The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12). Frazer James George

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СКАЧАТЬ in the eighteenth century it is said that a woman had engaged two men to work in her vineyard. After noon they all lay down to rest as usual. An hour later the men got up and tried to waken the woman, but could not. She lay motionless with her mouth wide open. They came back at sunset and still she lay like a corpse. Just at that moment a big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut up in his leathern pouch. Then they tried again to waken the woman, but could not. Afterwards they let out the fly; it flew straight into the woman's mouth and she awoke. On seeing this the men had no further doubt that she was a witch.134

      Danger of awaking a sleeper suddenly before his soul has time to return.

      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 rouse a sleeper, it must be done very gradually, to allow the soul time to return.135 A Fijian in Matuku, suddenly wakened from a nap by somebody treading on his foot, has been heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to return. He had just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga, and great was his alarm on suddenly wakening to find his body in Matuku. Death stared him in the face unless his soul could be induced to speed at once across the sea and reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to allay his terror.136 Some Brazilian Indians explain the headache from which a man sometimes suffers after a broken sleep by saying that his soul is tired with the exertions it made to return quickly to the body.137 A Highland story, told to Hugh Miller on the picturesque shores of Loch Shin, well illustrates the haste made by the soul to regain its body when the sleeper has been prematurely roused by an indiscreet friend. Two young men had been spending the early part of a warm summer day in the open air, and sat down on a mossy bank to rest. Hard by was an ancient ruin separated from the bank on which they sat only by a slender runnel, across which there lay, immediately over a miniature cascade, a few withered stalks of grass. “Overcome by the heat of the day, one of the young men fell asleep; his companion watched drowsily beside him; when all at once the watcher was aroused to attention by seeing a little indistinct form, scarce larger than a humble-bee, issue from the mouth of the sleeping man, and, leaping upon the moss, move downwards to the runnel, which it crossed along the withered grass stalks, and then disappeared among the interstices of the ruin. Alarmed by what he saw, the watcher hastily shook his companion by the shoulder, and awoke him; though, with all his haste, the little cloud-like creature, still more rapid in its movements, issued from the interstice into which it had gone, and, flying across the runnel, instead of creeping along the grass stalks and over the sward, as before, it re-entered the mouth of the sleeper, just as he was in the act of awakening. ‘What is the matter with you?’ said the watcher, greatly alarmed, ‘what ails you?’ ‘Nothing ails me,’ replied the other; ‘but you have robbed me of a most delightful dream. I dreamed I was walking through a fine rich country, and came at length to the shores of a noble river; and, just where the clear water went thundering down a precipice, there was a bridge all of silver, which I crossed; and then, entering a noble palace on the opposite side, I saw great heaps of gold and jewels; and I was just going to load myself with treasure, when you rudely awoke me, and I lost all.’ ”138

      Danger of moving a sleeper or altering his appearance.

      Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive man to move a sleeper or alter his appearance, for if this were done the soul on its return might not be able to find or recognise its body, and so the person would die. The Minangkabauers of Sumatra deem it highly improper to blacken or dirty the face of a sleeper, lest the absent soul should shrink from re-entering a body thus disfigured.139 Patani Malays fancy that if a person's face be painted while he sleeps, the soul which has gone out of him will not recognise him, and he will sleep on till his face is washed.140 In Bombay it is thought equivalent to murder to change the aspect 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 know its own body and the person will die.141 The Coreans are of opinion that in sleep “the soul goes out of the body, and that if a piece of paper is put over the face of the sleeper he will surely die, for his soul cannot find its way back into him again.”142 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.143 The Esthonians of the island of Oesel think that the gusts which sweep up all kinds of trifles from the ground and whirl them along are the souls of old women, who have gone out in this shape to seek what they can find. Meantime the beldame's body lies as still as a stone, and if you turn it round her soul will never be able to enter it again, until you have replaced the body in its original position. You can hear the soul whining and whimpering till it has found the right aperture.144 Similarly in Livonia they think that when the soul of a were-wolf is out on his hateful business, his body lies like dead; and if meanwhile the body were accidentally moved, the soul would never more find its way into it, but would remain in the body of a wolf till death.145 In the picturesque but little known Black Mountain of southern France, which forms a sort of link between the Pyrenees and the Cevennes, they tell how a woman, who had long been suspected of being a witch, one day fell asleep at noon among the reapers in the field. Resolved to put her to the test, the reapers carried her, while she slept, to another part of the field, leaving a large pitcher on the spot from which they had moved her. When her soul returned, it entered the pitcher and cunningly rolled it over and over till the vessel lay beside her body, of which the soul thereupon took possession.146

      The soul may quit the body in waking hours, thereby causing sickness, insanity or death. Recalling truant souls in Australia, Burma, China, Sarawak, Luzon and Mongolia.

      But in order that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death will be the result. Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in Victoria lay at his last gasp because his spirit (murup) had departed from him. A medicine-man went in pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle just as it was about to plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by the souls of the dead as they pass in and out of the underworld, where the sun goes to rest. Having captured the vagrant spirit, the doctor brought it back under his opossum rug, laid himself down on the dying man, and put the soul back into him, so that after a time he revived.147 The Karens of Burma are perpetually anxious about their souls, lest these should go roving from their bodies, leaving the owners to die. When a man has reason to fear that his soul is about to take this fatal step, a ceremony is performed to retain or recall it, in which the whole family must take part. A meal is prepared consisting of a cock and hen, a special kind of rice, and a bunch of bananas. Then the head of the family takes the bowl which is used to skim rice, and knocking with it thrice on the top of the house-ladder says: “Prrrroo! Come back, soul, do not tarry outside! If it rains, you will be wet. If the sun shines, you will be hot. The gnats will sting you, the leeches will bite you, the tigers will devour you, the thunder will crush you. Prrrroo! Come back, soul! Here it will be well with you. You shall want for nothing. Come and eat under shelter from the wind and the storm.” After that the family partakes of the meal, and the ceremony ends with everybody tying their right wrist with a string which has been charmed by a sorcerer.148 Similarly the Lolos, an aboriginal tribe of western China, СКАЧАТЬ