Not only do the Indians hold that a man’s soul leaves his body at death, but, further, they believe that it may do so during life for a limited period. We have examples in sleep, they argue, when the spirit is out of the body and wanders about; for in dreams, they say, the soul passes through the mouth and has adventures in the outer world.[356] Dreams are, in fact, a portion of the man’s real life. His spirit has ventured forth and actually gone through the experience his fancy paints. They realise, therefore, that individuality is not in the body itself, but in the spirit that inhabits the body. So if a man dreams he will not hesitate to declare that he has done what he dreamed he was doing.
This is an example of involuntary disembodiment, differing only from actual death in that it is of temporary duration. The soul has gone quietly, and will return. But if the soul make a violent effort to escape that apparently entails fatal consequences, for the Indians declare when anybody sneezes it is the soul attempting to leave the body and so cause death.
Voluntary disembodiment is believed to be possible in certain favoured cases.[357] This power is said to be possessed by the medicine-man. He may free his spirit for magical purposes, to fight unseen enemies on better terms, or for the pursuit of some nefarious end. He may either remain disembodied and invisible, or lurk for a time in the form of some animal or object, a tree, a stone—where stones exist—or even in the wind, the rain, or the river. The layman Indian, though perfectly aware that he cannot of his own accord and free-will loose his own soul from its fleshy trappings to adventure in some foreign sort, is quite willing to believe that other more fortunate mortals can accomplish a feat to him so impossible.[358] No alternative explanation offers to his mind to elucidate sundry mysterious happenings.
Quite distinct from these disembodied spirits are the extra-mundane spirits, good and bad, that visit this world and benefit or plague its inhabitants. These may invade all natural objects, and, especially those evilly disposed, will work unceasingly as agents for the supreme powers to whom they owe allegiance. The bad spirits haunt the darkness, they lurk in the recesses of the woods, find a habitation in deep waters, and ride to destruction on the floods. Danger from them threatens the Indian at every turn. He can only be protected by the counter-magic of his medicine-man. For fear of possible mischief at their malicious hands no Indian will bathe at night unless supported by the presence of companions. If he lose his way in the forest it is due to their machinations;[359] and all that goes amiss in this by no means best-of-all-possible worlds is at least in part engineered by them, either at the suggestion of an enemy, or from their own innate badness of heart.
Sickness again is a concrete entity. The Indian knows not the microbe of science, but he recognises the existence of a definitely hostile and active enemy in the presence of disease. It is a spirit that wanders about, and at the instigation of an enemy attacks individuals or tribes. The attack is an actual invasion. Illness is due to the presence in the flesh of the sick person of a foreign and inimical body.[360]
Before a thunderstorm the Indian believes that the air is full of spirits, and the medicine-man is requisitioned literally “to clear the atmosphere.” Thunder is the noise of evil spirits making a turmoil and fuss; whilst, according to Bates, any inexplicable noises are made by another of this destructive band, Curupira, the wild spirit of the woods.[361] Thunder probably means that an enemy is sending sickness to destroy the tribe. Therefore if a man is ill a flash of lightning is quite sufficient to kill him through sheer fright and shock.
These extra-mundane spirits may be said to be the spirits of particularised evils, just as the Taife, the Navena, the Jurupari, is the supreme spirit of all evil.[362]
With the final division of the spirit world is enwrapped the total philosophy, the innermost meanings, in fact both the whole and the origin of the Indian magico-religious system. As men have souls—so truly felt in all—what is more natural than that animals who move and breathe, who live and die, who in many respects are more powerful, more clever than men, should be assigned souls also by the Indian’s primitive reasoning. I say soul deliberately, for Indian metaphysicians do not differentiate between soul and spirit—they are one and indivisible, the miniature self that may be seen in the pupil of a living eye but has vanished from the eye of the dead. The question of souls other than human is to the Indian too obvious to need elucidation; it admits, indeed, of no argument. There is a degree of belief in a spirit, “a transcendental x,”[363] in all objects, even those that are inanimate. What lives and grows must have a spirit. What can interfere with, or affect man in any way must possess some occult influence, some mysterious personality, that works for or against him, especially if that object be in any degree unfamiliar or abnormal in appearance. All these things, vegetable growths, rocks, are to the Indian as we have repeatedly seen, active agents in the scheme of things, and as such must also possess the intangible ego, the spiritual essence, that is the soul of all earthly forms. Evidence as to animistic beliefs among the Indians is universal and overwhelming. A point of interest to the psychologist comes in with the problem whether the belief that undoubtedly exists is a belief in a duality of spirits in one envelop, or whether, when the supernatural spirit, or the disembodied spirit of a man, is transmitted into extra-human forms, it being the stronger can oust the natural spirit of the animal or object which is entered, and if so what becomes of the finally evicted spirit. On this point I have unfortunately no information to adduce.
While these beliefs are in the main general among all the language-groups of the Issa-Japura regions, those of the Boro-speaking tribes are the most intricate. They have more definite notions of the spirit-world, a greater range of theories as to the powers and extent of supernatural phenomena. They fear the local devils more, take greater care to appease them and to avoid rousing their hostility. This is the natural result of the increased isolation secured by the Boro tribes. They have been influenced less by the outer world than the Witoto, for example. Both Boro and Andoke tribes invariably keep aloof so far as may be from any stranger.
Two of the forest denizens, the jaguar and the anaconda, occupy outstanding positions in this connection with spirits and magic to all the other beasts of the wild. Any animal may be utilised by a spirit as a temporary abiding-place, but the “tiger” and the great water-snake independently of such spiritual possession are magical beasts. Tales gather round them; differential treatment is their portion. As regards the jaguar this may be due to the fact that it is seldom seen, and therefore the more mysterious in its evil doings. It is also a dangerous beast, bold and fearless, and to be dreaded for this if for no other reason. But the anaconda is no such aggressive enemy of man. Yet, though the Indian is an omnivorous eater, he will never kill either the tiger or the anaconda for food.[364]