[349] These holes in the heavy mould of the forest are caused by subsidences. The Indians do not understand how they came to be, and explain the fact by asserting they are the work of devils.
[350] Among the Kuretu the soul is believed to hover near the body for one day after death, and then to flit away, and finally to retire to a beautiful house at the source of a mysterious river.
[351] Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 52.
[352] im Thurn, p. 343. Cf. also Skeat, Pagan Malay, p. 47.
[353] See Simson, p. 175; Orton, p. 170.
[354] Cf. Spencer and Gillen, p. 498.
[355] This is so frequently the case among primitive peoples as hardly to need amplifying. It is very general among the Indian races. See André, p. 16; im Thurn, pp. 158, 220.
The Algonquin hold that the mention of a man’s name offends his personal deity (H. R. Schoolcraft, Oneota, pp. 331, 456; Indian Tribes of the U.S. ii. 65). Australian natives only mention secret names in a whisper (Spencer and Gillen, p. 139). See also note on names in Chap. XI.
[356] This belief is also held by the Dyaks. “Their theory is that during sleep the soul can hear, see, and understand, so what is dreamt is really what the soul sees. When any one dreams of a distant land, they believe that his soul has paid a flying visit to that land” (E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, p. 161). Howitt writes of the South Australian native: “While his body lies motionless, his spirit goes out of him on its wanderings” (Howitt, pp. 410-11). See also Seligmann, p. 191.
[357] im Thurn, pp. 329, 343.