And, finally, it might explain why the lime-branch which is hung up in the mosquito-curtain (in another form of soul-abduction[76]) is required to possess seven fruits on a single stalk, i.e. to ensure there being a separate receptacle for each one of the seven souls.
At the present day the ordinary Malay talks usually of only a single soul, although he still keeps up the old phraseology in his charms and charm-books. For the rest, it would appear that there may be some method in the selection and arrangement of colours.
The “lump of earth from the victim’s footprint” used in one form of the soul-abduction ceremony[77] is to be wrapped up in three thicknesses of cloth, which must be red, black, and yellow respectively, the yellow being outside. Again (in the ceremony of casting out “the mischief” from a sick man), a white cosmetic is assigned for use in the morning, a red cosmetic for mid-day, and black for sundown.[78]
Now in all, I believe, of what are now called the Federated Malay States, and probably in all Malay States whatsoever, yellow is the colour used by royalty, whereas the more exalted and sacred colour, white (with occasional lapses into yellow), has been adopted by Malay medicine-men as the colour most likely to conciliate the spirits and demons with whom they have to deal. Thus the soul-cloth, which, by the way, is always five cubits long (lima hasta), is sometimes white and (much more rarely) yellow, and hence in the first instance just quoted, the yellow cloth, being, next to white, of the colour which is most complimentary to the demons, is the one which is put outside; and in the second instance, for similar reasons, the white cosmetic is to be used first.
The working out of this system, however, must await fresh evidence, and all I would do now is to emphasise the importance of colour in such investigations, and to urge the collection of fresh material.[79]
(d) Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Souls
Hitherto I have treated of human souls only, but animal, mineral, and vegetable souls will now be briefly discussed. Speaking generally, I believe the soul to be, within certain limits, conceived as a diminutive but exact counterpart of its own embodiment, so that an Animal-soul would be like an animal, a Bird-soul like a bird; however, lower in the scale of creation it would appear that the Tree- or Ore-souls, for instance, are supposed, occasionally at least, to assume the shape of some animal or bird. Thus the soul of Eagle-wood is thought to take the shape of a bird, the soul of Tin-ore that of a buffalo, the Gold-soul that of a deer.[80] It has, however, always been recognised that the soul may enter other bodies besides its own, or even bodies of a different kind to its own, and hence these may be only apparent exceptions to the rule that the soul should be the counterpart of its own embodiment.[81]
“Among races within the limits of savagery, the general doctrine of souls is found worked out with remarkable breadth and consistency. The souls of animals are recognised by a natural extension from the theory of human souls; the souls of trees and plants follow in some vague, partial way, and the souls of inanimate objects expand the general category to its extremest boundary.”[82]
To the Malay who has arrived at the idea of a generally animated Nature, but has not yet learned to draw scientific distinctions, there appears nothing remarkable or unnatural in the idea of vegetation-souls, or even in that of mineral-souls—rather would he consider us Europeans illogical and inconsistent were he told that we allowed the possession of souls to one half of the creation and denied it to the other.