in the double nature of existence after death and the two souls of the ancient Egyptian.
Before doing so I propose to inquire whether this is any evidence that the concept which Mr. Perry believes to have been introduced into Indonesia has travelled further afield. If we go eastwards from Indonesia we come to two regions, Melanesia and Polynesia, which have so much in common with Indonesia in general culture, as well as in language, that their close relation is now widely accepted.
Moreover, it is held that this community of language and culture is largely due to migrations in which people have passed from Indonesia eastwards, and it is therefore an obvious and legitimate problem to inquire what evidence there is for the presence of concepts in Polynesia and Melanesia similar to that of the Indonesian soul-substance. I propose first to seek for such evidence in Melanesia and in the island of New Guinea, which lies in the path of any travellers from Indonesia to Melanesia.
From one people of New Guinea we have an account of ideas agreeing very closely with those current in Indonesia. This comes from the Kai, a people of lowly culture and speaking a Papuan language, who live inland, but not far from the east coast of New Guinea. The account is given by a missionary, Ch. Keysser,[1] who was evidently acquainted with the work of the Dutch ethnographers, for he has adopted their term Zielestof in the German form “Seelstoff.” He tells us that the Kai believe in two distinct spiritual entities or principles which he calls “soul” and “soul-substance” respectively, but he does not give their native names. The “soul” leaves the body at death to become the ghost, but has its own soul-substance, through which it becomes liable to vicissitudes, including its death, similar to those of its sojourn on earth. The “soul-substance,” on the other hand, penetrates every living being and every object
- ↑ In Deutsch Neu-Guinea, by R. Neuhauss. Berlin, vol. iii. (1911), p. 111.
