Chapter 14 The Danger of the Soul: The Soul Is the Shadow and Reflection of Man

The mental dangers which I have enumerated above are not the only things which perplex savages.Uncivilized people often regard their own shadow or reflection as their soul, or at any rate an important part of their being, so it must also be a source of danger to themselves. , or stabbed at it, would hurt him as if it had actually happened to him, and if it were completely out of his body (which he believed to be possible), his life would be dead.Weta Island [East of Indonesia, north of Portuguese Timor, between New Guinea and Celebes. ] There are many wizards who can make people sick by stabbing with spears or cutting people with swords.Legend has it that Shankara [approximately 788-820, an Indian Vedanta philosopher and Brahman reformer, once traveled all over India to carry out missionary activities. ] After exterminating the Buddhists in India, he wandered to Nepal and disagreed with the great lama there.In order to prove that he has supernatural powers, he flew into space.When he continued to fly upwards, the great lama saw his figure swaying on the ground, so he drew his knife and slashed at his figure. Shankara immediately fell to the ground and broke his head and neck.On the Banks Islands [the westernmost group of islands in the Canadian Arctic] there are many stones with special shapes, and the natives named them "soul-eating stones".It is said that there is a powerful and dangerous ghost living in these large stones. If a person's shadow falls on such a feldspar, the ghost in the stone will catch the soul of the person and kill him.Therefore, the natives put these stones in the house as guards. If the owner of the house sends someone home to handle errands, he must first call out the name of the owner who sent him when he enters the house, otherwise the ghosts in the stone They will think that the visitor has bad intentions and hurt them.In China, when the deceased is collected and the coffin is about to be covered, except for the closest relatives of the deceased, everyone takes a few steps back or even retreats into another room, because if the shadow of a person is locked in the coffin, the health of the person will be endangered. endangered.When it was time to put the coffin into the tomb, most of the people standing by stood back a certain distance, lest their own shadows fall into the tomb and hurt their bodies.Bu Di's Mr. Yin Yang and his assistant stood on the side of the tomb where the shadow could not fall into the grave. The grave diggers and coffin bearers wrapped cloth strips tightly around their wrists to make their shadows firmly attached to themselves.Not only people are so easy to damage their bodies due to shadow injuries, but so are livestock to a certain extent.In Perak [a state of Malaysia] there are small snakes that often haunt the nearby limestone hills. It is said that they suck the blood from the animals by biting their shadows, so that the animals become emaciated and sometimes even die from the loss of blood.The ancients believed that in Arabia, if a hyena stepped on a person's shadow, that person would be unable to speak or move.If a dog stands on the roof, the moonlight casts its shadow on the ground, and a dog steps on the shadow, and the dog on the roof immediately falls down, as if being dragged down by a rope.From the above examples, it can be clearly seen that for uncivilized peoples, the shadow is regarded as, if not the soul, at least as an organic part of the human and animal bodies. It feels like harming him (it).

Conversely: if the shadow of a person or animal is an integral part of his (it) life, then, under certain circumstances, being touched by the shadow of others or animals will cause the same damage as being touched by others or animals. harm.It is therefore a law of the savage to avoid the shadow of certain persons whom he, for various reasons, considers dangerous.Generally the people they consider dangerous are mourners, usually women, especially those who are mothers-in-law.Shushwap [Clan of Salishi-speaking Indians living in the Northwest United States and Southwest Canada. ] The Indians believed that if the shadow of the mourner fell on someone, that person would be sick.The Kurnai of Victoria [dwellers of the rural south-eastern coast of Australia] warn the young man who is just starting out in life to beware of letting the shadow of women pass him by, for it will make him thin, lazy, and stupid.An Australian native is said to have once nearly died of fright when his mother-in-law's shadow fell on his lap while he was sleeping in the shade.The reverence with which the ignorant savage looks at his mother-in-law is nowhere more common than in anthropology.The Ewing of New South Wales [a state in southwest Australia bordering the Pacific Ocean] have a strict commandment that forbids a man from associating with his mother-in-law.He must not look at her, or even look in her direction.If his shadow happened to fall on his mother-in-law, it was grounds for divorce: he had to leave his wife, and she had to go back to her parents.New Britain [East of Guinea, the largest of the Bismarck archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. ] of the natives.It is impossible to imagine the unfortunate consequences of a man occasionally speaking to his wife's mother.After such a speaking incident, the only possible way out for both parties is suicide by one or both parties.The most solemn oath of the natives of New Britain is: "If I'm not telling the truth, tell me to shake hands with my mother-in-law." The uncivilized people in many places regard the shadow of a person and the life of a person very closely. Shadow, will lead to human weakness or death.For people who hold such a concept, it is natural for them to think that the shrinking of the figure is a harbinger of the reduction of human vitality, so they are anxious and worried.

Ambodna [a small island in the Moluccas] and Urias [an island in the East Indies] are two islands near the equator, where the sun necessarily casts little or no shadow at noon every day.The local residents made a rule not to go out of the house in the middle of the day, because they thought that whoever did so would lose the shadow of his soul.Among the natives of Maungaia [an island in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific] there is a story of a remarkable warrior, Tukedawa.It is said that the strength of his body ebbs and flows with the length of his shadow: every morning when his shadow is longest, his strength is also greatest; when the sun approaches noon and his shadow gets shorter, his strength also begins to decrease When the weather is midday, his strength is reduced to a minimum; in the afternoon his shadow gradually lengthens, and his strength returns.A hero discovered the secret and killed him at noon.The Besisis natives in the Malay Peninsula dare not bury their dead at noon, for fear that their shadows will be shortest at that time, which will produce sympathetic effects and shorten their lifespan.

Some customs prevailing to this day in South-Eastern Europe reflect more clearly than anywhere else the primitive conception of the shadow as equal to life or soul.In modern Greece, when the foundation stone of a new house is laid, it is customary to kill a rooster, a ram or a lamb, sprinkle the blood on the foundation stone, and then bury the chickens and sheep under the foundation stone.The purpose of this kind of sacrifice is to make the construction of this new house stable.Sometimes, instead of killing chickens and sheep, the house builders lure passers-by to come near the cornerstone, secretly measure his figure or a part of his body or his figure, and then bury the measuring tool under the cornerstone, or place the cornerstone Over the shadow of this man.It is believed that in this way the person will die within a year.The Romanians of Transylvania believed that anyone whose soul was thus imprisoned died within 40 days.So when people walk by a building under construction, they will always hear someone loudly warning: "Be careful, don't let your shadow be suppressed!" Not long ago, there were people who sold people's shadows there. Those who sell the shadows necessary to keep the walls of their buildings strong.In this case, the measurement of the figure is regarded as the same as the shadow; to bury this measuring tool is to bury the person himself or his soul, and such a person must die.This custom thus took the place of the ancient practice of imprisoning the living within walls, or pressing them under the foundation stones of new buildings.Its purpose was to make the new building durable, or rather to allow the wrathful ghosts of the dead to roam there, in order to prevent enemies from invading the new building.

Some believe that the soul is in one's own shadow, while others believe that the soul is in the reflection in water or in the reflection in a mirror. "The residents of Andeman Island [Andeman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, southwest of Myanmar.] believe that the reflection in the mirror is their soul, and their shadow is not the soul." The Motu Motu people of New Guinea for the first time When I saw my own reflection in the mirror, I thought it was my own soul.In New Caledonia, old people believe that the reflection of a person on the water or in a mirror is his soul.Young people who have been taught by Catholic priests think that it is just a reflection, like the reflection of a palm tree on the water, not a soul.The image-soul is outside the body and faces the same dangers as the shadow-soul.The Zulus do not look into dark pools of water, thinking that there are beasts hiding in them, who will steal their reflections and kill them.The Basuto people say that crocodiles can drag the reflection of people on the water to the bottom of the water, so as to eat people.If a person dies suddenly and without explanation, his relatives believe that the crocodile must have caught his shadow while he was passing by the water's edge.On Shadar Island in the west of Melania, there is a deep pool, "whoever looks under it will die. For in it there are vicious ghosts that grab people's reflections and devour their lives." Now We can understand why the ancient Indians and ancient Greeks warned people not to look at their own reflection in the water; why the Greeks believed that if anyone dreams of seeing his own reflection in the water, it is a bad omen of death.They were afraid that the spirits in the water would drag the reflection, or soul, of a person to the bottom of the water, causing the person to lose his soul and die.Maybe this is about the beautiful boy Narcissus [in Greek mythology, Narcissus, the son of Serphises, is a handsome young man who sees his reflection in the spring water and thinks it is the goddess in the water, wants to get close to her, jumps into the spring water and dies. die.The goddesses of springs held up his body and wanted to bury him, but they found that he had turned into a beautiful flower.They called this flower (that is, Narcissus) Narcissus. ] the source of the beautiful legend (Narcises saw his own shadow in the water, then died of growing weaker and weaker).

We may also explain the widespread custom of covering up all the mirrors in the house of a dead person, or turning their faces toward the wall.This is because the person's soul is afraid that the body will be reflected in the mirror and taken away by the soul of the deceased, because immediately after death, the soul will linger at home until after the funeral.This is exactly the same custom as that of the Aru [the natives of the Aru Islands in southwest New Guinea].It is the custom of the Aru people not to sleep in the house of the newly dead, for fear that the soul will leave the body in the dream and be taken away when encountering the ghost of the deceased.It is also clear why patients do not look in mirrors, and why mirrors are covered up in the rooms where patients live.When a person is sick, the soul is very easy to wander out of the body, and being reflected in a mirror makes it easier for the soul to leave the body, which is very dangerous.This rule is exactly the same as some people's rule about not letting sick people sleep.Because the soul always leaves the body in dreams, there is always the danger of not returning.

As with shadows and reflections, so it is with the portrait of a man: he thinks it contains his own soul.People with such beliefs are of course unwilling to have their portraits painted, because if the portrait is their soul or at least an important part of their life, then whoever holds the portrait can have a fatal influence on the portrait.The Eskimos of the Bering Strait believe that witches have the ability to steal a person's shadow, and that if a person loses his shadow, he will wither and die.Once in the Yukon River [in southwestern Canada, which flows into the Bering Sea via Alaska. ] In a village downstream, an explorer set up a camera and wanted to photograph the activities of the villagers in front of and behind their houses.When he was adjusting the focus, the village chief came forward and made sure to look at the shot under the camera's canopy.He stared at the figures walking on the frosted glass for a long time, then suddenly retracted his head, and shouted at the top of his voice to the people in his village: "He has put all your shadows in this box." ” Immediately a panic erupted in the crowd, and everyone hurriedly dispersed and hid in the house.The Tepejuan people of Mexico are terrified of standing in front of the camera, and it takes at least several days of persuasion to get them to agree to be photographed.In the end they agreed, but their expressions were like those of criminals about to be shot.They think that photographers will take away people's souls when they take pictures of people, and go back to slowly devour them.Said that when the pictures reached his country they would have to die or some other evil would befall them.When Dr. Katat and his companions were visiting the Barra region on the west coast of Madagascar, the local attitude towards them suddenly became hostile. The photos were accused the next day, saying that they captured the souls of the locals and wanted to bring them back to France for sale.It is impossible to deny.Judging from the local customs, they must have ingested the souls of the natives and put them in a box.Dr. Catat had no choice but to order that all ingested souls be returned to their original owners.

Some villagers in rural Sikkim showed great panic when the camera lens pointed at them and tried to take pictures of them, and ran away one after another.They called the lens on the camera "the evil eye of the box", and believed that when it took pictures, it even took away their souls, and the owner of the photo controlled these souls and cast a spell on them.They also asserted that the landscape photos they took destroyed the scenery.Until the reign of the late king of Siam, all Siamese coins did not have the king's portrait on them.This is "because at that time there was a strong prejudice against engraving the image of the king on any coin. To this day, any European who travels into this jungle area has only to point a camera at the local crowd, and the crowd will immediately flee. If given If a portrait is painted on someone's face and taken away, a part of that person's life goes with the portrait. Unless a king is like Matthew Sarah He is 69 years old and is a respectable old man.] With such a long life of a thousand years, he will never let his life be easily disturbed by these small pieces of paper and domestic coins."Beliefs of the kind described above still persist in many parts of Europe.Not so many years ago, some old women on the Greek island of Karpesas were still very angry at having their portraits painted, thinking that the consequences of the portrait would make them emaciate and die.There are still people in the west of Scotland who refuse to be photographed so as not to invite misfortune, and cite the example of some friends of their own who say that after being photographed, those people have not had a day of well-being.