is thus exactly parallel to the Aru custom of not sleeping in a house after a death for fear that the soul, projected out of the body in a dream, may meet the ghost and be carried off by it.[1] In Oldenburg it is thought that if a person sees his image in a mirror after a death he will die himself. So all the mirrors in the house are covered up with white cloth.[2] In some parts of Germany after a death not only the mirrors but everything that shines or glitters (windows, clocks, etc.) is covered up,[3] doubtless because they might reflect a person’s image. The same custom of covering up mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death prevails in England, Scotland, and Madagascar.[4] The Suni Mohammedans of Bombay cover with a cloth the mirror in the room of a dying man and do not remove it until the corpse is carried out for burial. They also cover the looking-glasses in their bedrooms before retiring to rest at night.[5] The reason why sick people should not see themselves in a mirror, and why the mirror in a sick-room is therefore covered up,[6] is also plain; in time of sickness, when the soul might take flight so easily, it is particularly dangerous to project the soul out of the body by means of the reflection in a mirror. The rule is therefore precisely parallel to the rule observed by some peoples of not allowing sick people to sleep;[7] for in sleep the soul is projected out of the body, and there is always a risk that it may not return. “In the opinion of the Raskolniks a mirror is an accursed thing, invented by
- ↑ See above, p. 125 sq.
- ↑ Wattke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube,2 § 726.
- ↑ Ib.
- ↑ Folk-lore Journal, iii. 281; Dyer, English Folk-lore, p. 109; J. Napier, Folk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, p. 60; Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 238; Revue d’Ethnographie, v. 215.
- ↑ Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. 906.
- ↑ Folk-lore Journal, vi. 145 sq,; Panjab Notes and Queries, ii., No. 378.
- ↑ Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xv. 82 sqq.
