and Japanese beliefs just given seem to indicate the existence of an idea that the corpse which has been touched by a cat becomes something in a way resembling the vampire of European folk-lore—indeed, de Groot speaks of the dead body becoming "a dangerous vampire." We see that the corpse walks just as if the person had died "with a bad conscience," and that it attempts to kill other persons.[1]
It is natural, in view of what we have learned concerning the magical applications of brooms, to conjecture that the broom is probably employed for the laying of a reanimated corpse because of some belief in a power it possesses for subduing and expelling supernatural beings, because the reanimation of the body seems to be ascribed to its occupation by such a being—whether the latter be a cat's or other animal's spirit or (as de Groot, loc. cit., says the Chinese believe) the dead person's own spirit brought back by a "soul-recalling hair" in the cat's tail. But even if we leave aside the rationalistic view that its length, its soft end (which will not injure the revered body), and the facility with which it can be obtained in case of need, cause the broom to be an implement peculiarly suitable for laying a corpse, two further explanations of its use, or factors in such explanations, are suggested to us, as possible ones, by the Chinese account. Of these, one is that the broom serves as some kind of substitute for the human being whom the corpse is about to attack, and colour is lent to this suggestion by the employments of brooms, in Japanese guest-removing and other majinai, as representatives of human beings. The other is that the corpse, or its animating spirit, is compelled to count the pieces forming the brush before it can cause injury
- ↑ In China it is believed, also, that a corpse may become reanimated if a pregnant female animal passes over it, and that it then "will rise up and pursue those nearest to it, and if it overtakes anyone, strangle him" (N. B. Dennys, The Folk-Lore of China, p. 20).
