Some of the Melanesians also believe that they have special relation to some animal or reptile with which their life is bound up and which is named tamaniu. The tamaniu, like the atai, has an objective and material existence.
When its owner wishes to injure anyone he sends his familiar to do so; if an eel it would tear or bite, if a shark probably swallow him. If the owner falls ill, he examines his familiar to discover what is wrong. The imps or familiars of witches embody the same idea.
Dr. W. H. R. Rivers quotes the case of a man whose tamaniu was a lizard[12]. The owner was blind and asked a friend to help him with the ceremony of examination. He told his friend to go and see the animal, using the words "Look at me," referring to the lizard as himself. The man went alone to the banyan tree where the lizard was to be found, but when he came there he was too frightened to call upon the animal. He was sent a second time in the company of the sick man's son and others, and when they reached the tree the man called out the lizard's name, Rosasangwowut, and the tamaniu appeared. It was a very large animal, larger than the ordinary lizards in Mota. It appeared to be sluggish and walked as a sick man would walk. The blind man's son then asked the tamaniu if it was ill and the creature nodded its head and moved slowly back to the tree. They went back and told the man that his familiar was ill, and soon afterwards he died. At the same time the banyan tree fell, which was taken as a sign that the tamaniu died too. This is an uncanny story which brings out strongly the psychic connection between the man and his representative animal.
In Melanesia a native doctor was once attending a patient when a large eagle hawk soared past the house and a hunter was about to shoot it when the doctor called out in alarm, "Don't fire, that is my spirit! If you kill it I shall die." He also said, "If you see a rat to-night, don't drive it away, it's my spirit, or a snake may come to-night, which will be my spirit." Apparently the doctor had the power to send his familiar in animal form for the purpose of working a cure.
At Ongek in the Gaboon a French missionary spent the night in the hut of a Fan chief. He was awakened before daylight by the rustling of dry leaves and, lighting a torch, perceived a huge black poisonous serpent, coiled and ready to strike. He was about to shoot the horrible reptile when his arm was suddenly struck up by the chief, who, extinguishing the torch, cried, "Don't fire, I beg of you. In killing the snake you would kill me. That serpent is my elangela. Fear nothing!" Speaking thus he seized and caressed the noisome reptile, which showed emotions of delight rather than fear or anger. Then the chief bore away his serpent and laid it in another hut, lying down beside it, after exhorting the missionary never to speak of what he had seen.[13]
From this occurrence it will easily be gathered that it is highly dangerous to kill a tamaniu, nagual, or manitou.
The possibility of the soul existing temporarily apart from the body is believed by most savages, and civilised races, such as the Romans, have held identical ideas. "The nagual," writes W. Northcote Thomas in his valuable article on Animals,[14] "is the lineal ancestor of the genius of the Romans, no less than of the guides of modern spiritualism." This statement gives ample food for thought.