[61] A. E. Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, p. 237. The Mexican adjurations referred to are given by Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, lib. x., cap. 29.
[62] W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, pp. 28, 34. The concrete meaning of both words is pith, kernel, core, centre, etc.
[63] Hale, Ethnography of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, p. 55; Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 315; after Stoll. The Algonkian myth relates that the hero-god Nanabojou could converse with the spirits of all things, with trees, flowers, butterflies, the thunder, etc. (Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 113).
[64] Elysée Reclus, Le Primitif d’Australie, p. 232.
[65] The Greeks had but vague notions of an after life, and Professor Schrader remarks: “The cult of the dead has no place in the Homeric world.” Prehist. Antiqs. of the Aryan Peoples, p. 424. The “indigetes dii” of the Romans were rather heroes than divinities, though Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, lib. i., cap. 64, asserts that they were worshipped.
[66] The most satisfactory recent study on the worship of ancestors and of the dead, is that by Dr. S. R. Steinmetz in his Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, Bd. i., ss. 141-287 (Leiden, 1894).
[67] Clark, Indian Sign Language, pp. 121, 165, 199, 207, etc.; Howitt in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. xiii., p. 186. If one wakes a sleeper suddenly, he may die, as his vagrant soul may not get back in time. Von den Steinen, Naturvölker Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 510. In all these primitive views the real soul is regarded as merely a tenant of the body (not a function or the result of functions), as it is to-day in the popular religions of civilised lands.
[68] The fear of ghosts in civilised countries is the survival of a wide-spread, ancient belief in the malevolence of souls. I have found no instance of this more striking than among the Finns. They believed that the souls of the dead lie in wait for the living, in order to kill and eat them, especially their hearts and lungs, so that the slain could not live again. The ghosts did not spare their nearest relatives, and the story is told of an old man, who warned his beloved young wife not to follow his corpse to the grave, or his ghost would eat her. She disobeyed, and saved herself only by pronouncing the name of God. Cong. Internat. d’Archéologie de Moscou, Tom. ii., p. 316. In about one third of known savage tribes, the ghosts are considered kind and friendly to the survivors. See Steinmetz’s analysis in his Entwicklung der Strafe, Bd. i., s. 142, sq.
[69] Friedrich Freihold, Die Lebensgeschichte der Menschheit, Bd. i., s. 35.
[70] Baiame is from the verb bhai. Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. viii., p. 242. The “Nurali” of the Murray River tribes is also an embodiment of light. B. B. Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 423.