by w. h. r. rivers, ll.d., d.sc., f.r.s.
(Read before the Society, 19th November, 1919.)The work of Tylor, Bastian, Frazer, and many others has acquainted us with the widespread belief that man possesses more than one soul, that his behaviour is governed by more than one agency of a spiritual kind which to the rude intelligence explains the thoughts and actions of mankind as well as the mysteries of sleep, disease and death. The records which travellers have given us concerning these souls and their supposed properties, however, have been vague and scanty. As a rule we know little more than the fact that many peoples believe in a multiplicity of souls.
The Dutch ethnographers in Indonesia, and especially A. C. Kruijt, form a gratifying exception to this rule. They have collected a number of instances of native ideas concerning the spiritual nature of man. Among these ideas there stands out prominently one closely connected with man’s vitality. Kruijt calls this animating principle Zielestof, or “soul-substance,” but it is doubtful whether this term is the best that could be found. Most Indonesian peoples have the idea that this “soul-substance” resides in the living body and leaves it at death, when another
- ↑ See art. “Indonesians,” Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, vol. vii., p. 232; also A. C. Knight, Het Animism in den indischen Archipel. Gravenhage, 1906. I am indebted to Mr. W. J. Perry for much help in describing the Indonesian beliefs.
