cautioned in the rubric concerning the examination of a possessed patient, not to believe the demon if he pretends to be the soul of some saint or deceased person, or a good angel (neque ei credatur, si dæmon simularet se esse animam alicujus Sancti, vel defuncti, vel Angelum bonum).[1] Nothing can bring more broadly into view the similar nature of souls and other spiritual beings than the existence of a full transitional series of ideas. Souls of dead men are in fact considered as actually forming one of the most important classes of demons and deities.
It is quite usual for savage tribes to live in terror of the souls of the dead as harmful spirits. Thus Australians have been known to consider the ghosts of the unburied dead as becoming malignant demons.[2] New Zealanders have supposed the souls of their dead to become so changed in nature as to be malignant to their nearest and dearest friends in life;[3] the Caribs said that, of man's various souls, some go to the seashore and capsize boats, others to the forest to be evil spirits;[4] among the Sioux Indians the fear of a ghost's vengeance has been found to act as a check on murder;[5] of some tribes in Central Africa it may be said that their main religious doctrine is the belief in ghosts, and that the main characteristic of these ghosts is to do harm to the living.[6] The Patagonians lived in terror of the souls of their wizards, which become evil demons after death;[7] Turanian tribes of North Asia fear their shamans even more when dead than when alive, for they become a special class of spirits who are the hurtfullest in all nature, and who among the Mongols plague the living on
- ↑ Rituale Romanum: De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Dæmonio.
- ↑ Oldfield, 'Abor. of Australia' in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. iii. p. 236. See Bonwick, 'Tasmanians,' p. 181.
- ↑ Taylor, 'New Zealand,' p. 104.
- ↑ Rochefort, 'Iles Antilles,' p. 429.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part ii. p. 195; M. Eastman, 'Dahcotah,' p. 72.
- ↑ Burton, 'Central Afr.' vol. ii. p. 344; Schlegel, 'Ewe-Sprache,' p. xxv.
- ↑ Falkner, 'Patagonia,' p. 116; but cf. Musters, p. 180.
