A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the city of Indrapoora there was a certain merchant who was rich and prosperous, but he had no children. One day as he walked with his wife by the river they found a baby girl, fair as an angel. So they adopted the child and called her Bidasari. The merchant caused a golden fish to be made, and into this fish he transferred the soul of his adopted daughter. Then he put the golden fish in a golden box full of water, and hid it in a pond in the midst of his garden. In time the girl grew to be a lovely woman. Now the King of Indrapoora had a fair young queen, who lived in fear that the king might take to himself a second wife. So, hearing of the charms of Bidasari, the queen resolved to put her out of the way. She lured the girl to the palace and tortured her cruelly; but Bidasari could not die, because her soul was not in her. At last she could stand the torture no longer and said to the queen, “If you wish me to die, you must bring the box which is in the pond in my father's garden.” So the box was brought and opened, and there was the golden fish in the water. The girl said, “My soul is in that fish. In the morning you must take the fish out of the water, and in the evening you must put it back into the water. Do not let the fish lie about, but bind it round your neck. If you do this, I shall soon die.” So the queen took the fish out of the box and fastened it round her neck; and no sooner had she done so, than Bidasari fell into a swoon. But in the evening, when the fish was put back into the water, Bidasari came to herself again. Seeing that she thus had the girl in her power, the queen sent her home to her adopted parents. To save her from further persecution her parents resolved to remove their daughter from the city. So in a lonely and desolate spot they built a house and brought Bidasari thither. There she dwelt alone, undergoing [pg 148] vicissitudes that corresponded with the vicissitudes of the golden fish in which was her soul. All day long, while the fish was out of the water, she remained unconscious; but in the evening, when the fish was put into the water, she revived. One day the king was out hunting, and coming to the house where Bidasari lay unconscious, was smitten with her beauty. He tried to waken her, but in vain. Next day, towards evening, he repeated his visit, but still found her unconscious. However, when darkness fell, she came to herself and told the king the secret of her life. So the king returned to the palace, took the fish from the queen, and put it in water. Immediately Bidasari revived, and the king took her to wife.[402]
The external soul in a story told in Nias.
Another story of an external soul comes from Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra. Once on a time a chief was captured by his enemies, who tried to put him to death but failed. Water would not drown him nor fire burn him nor steel pierce him. At last his wife revealed the secret. On his head he had a hair as hard as a copper wire; and with this wire his life was bound up. So the hair was plucked out, and with it his spirit fled.[403]
The external soul in a Hausa story. The king whose life was in a box. The helpful animals.
A Hausa story from Northern Nigeria closely resembles some of the European tales which we have noticed; for it contains not only the incident of the external soul, but also the incident of the helpful animals, by whose assistance the hero is able to slay the Soulless King and obtain possession of the kingdom. The story runs thus. A certain man and his wife had four daughters born to them in succession, but [pg 149] every one of the baby girls mysteriously disappeared on the day when she was to be weaned; so the parents fell under the suspicion of having devoured them. Last of all there was born to them a son, who to avoid accidents was left to wean himself. One day, as he grew up, the son received a magic lotion from an old woman, who told him to rub his eyes with it. He did so, and immediately he saw a large house and entering it he found his eldest sister married to a bull. She bade him welcome and so did her husband the bull; and when he went away, the bull very kindly presented him with a lock of his hair as a keepsake. In like manner the lad discovered his other three sisters, who were living in wedlock with a ram, a dog, and a hawk respectively. All of them welcomed him and from the ram, the dog, and the hawk he received tokens of regard in the shape of hair or feathers. Then he returned home and told his parents of his adventure and how he had found his sisters alive and married. Next day he went to a far city, where he made love to the Queen and persuaded her to plot with him against the life of the King her husband. So she coaxed the King to shew his affection for her by “taking his own life, and joining it to hers.” The unsuspecting husband, as usual, fell into the trap set for him by his treacherous wife. He confided to her the secret of his life. “My life,” said he, “is behind the city, behind the city in a thicket. In this thicket there is a lake; in the lake is a rock; in the rock is a gazelle; in the gazelle is a dove; and in the dove is a small box.” The Queen divulged the secret to her lover, who kindled a fire behind the city and threw into it the hair and feathers which he had received from the friendly animals, his brothers-in-law. Immediately the animals themselves appeared and readily gave their help in the enterprise. The bull drank up the lake; the ram broke up the rock; the dog caught the gazelle; the hawk captured the dove. So the youth extracted the precious box from the dove and repaired to the palace, where he found the King already dead. His Majesty had been ailing from the moment when the young man left the city, and he grew steadily worse with every fresh success of the adventurer who was to supplant him. So the hero became King and married the false Queen; and his sisters' [pg 150] husbands were changed from animals into men and received subordinate posts in the government. The hero's parents, too, came to live in the city over which he reigned.[404]
The external soul in a South Nigerian story. The external soul in a story told by the Ba-Ronga of South Africa. The Clan of the Cat.
A West African story from Southern Nigeria relates how a king kept his soul in a little brown bird, which perched on a tall tree beside the gate of the palace. The king's life was so bound up with that of the bird that whoever should kill the bird would simultaneously kill the king and succeed to the kingdom. The secret was betrayed by the queen to her lover, who shot the bird with an arrow and thereby slew the king and ascended the vacant throne.[405] A tale told by the Ba-Ronga of South Africa sets forth how the lives of a whole family were contained in one cat. When a girl of the family, named Titishan, married a husband, she begged her parents to let her take the precious cat with her to her new home. But they refused, saying, “You know that our life is attached to it”; and they offered to give her an antelope or even an elephant instead of it. But nothing would satisfy her but the cat. So at last she carried it off with her and shut it up in a place where nobody saw it; even her husband knew nothing about it. One day, when she went to work in the fields, the cat escaped from its place of concealment, entered the hut, put on the warlike trappings of the husband, and danced and sang. Some children, attracted by the noise, discovered the cat at its antics, and when they expressed their astonishment, the animal only capered the more and insulted them besides. So they went to the owner and said, “There is somebody dancing in your house, and he insulted us.” “Hold your tongues,” said he, “I'll soon put a stop to your lies.” So he went and hid behind the door and peeped in, and there sure enough was the cat prancing about and singing. He fired at it, and the animal dropped down dead. At the same moment his wife fell to the ground in the field where she was at work; said she, “I have been killed at home.” But she had strength enough left to ask her husband to go with her to her parents' village, taking with him the [pg 151] dead cat wrapt up in a mat. All her relatives assembled, and bitterly they reproached her for having insisted on taking the animal with her to her husband's village. As soon as the mat was unrolled and they saw the dead cat, they all fell down lifeless one after the other. So the Clan of the Cat was destroyed; and the bereaved husband closed the gate of the village with a branch, and returned home, and told his friends how in killing the cat he had killed the whole clan, because their lives depended on the life of the cat. In another Ronga story the lives of a whole clan are attached to a buffalo, which a girl of the clan in like manner insists on taking with her.[406]
The external soul in stories told by the North American Indians. The ogress whose life was in a hemlock branch.
Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by the North American Indians. Thus in one Indian tale the hero pounds his enemy to pieces, but cannot kill him because his heart is not in his body. At last the champion learns that his foe's heart is in the sky, at the western side of the noonday sun; so he reaches up, seizes the heart, and crushes it, and straightway his enemy expires. In another Indian myth there figures a personage Winter whose song brings frost and snow, but his heart is hidden away at a distance. However, his foe finds the heart and burns it, and so the Snow-maker perishes.[407] A Pawnee story relates how a wounded warrior was carried off by bears, who healed him of his hurts. When the Indian was about to return to his village, the old he-bear said to him, “I shall look after you. I shall give you a part of myself. If I am killed, you shall be killed. If I grow old, you shall be old.” And the bear gave him a cap of bearskin, and at parting he put his arms round the Indian and hugged him, and put his mouth against the man's mouth and held the man's hands in his paws. The Indian who told the tale conjectured that when the man died, the old bear died also.[408] The Navajoes tell of a certain mythical being called “the Maiden that becomes a [pg 152] Bear,” who learned the art of turning herself into a bear from the prairie wolf. She was a great warrior and quite invulnerable; for when she went to war she took out her vital organs and hid them, so that no one could kill her; and when the battle was over she put the organs back in their places again.[409] The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia tell of an ogress, who could not be killed because her life was in a hemlock branch. A brave boy met her in the woods, smashed her head with a stone, scattered her brains, broke her bones, and threw them into the water. Then, thinking he had disposed of the ogress, he went into her house. There he saw a woman rooted to the floor, who warned him, saying, “Now do not stay long. I know that you have tried to kill the ogress. It is the fourth time that somebody has tried to kill her. She never dies; she has nearly come to life. There in that covered hemlock branch is her life. Go there, and as soon as you see her enter, shoot her life. Then she will be dead.” Hardly had she finished speaking when sure enough in came the ogress, singing as she walked:—
“I have the magical treasure,