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Chapter XI. The External Soul in Folk-Custom

§ 1. The External Soul in Inanimate Things

The external soul in folk-custom.

Thus the idea that the soul may be deposited for a longer or shorter time in some place of security outside the body, or at all events in the hair, is found in the popular tales of many races. It remains to shew that the idea is not a mere figment devised to adorn a tale, but is a real article of primitive faith, which has given rise to a corresponding set of customs.

The soul removed from the body as a precaution in seasons of danger. Souls of people collected in a bag at a house-warming. Soul of a woman put in a chopping-knife at childbirth.

We have seen that in the tales the hero, as a preparation for battle, sometimes removes his soul from his body, in order that his body may be invulnerable and immortal in the combat. With a like intention the savage removes his soul from his body on various occasions of real or imaginary peril. Thus among the people of Minahassa in Celebes, when a family moves into a new house, a priest collects the souls of the whole family in a bag, and afterwards restores them to their owners, because the moment of entering a new house is supposed to be fraught with supernatural danger.⁴¹¹ In Southern Celebes, when a woman is brought to bed, the messenger who fetches the doctor or the midwife always carries with him something made of iron, such as a chopping-knife, which he delivers to the doctor. The doctor must keep the thing in his house till the confinement is over, when he gives it back, receiving a fixed sum of money for doing so. The chopping-knife, or whatever it is, represents the woman's soul, which at this critical time is believed to be safer out of her body than in it. Hence the doctor must take great care of the object; for were it lost, the woman's soul would assuredly, they think, be lost with it.⁴¹² But in Celebes the convenience of occasionally depositing the soul in some external object is apparently not limited to human beings. The Alfoors, or Toradjas, who inhabit the central district of that island, and among whose industries the working of iron occupies a foremost place, attribute to the metal a soul which would be apt to desert its body under the blows of the hammer, if some means were not found to detain it. Accordingly in every smithy of Poso – for that is the name of the country of these people – you may see hanging up a bundle of wooden instruments, such as chopping-knives, swords, spear-heads, and so forth. This bundle goes by the name of lamoa, which is the general word for “gods,” and in it the soul of the iron that is being wrought in the smithy is, according to one account, supposed to reside. “If we did not hang the lamoa over the anvil,” they say, “the iron would flow away and be unworkable,” on account of the absence of the soul.⁴¹³ However, according to another interpretation these wooden models are substitutes offered to the gods in room of the iron, whose soul the covetous deities might otherwise abstract for their own use, thus making the metal unmalleable.⁴¹⁴

Soul of a child put for safety in an empty coco-nut or a bag. Souls of people in ornaments, horns, a column, and so forth. The souls of Egyptian kings in portrait statues. A man's life bound up with the fire in his lodge.

Among the Dyaks of Pinoeh, a district of South-Eastern Borneo, when a child is born, a medicine-man is sent for, who conjures the soul of the infant into half a coco-nut, which he thereupon covers with a cloth and places on a square platter or charger suspended by cords from the roof. This ceremony he repeats at every new moon for a year.⁴¹⁵ The intention of the ceremony is not explained by the writer who describes it, but we may conjecture that it is to place the soul of the child in a safer place than its own frail little body. This conjecture is confirmed by the reason assigned for a similar custom observed elsewhere in the Indian Archipelago. In the Kei Islands, when there is a newly-born child in a house, an empty coco-nut, split and spliced together again, may sometimes be seen hanging beside a rough wooden image of an ancestor. The soul of the infant is believed to be temporarily deposited in the coco-nut in order that it may be safe from the attacks of evil spirits; but when the child grows bigger and stronger, the soul will take up its permanent abode in its own body. Similarly among the Esquimaux of Alaska, when a child is sick, the medicine-man will sometimes extract its soul from its body and place it for safe-keeping in an amulet, which for further security he deposits in his own medicine-bag. ⁴¹⁶ It seems probable that many amulets have been similarly regarded as soul-boxes, that is, as safes in which the souls of the owners are kept for greater security.⁴¹⁷ An old Mang'anje woman in the West Shire district of British Central Africa used to wear round her neck an ivory ornament, hollow, and about three inches long, which she called her life or soul (moyo wanga). Naturally, she would not part with it; a planter tried to buy it of her, but in vain.⁴¹⁸ When Mr. James Macdonald was one day sitting in the house of a Hlubi chief, awaiting the appearance of that great man, who was busy decorating his person, a native pointed to a pair of magnificent ox-horns, and said, “Ntame has his soul in these horns.” The horns were those of an animal which had been sacrificed, and they were held sacred. A magician had fastened them to the roof to protect the house and its inmates from the thunder-bolt. “The idea,” adds Mr. Macdonald, “is in no way foreign to South African thought. A man's soul there may dwell in the roof of his house, in a tree, by a spring of water, or on some mountain scaur.”⁴¹⁹ Among the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain there is a secret society which goes by the name of Ingniet or Ingiet. On his entrance into it every man receives a stone in the shape either of a human being or of an animal, and henceforth his soul is believed to be knit up in a manner with the stone. If it breaks, it is an evil omen for him; they say that the thunder has struck the stone and that he who owns it will soon die. If nevertheless the man survives the breaking of his soul-stone, they say that it was not a proper soul-stone and he gets a new one instead.⁴²⁰ The emperor Romanus Lecapenus was once informed by an astronomer that the life of Simeon, prince of Bulgaria, was bound up with a certain column in Constantinople, so that if the capital of the column were removed, Simeon would immediately die. The emperor took the hint and removed the capital, and at the same hour, as the emperor learned by enquiry, Simeon died of heart disease in Bulgaria.⁴²¹ The deified kings of ancient Egypt appear to have enjoyed the privilege of depositing their spiritual doubles or souls (ka) during their lifetime in a number of portrait statues, properly fourteen for each king, which stood in the chamber of adoration (pa douaït) of the temple and were revered as the equivalents or representatives of the monarchs themselves.⁴²² Among the Karens of Burma “the knife with which the navel string is cut is carefully preserved for the child. The life of the child is supposed to be in some way connected with it, for, if lost or destroyed, it is said the child will not be long lived.”⁴²³ Among the Shawnee Indians of North America it once happened that an eminent man was favoured with a special revelation by the Great Spirit. Wisely refusing to hide the sacred light of revelation under a bushel, he generously communicated a few sparks of the illumination to John Tanner, a white man who lived for many years as an Indian among the Indians. “Henceforth,” said the inspired sage, “the fire must never be suffered to go out in your lodge. Summer and winter, day and night, in the storm, or when it is calm, you must remember that the life in your body, and the fire in your lodge, are the same, and of the same date. If you suffer your fire to be extinguished, at that moment your life will be at its end.”⁴²⁴

Strength of people supposed to reside in their hair.

Again, we have seen that in folk-tales a man's soul or strength is sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboyna used to think that their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were shorn. A criminal under torture in a Dutch Court of that island persisted in denying his guilt till his hair was cut off, when he immediately confessed. One man, who was tried for murder, endured without flinching the utmost ingenuity of his torturers till he saw the surgeon standing with a pair of shears. On asking what this was for, and being told that it was to cut his hair, he begged they would not do it, and made a clean breast. In subsequent cases, when torture failed to wring a confession from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities made a practice of cutting off his hair.⁴²⁵ In Ceram it is still believed that if young people have their hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby.⁴²⁶

Witches and wizards shaved to deprive them of their power.

Here in Europe it used to be thought that the maleficent powers of witches and wizards resided in their hair, and that nothing could make any impression on these miscreants so long as they kept their hair on. Hence in France it was customary to shave the whole bodies of persons charged with sorcery before handing them over to the torturer. Millaeus witnessed the torture of some persons at Toulouse, from whom no confession could be wrung until they were stripped and completely shaven, when they readily acknowledged the truth of the charge. A woman also, who apparently led a pious life, was put to the torture on suspicion of witchcraft, and bore her agonies with incredible constancy, until complete depilation drove her to admit her guilt. The noted inquisitor Sprenger contented himself with shaving the head of the suspected witch or wizard; but his more thorough-going colleague Cumanus shaved the whole bodies of forty-one women before committing them all to the flames. He had high authority for this rigorous scrutiny, since Satan himself, in a sermon preached from the pulpit of North Berwick church, comforted his many servants by assuring them that no harm could befall them “sa lang as their hair wes on, and sould newir latt ane teir fall fra thair ene.”⁴²⁷ Similarly in Bastar, a province of India, “if a man is adjudged guilty of witchcraft, he is beaten by the crowd, his hair is shaved, the hair being supposed to constitute his power of mischief, his front teeth are knocked out, in order, it is said, to prevent him from muttering incantations… Women suspected of sorcery have to undergo the same ordeal; if found guilty, the same punishment is awarded, and after being shaved, their hair is attached to a tree in some public place.”⁴²⁸ So among the Bhils of India, when a woman was convicted of witchcraft and had been subjected to various forms of persuasion, such as hanging head downwards from a tree and having pepper put into her eyes, a lock of hair was cut from her head and buried in the ground, “that the last link between her and her former powers of mischief might be broken.”⁴²⁹ In like manner among the Aztecs of Mexico, when wizards and witches “had done their evil deeds, and the time came to put an end to their detestable life, some one laid hold of them and cropped the hair on the crown of their heads, which took from them all their power of sorcery and enchantment, and then it was that by death they put an end to their odious existence.”⁴³⁰

§ 2. The External Soul in Plants

Life of a person supposed to be bound up with that of a tree or plant. Birth-trees in Africa.

Further it has been shewn that in folk-tales the life of a person is sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person.⁴³¹ Similarly among the natives of the Pennefather River in Queensland, when a visiter has made himself very agreeable and taken his departure, an effigy of him about three or four feet long is cut on some soft tree, such as the Canarium australasicum, so as to face in the direction taken by the popular stranger. Afterwards from observing the state of the tree the natives infer the corresponding state of their absent friend, whose illness or death are apparently supposed to be portended by the fall of the leaves or of the tree.⁴³² In Uganda, when a new royal enclosure with its numerous houses was built for a new king, barkcloth trees used to be planted at the main entrance by priests of each principal deity and offerings were laid under each tree for its particular god. Thenceforth “the trees were carefully guarded and tended, because it was believed that as they grew and flourished, so the king's life and power would increase.”⁴³³ Among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the Gaboon, when two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind and dance round them. The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with the life of one of the trees; and if the tree dies or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will soon die.⁴³⁴ In Sierra Leone also it is customary at the birth of a child to plant a shoot of a malep-tree, and they think that the tree will grow with the child and be its god. If a tree which has been thus planted withers away, the people consult a sorcerer on the subject.⁴³⁵ Among the Wajagga of German East Africa, when a child is born, it is usual to plant a cultivated plant of some sort behind the house. The plant is thenceforth carefully tended, for they believe that were it to wither away the child would die. When the navel-string drops from the infant, it is buried under the plant. The species of birth-plant varies with the clan; members of one clan, for example, plant a particular sort of banana, members of another clan plant a sugar-cane, and so on.⁴³⁶ Among the Swahili of East Africa, when a child is born, the afterbirth and navel-string are buried in the courtyard and a mark is made on the spot. Seven days afterwards, the hair of the child is shaved and deposited, along with the clippings of its nails, in the same place. Then over all these relics of the infant's person a coco-nut is planted. As the tree grows up from the nut, the child likes to point it out to his playfellows and tell them, “This coco-nut palm is my navel.” In planting the coco-nut the parents say, “May God cause our child to grow up, that he or she may one day enjoy the coco-nut milk of the tree which we plant here.”⁴³⁷ Though it is not expressly affirmed, we may perhaps assume that such a birth-tree is supposed to stand in a sympathetic relation with the life of the person. In the Cameroons, also, the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree.⁴³⁸ The chief of Old Town in Calabar kept his soul in a sacred grove near a spring of water. When some Europeans, in frolic or ignorance, cut down part of the grove, the spirit was most indignant and threatened the perpetrators of the deed, according to the king, with all manner of evil.⁴³⁹ Among the Fans of the French Congo, when a chief's son is born, the remains of the navel-string are buried under a sacred fig-tree, and “thenceforth great importance is attached to the growth of the tree; it is strictly forbidden to touch it. Any attempt on the tree would be considered as an attack on the human being himself.”⁴⁴⁰ Among the Boloki of the Upper Congo a family has a plant with red leaves (called nkungu) for its totem. When a woman of the family is with child for the first time, one of the totemic plants is planted near the hearth outside the house and is never destroyed, otherwise it is believed that the child would be born thin and weak and would remain puny and sickly. “The healthy life of the children and family is bound up with the healthiness and life of the totem tree as respected and preserved by the family.”⁴⁴¹ Among the Baganda of Central Africa a child's afterbirth was called the second child and was believed to be animated by a spirit, which at once became a ghost. The afterbirth was usually buried at the root of a banana tree, and afterwards the tree was carefully guarded by old women, who prevented any one from going near it; they tied ropes of fibre from tree to tree to isolate it, and all the child's excretions were thrown into this enclosure. When the fruit ripened, it was cut by the old woman in charge. The reason for guarding the tree thus carefully was a belief that if any stranger were to eat of the fruit of the tree or to drink beer brewed from it, he would carry off with him the ghost of the child's afterbirth, which had been buried at the root of the banana-tree, and the living child would then die in order to follow its twin ghost. Whereas a grandparent of the child, by eating the fruit or drinking the beer, averted this catastrophe and ensured the health of the child.⁴⁴² Among the Wakondyo, at the north-western corner of Lake Albert Nyanza, it is customary to bury the afterbirth at the foot of a young banana-tree, and the fruit of this particular tree may be eaten by no one but the woman who assisted at the birth.⁴⁴³ The reason for the custom is not mentioned, but probably, as among the Baganda, the life of the child is supposed to be bound up with the life of the tree, since the afterbirth, regarded as a spiritual double of the infant, has been buried at the root of the tree.

Birth-trees among the Papuans, Maoris, Fijians, Dyaks, and others.

Some of the Papuans unite the life of a new-born child sympathetically with that of a tree by driving a pebble into the bark of the tree. This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child's life; if the tree is cut down, the child will die.⁴⁴⁴ After a birth the Maoris used to bury the navel-string in a sacred place and plant a young sapling over it. As the tree grew, it was a tohu oranga or sign of life for the child; if it flourished, the child would prosper; if it withered and died, the parents augured the worst for their child.⁴⁴⁵ In the Chatham Islands, when the child of a leading man received its name, it was customary to plant a tree, “the growth of which was to be as the growth of the child,” and during the planting priests chanted a spell.⁴⁴⁶ In some parts of Fiji the navel-string of a male child is planted together with a coco-nut or the slip of a breadfruit-tree, and the child's life is supposed to be intimately connected with that of the tree.⁴⁴⁷ With certain Malayo-Siamese families of the Patani States it is customary to bury the afterbirth under a banana-tree, and the condition of the tree is afterwards regarded as ominous of the child's fate for good or evil.⁴⁴⁸ In Southern Celebes, when a child is born, a coco-nut is planted and watered with the water in which the afterbirth and navel-string have been washed. As it grows up, the tree is called the “contemporary” of the child.⁴⁴⁹ So in Bali a coco-palm is planted at the birth of a child. It is believed to grow up equally with the child, and is called its “life-plant.”⁴⁵⁰ On certain occasions the Dyaks of Borneo plant a palm-tree, which is believed to be a complete index of their fate. If it flourishes, they reckon on good fortune; but if it withers or dies, they expect misfortune.⁴⁵¹ Amongst the Dyaks of Landak and Tajan, districts of Dutch Borneo, it is customary to plant a fruit-tree for a child, and henceforth in the popular belief the fate of the child is bound up with that of the tree. If the tree shoots up rapidly, it will go well with the child; but if the tree is dwarfed or shrivelled, nothing but misfortune can be expected for its human counterpart.⁴⁵² According to another account, at the naming of children and certain other festivals the Dyaks are wont to set a sawang-plant, roots and all, before a priestess; and when the festival is over, the plant is replaced in the ground. Such a plant becomes thenceforth a sort of prophetic index for the person in whose honour the festival was held. If the plant thrives, the man will be fortunate; if it fades or perishes, some evil will befall him.⁴⁵³ The Dyaks also believe that at the birth of every person on earth a flower grows up in the spirit world and leads a life parallel to his. If the flower flourishes, the man enjoys good health, but if it droops, so does he. Hence when he has dreamed bad dreams or has felt unwell for several days, he infers that his flower in the other world is neglected or sickly, and accordingly he employs a medicine-man to tend the precious plant, weed the soil, and sweep it up, in order that the earthly and unearthly life may prosper once more.⁴⁵⁴

Birth-trees in Europe. Marriage oaks. Trees with which the fate of families or individuals is thought to be bound up. The Edgewell oak. The old tree at Howth Castle. The oak of the Guelphs.

It is said that there are still families in Russia, Germany, England, France, and Italy who are accustomed to plant a tree at the birth of a child. The tree, it is hoped, will grow with the child, and it is tended with special care.⁴⁵⁵ The custom is still pretty general in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland; an apple-tree is planted for a boy and a pear-tree for a girl, and the people think that the child will flourish or dwindle with the tree.⁴⁵⁶ In Mecklenburg the afterbirth is thrown out at the foot of a young tree, and the child is then believed to grow with the tree.⁴⁵⁷ In Bosnia, when the children of a family have died one after the other, the hair of the next child is cut with some ceremony by a stranger, and the mother carries the shorn tresses into the garden, where she ties them to a fine young tree, in order that her child may grow and flourish like the tree.⁴⁵⁸ At Muskau, in Lausitz, it used to be customary for bride and bridegroom on the morning of their wedding-day to plant a pair of young oaks side by side, and as each of the trees flourished or withered, so the good luck of the person who planted it was believed to wax or wane.⁴⁵⁹ On a promontory in Lake Keitele, in Finland, there used to stand an old fir-tree, which according to tradition had been planted by the first colonists to serve as a symbol or token of their fortune. First-fruits of the harvest used to be offered to the tree before any one would taste of the new crop; and whenever a branch fell, it was deemed a sign that some one would die. More and more the crown of the tree withered away, and in the same proportion the family whose ancestors had planted the fir dwindled away, till only one old woman was left. At last the tree fell, and soon afterwards the old woman departed this life.⁴⁶⁰ When Lord Byron first visited his ancestral estate of Newstead “he planted, it seems, a young oak in some part of the grounds, and had an idea that as it flourished so should he.”⁴⁶¹ On a day when the cloud that settled on the later years of Sir Walter Scott lifted a little, and he heard that Woodstock had sold for over eight thousand pounds, he wrote in his journal: “I have a curious fancy; I will go set two or three acorns, and judge by their success in growing whether I shall succeed in clearing my way or not.”⁴⁶² Near the Castle of Dalhousie, not far from Edinburgh, there grows an oak-tree, called the Edgewell Tree, which is popularly believed to be linked to the fate of the family by a mysterious tie; for they say that when one of the family dies, or is about to die, a branch falls from the Edgewell Tree. Thus, on seeing a great bough drop from the tree on a quiet, still day in July 1874, an old forester exclaimed, “The laird's deid noo!” and soon after news came that Fox Maule, eleventh Earl of Dalhousie, was dead.⁴⁶³ At Howth Castle in Ireland there is an old tree with which the fortunes of the St. Lawrence family are supposed to be connected. The branches of the tree are propped on strong supports, for tradition runs that when the tree falls the direct line of the Earls of Howth will become extinct.⁴⁶⁴ On the old road from Hanover to Osnabrück, at the village of Oster-Kappeln, there used to stand an ancient oak, which put out its last green shoot in the year 1849. The tree was conjecturally supposed to be contemporary with the Guelphs; and in the year 1866, so fatal for the house of Hanover, on a calm summer afternoon, without any visible cause, the veteran suddenly fell with a crash and lay stretched across the highroad. The peasants regarded its fall as an ill omen for the reigning family, and when King George V. heard of it he gave orders that the giant trunk should be set up again, and it was done with much trouble and at great expense, the stump being supported in position by iron chains clamped to the neighbouring trees. But the king's efforts to prop the falling fortunes of his house were vain; a few months after the fall of the oak Hanover formed part of the Prussian monarchy.⁴⁶⁵

The Life-tree of the Manchu dynasty.

In the midst of the “Forbidden City” at Peking there is a tiny private garden, where the emperors of the now fallen Manchu dynasty used to take the air and refresh themselves after the cares of state. In accordance with Chinese taste the garden is a labyrinth of artificial rockeries, waterfalls, grottoes, and kiosks, in which everything is as unlike nature as art can make it. The trees in particular (Arbor vitae), the principal ornament of the garden, exhibit the last refinement of the gardener's skill, being clipped and distorted into a variety of grotesque shapes. Only one of the trees remained intact and had been spared these deformations for centuries. Far from being stunted by the axe or the shears, the tree was carefully tended and encouraged to shoot up to its full height. “It was the ‘Life-tree of the Dynasty,’ and according to legend the prosperity or fall of the present dynasty went hand in hand with the welfare or death of the tree. Certainly, if we accept the tradition, the days of the present reigning house must be numbered, for all the care and attention lavished on the tree have been for some years in vain. A glance at our illustration shews the tree as it still surpasses all its fellows in height and size; but it owes its pre-eminence only to the many artificial props which hold it up. In reality the ‘Life-tree of the Dynasty’ is dying, and might fall over night, if one of its artificial props were suddenly to give way. For the superstitious Chinese – and superstitious they certainly are – it is a very, very evil omen.”⁴⁶⁶ Some twelve years have passed since this passage was written, and in the interval the omen has been fulfilled – the Manchu dynasty has fallen. We may conjecture that the old tree in the quaint old garden has fallen too. So vain are all human efforts to arrest the decay of royal houses by underpropping trees on which nature herself has passed a sentence of death.

The myrtle-trees of the patricians and plebeians at Rome. The oak of the Vespasian family.

At Rome in the ancient sanctuary of Quirinus there grew two old myrtle-trees, one named the Patrician and the other the Plebeian. For many years, so long as the patricians were in the ascendant, their myrtle-tree flourished and spread its branches abroad, while the myrtle of the plebeians was shrivelled and shrunken; but from the time of the Marsian war, when the power of the nobles declined, their myrtle in like manner drooped and withered, whereas that of the popular party held up its head and grew strong.⁴⁶⁷ Thrice when Vespasia was with child, an old oak in the garden of the Flavian family near Rome suddenly put forth branches. The first branch was puny and soon withered away, and the girl who was born accordingly died within the year; the second branch was long and sturdy; and the third was like a tree. So on the third occasion the happy father reported to his mother that a future emperor was born to her as a grandchild. The old lady only laughed to think that at her age she should keep her wits about her, while her son had lost his; yet the omen of the oak came true, for the grandson was afterwards the emperor Vespasian.⁴⁶⁸

Life of persons supposed to be bound up with that of the cleft trees through which in their youth they were passed as a cure for rupture. In England ruptured children are passed through cleft ash-trees.

In England children are sometimes passed through a cleft ash-tree as a cure for rupture or rickets, and thenceforward a sympathetic connexion is supposed to exist between them and the tree. An ash-tree which had been used for this purpose grew at the edge of Shirley Heath, on the road from Hockly House to Birmingham. “Thomas Chillingworth, son of the owner of an adjoining farm, now about thirty-four, was, when an infant of a year old, passed through a similar tree, now perfectly sound, which he preserves with so much care that he will not suffer a single branch to be touched, for it is believed the life of the patient depends on the life of the tree, and the moment that it is cut down, be the patient ever so distant, the rupture returns, and a mortification ensues, and terminates in death, as was the case in a man driving a waggon on the very road in question.” “It is not uncommon, however,” adds the writer, “for persons to survive for a time the felling of the tree.”⁴⁶⁹ The ordinary mode of effecting the cure is to split a young ash-sapling longitudinally for a few feet and pass the child, naked, either three times or three times three through the fissure at sunrise. In the West of England it is said that the passage should be “against the sun.” As soon as the ceremony has been performed, the tree is bound tightly up and the fissure plastered over with mud or clay. The belief is that just as the cleft in the tree closes up, so the rupture in the child's body will be healed; but that if the rift in the tree remains open, the rupture in the child will remain too, and if the tree were to die, the death of the child would surely follow.⁴⁷⁰