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. Here she dwelt alone, undergoing 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.'

The last story of an external soul which I shall notice comes from Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, which we have visited more than once in the course of this book. 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."

§4.-The external soul in folk-custom

Thus the idea that the soul may be deposited for a longer or shorter time in some place of security outside the body, or at all events in the hair, is found It remains to show in the popular tales of many races. that the idea is not a mere figment devised to adorn a tale, but is a real article of primitive faith, which has given rise to a corresponding set of customs.

We have seen that in the tales the hero, as a preparation for battle, sometimes removes his soul from his body, in order that his body may be invulnerable and immortal in the combat. With a like intention the savage removes his soul from his body on various occasions of real or imaginary danger. Thus we have seen that among the Minahassa of Celebes, when a family moves into a new house, a priest collects the souls of the whole family in a bag, and afterwards restores them to their owners, because the moment of entering a new house is supposed to be fraught with supernatural danger. In Southern Celebes when a woman is brought to bed the messenger who fetches the doctor or the midwife always carries with him a piece of iron, which he delivers to the doctor. The doctor must keep it in his house till the confinement is over, when he gives it back, receiving a fixed sum of money for doing so. The piece of iron represents the woman's soul, which at this critical time is believed to be safer out of her body than in it. Hence the doctor must take great care of

1 Above, vol. i. p. 134.

the piece of iron; for if it were lost, the woman's soul would assuredly, it is supposed, be lost with it.'

Again, we have seen that in folk-tales a man's soul or strength is sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboina used to think that their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were shorn. A criminal under torture in a Dutch Court of that island persisted in denying his guilt till his hair was cut off, when he immediately confessed. One man who was tried for murder endured without flinching the utmost ingenuity of his torturers till he saw the surgeon standing with a pair of shears. On asking what this was for, and being told that it was to cut his hair, he begged they would not do it, and made a clean breast. In subsequent cases, when torture failed to wring a confession from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities made a practice of cutting off his hair. In Ceram it is still believed that if young people have their hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby." In Zacynthus people think that the whole strength of the ancient Greeks resided in three hairs on their breasts, and vanished whenever these hairs were cut; but if the hairs were allowed to grow again, their strength returned.*

Again, we have seen that in folk-tales the life of a person is sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person. Similarly

among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the

IV

Gaboon, when two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind and dance round them. The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with the life of one of the trees; and if the tree dies or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will soon die. In the Cameroons, also, the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree. Some of the Papuans unite the life of a new-born child sympathetically with that of a tree by driving a pebble into the bark of the tree. This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child's life; if the tree is cut down, the child will die. After a birth the Maoris used to bury the navel-string in a sacred place and plant a young sapling over it. As the tree grew, it was a tohu oranga or sign of life for the child; if it flourished, the child would prosper; if it withered and died, the parents augured the worst for their child. In Southern Celebes, when a child is born, a cocoa-nut is planted, and is watered with the water in which the after-birth and navel-string have been washed. As it grows up, the tree is called the "contemporary" of the child." So in Bali a cocoapalm is planted at the birth of a child. It is believed to grow up equally with the child, and is called its "life-plant." On certain occasions the Dyaks of Borneo plant a palm-tree, which is believed to be at complete index of their fate. If it flourishes, they reckon on good fortune; but if it withers or dies, they