INTRODUCTION. 



who lias the appearance of a native^ and like them is painted 

 with pipe-clay and carries a fire-stick. He comes sometimes 

 when they are asleep and carries a man off as an eagle does its 

 prey. The shout of the victim's companions makes the demon 

 let him drop, or else he carries him off to his fire in the bush. 

 The unfortunate black tries to cry out, but feels himself all but 

 choked and cannot. At daylight Koin disappears, and the 

 native finds himself brought safely back to his own fireside.^ 

 Even in Europe, such expressions as being ridden by a hag or 

 by the devil, preserve the recollection of a similar train of 

 thought. In the evil demons who trouble people in their sleep, 

 the Incubi and Succubi, the behef in this material and personal 

 character of the figures seen in dreams comes strongly out, 

 perhaps nowhere more strikingly than among the natives of the 

 Tonga Islands.^ " Whoso seeth me in his sleep," said Mo- 

 hammed, " seeth me truly, for Satan cannot assume the simiU- 

 tude of my form." 



Mr. St. John says that the Dayaks regard dreams as actual 

 occurrences. They think that in sleep the soul sometimes re- 

 mains in the body, and sometimes leaves it and travels far 

 away, and that both when in and out of the body it sees and 

 hears and talks, and altogether has a prescience given to it, 

 which, when the body is in its natural state, it does not enjoy. 

 Fainting fits, or a state of coma, are thought to be caused by 

 the departure or absence of the soul on some distant expedition 

 of its own. Wlien a European dreams of his distant country, 

 the Dayaks think his soul has annihilated space, and paid a 

 flying visit to Europe during the night.^ Very many tribes be- 

 lieve in this way that dreams are incidents which happen to 

 the spirit in its wanderings from the body, and the idea has 

 even expressed itself in a superstitious objection to waking a 

 sleeper, for fear of disturbing his body while his soul is out.* 

 Father Charlevoix found both the theories in question current 



1 BaoMiouse, 'Visit to the Australian Colonies ; ' London, 1843, p. 555. 



2 Mariner, 'Tonga Islands ; ' 2nd ed., London, 1818, vol. ii. p. 112. 



3 St. John, ' Forests of the Far East ;' London, 1862, vol. i. p. 189. 



* Bastian, ' Der Meusoh in dor Geschichte ;' Leipzig, 1860, vol. ii. p. 318, 

 etc. etc. 



