this the men had no further doubt that she was a witch.[1]
It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back; so if the man wakened without his soul, he would fall sick. If it is absolutely necessary to waken a sleeper, it must be done very gradually, to allow the soul time to return.[2] In Bombay it is thought equivalent to murder to change the appearance of a sleeper, as by painting his face in fantastic colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For when the soul returns, it will not be able to recognise its body and the person will die.[3] The Servians believe that the soul of a sleeping witch often leaves her body in the form of a butterfly. If during its absence her body be turned round, so that her feet are placed where her head was before, the butterfly soul will not find its way back into her body through the mouth, and the witch will die.[4]
But in order that a man’s soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that he should be asleep.
- ↑ ^ E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 27 sq. A similar story is told in Holland, J. W. Wolf, Nederlandsche Sagen, No. 251, p. 344 sq. The stories of Hermotimus and King Gunthram belong to the same class. In the latter the king’s soul comes out of his mouth as a small reptile. The soul of Aristeas issued from his mouth in the form of a raven. Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. § 174; Lucian, Musc. Encom. 7; Paulus, Hist. Langobardorum, iii. 34. In an East Indian story of the same type the sleeper’s soul issues from his nose in the form of a cricket. Wilken in De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 940. In a Swabian story a girl’s soul creeps out of her mouth in the form of a white mouse. Birlinger, Völksthümliches aus Schwaben, i. 303.
- ↑ Shway Yoe, The Burman, ii. 103; Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, ii. 389; Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” in Mittheilungen d. Wiener Geogr. Gesellschaft, 1882, p. 209; Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 440; id., “Die Landschaft Dawan oder West-Timor,” in Deutsche Geographische Blätter, x. 280.
- ↑ Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. No. 530.
- ↑ Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 117 sq.
