Commoro—"Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing."
"Do you not know that there is a spirit within you different from flesh? Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep? Nevertheless your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"
Commoro (laughing)—"Well, how do YOU account for it? It is a thing I cannot understand; it occurs to me every night."
"The mind is independent of the body. The actual body can be fettered, but the mind is uncontrollable. The body will die and will become dust or be eaten by vultures; but the spirit will exist forever."
Commoro—"Where will the spirit live?"
"Where does fire live? Cannot you produce a fire*
(* The natives always produce fire by rubbing two sticks
together.)
by rubbing two sticks together? Yet you SEE not the fire in the wood. Has not that fire, that lies harmless and unseen in the sticks, the power to consume the whole country? Which is the stronger, the small stick that first PRODUCES the fire, or the fire itself? So is the spirit the element within the body, as the element of fire exists in the stick, the element being superior to the substance."
Commoro—"Ha! Can you explain what we frequently see at night when lost in the wilderness? I have myself been lost, and wandering in the dark I have seen a distant fire; upon approaching the fire has vanished, and I have been unable to trace the cause, nor could I find the spot."
"Have you no idea of the existence of spirits superior to either man or beast? Have you no fear of evil except from bodily causes?"