BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 211 



with that of plants, called the vegetable soul; then with the 

 sensitive, which all brute animals have ; and, lastly, the rational 

 soul is infused ; and these three in man, he adds, are like Trigonus 

 in Tetragono. 



The Iroquois and Algonquins believed that the soul which 

 gave bodily life was of a vegetative character, and remained with 

 the corpse after death until it was released by being reborn into 

 another body ; while the ethereal soul, which roamed at will while 

 the body was asleep or in a trance, after death departed directly to 

 the land of spirits.* Infants were buried by the sides of paths, that 

 their vegetative souls might enter into the body of some mother, 

 and their rebirth thus be hastened, f Among the TucuUus the 

 medicine-man placed his hands over the breast of the dying, and 

 then, holding them over the head of a relative, blew through the 

 expanded fingers, in order that the next child born to him might 

 be the representative of the departed. J Certain tribes on the Pa- 

 cific coast believed that one of the souls had its dwelling in the 

 bones, and, if these were planted, they would germinate like seed, 

 and produce human beings.* The Choctaws believe that every 

 man has an outside shadow, sMlombish, and an inside shadow, 

 shilup, both of which survived his body.|j The Sioux believed in 

 three souls, one of which went to the cold world, another to the 

 warm world, while the third remained and watched over the 

 body.^ Mrs. Eastman ^ tells us that the Dakotas extended the 

 number of souls to four, one of which wanders through the world, 

 another hovers around the village where its possessor lived, the 

 third stays by the grave, and the fourth goes to heaven. With 

 certain Greenlanders one soul took the form of a shadow, the 

 other that of the breath. | The Feejeeans distinguished between 

 a man's dark spirit or shadow, which goes down to hades, and 

 his light spirit, the one that is reflected in water or a mirror, and 

 which remains when he dies. X The Malagasy say that the sain a, 

 or mind, vanishes at death ; the aina, or life, becomes mere air ; 

 while the matoatoa, or ghost, hovers around the tomb. % 



* " ReL des Jesuits," 163G, p. i04. 

 f Ibid., 1635, p. 130, 



X Waitz, " Anthropology," vol. iii, p. 95. 



* Bancroft, "Native Races of the Pacific Coast," voL iii, p. 514. 

 I Brinton, " Myths of the New World," p. 251. 



^ " Hist. Coll. Louisiana," vol. iii, p, 26. 

 ^ " Legends of the Sioux," p. 129. 



J Tylor, "Primitive Culture," voL i, p. 4S2; Spencer, "Principles of Sociology," voL 

 i, p. 191. 



% Williams, "Fiji and the Fijians," vol. i, p. 241. 

 I Ellis, " Madagascar," vol i, 393. 



