266 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



separable from it." ^"'^ All these varied experiences have 

 developed the concept of a soul which lives after the 

 death of the body, of a thin, unsubstantial human image, 

 in its nature a sort of vapor, a film, a shadow, the cause 

 of life and thought in the individual it animates, capable 

 of leaving the body far behind to flash swiftly from place 

 to place, invisible yet manifesting physical powers. The 

 Indian believes that during sleep the human spirit wan- 

 ders about and actually lives through the dream experi- 

 ences which are remembered upon awakening. Hence 

 some Indian s never wake a sleeping man suddenly, be- 

 cause his soul might be wandering far distant and might 

 not get back to the body in time. With the healthy wak- 

 ing life, the savage associates the phenomena of breath, 

 shadow, and echo. Walking in the sunlight, he always 

 saw a shadow that moved as he moved or was motionless 

 when he stood still, but which never completely detached 

 itself from him. To his mind this could be none other 

 than a conscious self, belonging to the bodily self and 

 usually merged in it, but capable of going away to live 

 independently. Looking in the pool, the savage saw the 

 shadow self more distinctly, and it behaved as before. 

 In the mountains his voice reechoed. Thus he came to 

 believe that his double self could be far away and invisi- 

 ble, and yet speak, preserving all the identity of his 

 proper tone.^- Consequently we find that among primi- 

 tive peoples the spirit and the shadow are synonymous 

 terms. The Algonkins describe a man's soul as his 

 shadow {otahchuk). "The Zulus not only use the word 

 tunzi for shadow, spirit, ghost ; but they consider that at 

 death the shadow of a man will in some way depart from 



51 Giddings, op. cit., pp. 246-247. 

 ?2/&id., p. 248, 



