marked that every Araucanian imagines he has one in his service; 'I keep my amchi-malghen (guardian nymph) still,' being a common expression when they succeed in any undertaking.[1] The Caribs display the doctrine well in both its general and special forms. On the one hand, there is a guardian deity for each man, which accompanies his soul to the next life; on the other hand, each sorcerer has his familiar demon, which he evokes in mysterious darkness by chants and tobacco-smoke; and when several sorcerers call up their familiars together, the consequence is apt to be a quarrel among the demons, and a fight.[2] In Africa, the negro has his guardian spirit — how far identified with what Europeans call soul or conscience, it may be hard to determine; but he certainly looks upon it as a being separate from himself, for he summons it by sorcery, builds a little fetish-hut for it by the wayside, rewards and propitiates it by libations of liquor and bits of food.[3] In Asia, the Mongols, each with his patron genius,[4] and the Laos sorcerers who can send their familiar spirits into others' bodies to cause disease,[5] are examples equally to the purpose.
Among the Aryan nations of Northern Europe,[6] the old doctrine of man's guardian spirit may be traced, and in classic Greece and Rome it renews with philosophic eloquence and cultured custom the ideas of the Australian and the African. The thought of the spiritual guide and protector of the individual man is happily defined by Menander, who calls the attendant genius, which each man has from the hour of birth, the good mystagogue (i.e. the novice's guide to the mysteries) of this life.
- ↑ Molina, 'Chili,' vol. ii. p. 86.
- ↑ Rochefort, 'Iles Antilles,' pp. 416, 429; J. G. Müller, 'Amer. Urrel.' pp. 171, 217.
- ↑ Waitz, vol. ii. p. 182; J. L. Wilson, 'W. Afr.' p. 387; Steinhauser, l.c. p. 134. Compare Callaway, p. 327, &c.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Psychologie,' p. 77.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. iii. p. 275.
- ↑ Grimm, 'D. M.' p. 829; Rochholz, 'Deutscher Glaube,' part i. p. 92; Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 247.
