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ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



istic of the Fijians,* the Malayans,t the Burmese,; the natives 

 of Luzon§ in the Philippine Islands, of the Indians of Manilla,|l 

 and of the Timorese. IT 



But in sleep there are other dangers which superstitious fancy 

 discovers besides that of a sudden awakening. The following 

 instructive passage relates to the supposed evil consequences of 

 practical joking upon sleepers, according to a belief current on 

 the Bombay Presidency. " It is a most reprehensible thing 

 and equivalent to murder to play practical jokes on sleeping 

 persons, so as to change th»3ir appearance, i.e., to paint the face 

 in fantastic colours or to give moustachios to a sleeping woman. 

 The reason is this : Whenever anyone sleeps, the soul leaves 

 the body and roams abroad, and returns at the awakening : if 

 therefore the soul can't find its own proper body on its return, 

 it remains away altogether, leaving the body a corpse."** 



It may be noticed that in some countries, as in Burmatt oi' 

 Persia,JJ the soul is imagined to issue from the body in the form 

 of a butterliy. 



Of the belief that the soul or spirit during its absence from 

 the body in sleep, and especially in dreams, is subject to many 

 curious actual experiences it is possible to draw evidence from 

 several quarters. 



Thus the Greenlanders§§ hold that the soul amuses itself at 

 night in hunting, dancing and paying visits. The New 

 Zea]anders,|I|| or some at least of the aboriginal inhabitants of 



T. Wilhams, Fiji and the FijiariS, cl). 6, p. 138. 

 t Tylor, Anthropology, ch. 14, p. 344. 



X Shway Yeo, The Burman, his Life and Xotions, vol. ii, ch. 11, p. 103. 

 He remarks that in consequence of this superstition " it is useless to tell 

 a Burman servant to wake you at a certain hour." 



§ Jagor on the " Natives of Naga in Luzon," Journal of the Ethnological 

 Society, vol. ii, p. 175. 



II Bastian, £>er Mensch, vol. ii, p. 319. 



ir Riedel, " Die Landschaft Dawan oder West-Timor," Deutsche Geo- 

 graphuche Blatter, vol. x, p. 280. 



Punjab Notes and Queries, vol. iii, No. 530. 

 ft Shway Yeo, The Burman, His Life and Notions, vol. ii, ch. 11, p. 103. 

 \\ Balston, Songs of the Jlussian People, p. 117 



Cranz, (Jronland, j). 257 ; cj. Bastian, Der Mensch, vol. ii, ]\ 318. 

 nil 11. Taylor, Te Jka a Maui; or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, ch. 

 5, p. 74 ; ch. 12, p. IGO. 



