, by pressing between his hands, he forced into a small 

 leathern bag. Instructed to place the soul in the body of his son, 

 who thereupon would come to life, the happy father hastened 

 back, where he was greeted with dancing and rejoicing. Wish- 

 ing to take part in these festivities, he handed the boy's soul for 

 safe-keeping into the hands of a squaw. Tempted by a curiosity 

 which has proved so fatal in all religious cults, the woman opened 

 the bag to peep into it, when the soul escaped and returned to 

 the land of the dead.|| Turner "^ tells us that the soul of the chief 

 Puepuemai was wrapped up and carried around in a leaf. The 

 Ojibways describe how one of their chiefs died, but, while they 

 were watching the body on the third night, his shadow came back 

 into it, and he sat up and told them how he had traveled to the 

 river of Death, but had been stopped there and sent back to his 

 people.^ The Malays do not like to wake a sleeper, lest they 

 should hurt him by disturbing his body when his soul is out. 



* "The Bird?'," p. 1553. || Parkman, "Jesuits of North America," p. Ixxxiii. 

 \ Wilson, "Western Africa," chap. xii. ^ "Samoa," p. 142. 



X Williams, " Fiji and Fijians," vol. i, p. 242. ^ Tylor, " Anthropology," p. 344. 



* " Dragon, Image, and Demon," p. 443. 



