Morning journal and courier., 1882-02-07
The Butterfly Spirit.

The Butterfly Spirit.
Prom the ST. James GAzette.I
It is matter of common knowledge that
the Buddhists deny the existence of soul or
spiritual principle in man The faculty
which performs all the actions refe~~@@ by
other religions to the soul is by the Buddhist
system placed in sixth sense called Aansw,
the heart or faculty Of knowing. All this Is
duly explained to the Burmgn when he Is In
the Monastery school Unfortunately, how
ever, the matter is, to say the least. little
obscure and not by any means easily to be
grasped. Accordingly. the superstitious Bur
man having got a confused lot of big words
into his head, after letting them simmer
there for while, evolved from his internal
consciousness the notion of the Deypbys or
butterfly spirit. The error of the urphilo-
sophical Burman long ago has grown into
a present national belief, and it is
universally accepted that the life
of man resides in the Leypbya and
dies when it disappears. The man at the
point of death opens his mouth and the but
terfy escapes from his body, but only to die
explained by this doctrine. For example,
the Leypbys is the cause of dreams. Il is
not necessary that the butterfly should re-
main constantly in the body; death VIII not
necessarily ensue from the separation
When the man is asleep, therefore, it leaves
the body and roams about far and wide.
But in these wanderings it can only go 70.
such places as the person to whom it belongs
has previously been in A strsyfng from
known paths would cause extreme dsnge= to
the sleeping body, for it might happen that
the butterfly would lose its way and never
return, and the body would die-the
body because the animating principle was
gone, the Leypbya because 1t had no
earthly tenement to live in. The butterfly is
c,ohle1 70 Adaca
its existence as Thway Sent, or soul of the
blood, and it is the state of this blood which
makes the Leypbys more or less inclined to
roam, and which directs its movements. II
the blood is feverish or excited in any way
the butterfly necessarily becomes restless
and wanders about more or less rapidly and
into more or less strange places, according to
the degree of perturbation Therefore il
happens that the soul thus existing In itself
and straying or flying at random sees ex-
tremely strange and fantastic visions on these
voyages.
These night wanderings of the butterfly
spirit are not without their dangers. In ad-
dition to other hob-goblins and specters,
Burmah is especially plagued by evil spirits
called Beeloos-creatures in human guise
who deyour men. If they will eat the cor
porate man, there is small doubt what viii
happen to the fragile butterfly spirit should
it come across such an ogre. Cases do hap
pen when the Leypbys is gulped down and
then the man has slept his last sleep More
often, however, it is only case of Deypbya
Ian; the soul is scared, and, In its horror,
sometimes runs into unknown regions, from
which it is unable to retrsce It's
steps, when, of course it dies, and with il
the owner; or it rush . home to its bodily
dwelling place with such precipita-
ton that the whole system j. sdisorEapized.
and sickness follows. This butterfly theory,
therefore, offers grand field for quack doe
tors, of whom there are very large number
in Burmah. When q man falls III they dose
him with all the drugs and simples they have
in their little bamboo walls. II he does not
get better then there can be only one opinion
the Leypbya has had its system shaken by
some horrid sight; or perhaps it is being
kept in durance vile by some TRseht some
demon lin the sense of the Greek daimon),
or by Sohn, a wizard. In this case no
bodily medicine can be of any use, we're il
even that celebrated nostrum, the green
powder, which contains leo different in
gradients. witch doctor must be called IN,
and he resorts to- the Deypbya HkAE. Of
ferings are laid outside the house. or
perhaps outside the village, at night-heaps
of cooked rice, bananas, salt fish and other
eatables and the malevolent being. whether
ehostly Taseht or material witch, is begged
to eat this rice instead of the butterfly spirit
and to let il freq Few are hardy enough to
watch and see what happens but the few
who have done so agreed with me in the dis
covery that the demon appears in the shape
of a pariah dog, which does not differ from
other pariah dogs in spirit, inasmuch as it
win run away if you throw stones at it.
Taseht is greedy, eats offerings, Leypbya
and all, and kills the man. Perhaps ii Is sp-
peased. Then the butterfly spirit returns
safe to its owner again and convalescence sets
in Beeloos are never successfully negotiated
with In this way; they are too vorscious-
They occasionally appear in broad daylight
upon earth but may always be recognized.
since they have red eyes and cast no shadow.
A particularly difficult operation is TO sepa-
rate two Leypbyas that were intimately united
In life This is especially the case when
mother has died leaving a little infant II
the Leypbya Kwe IS not resorted to, the but
terhy of the little one will follow the mother
and the child will die. 4 wise woman is
tras. and then places looking glass on the
floor near the corpse. Still murmuring, but
with more and more rapid ResticulRtion, she
drops ilmy shred of cotton down on the
face of the mirror, and with frenzied words
entreats the dead mother not to retain the
infant soul, but let il come back to its earthly
tenement. The heecy down slowly descends
the mirror face and falls of into the handker-
chief she holds below and is then gently
placed by her on the breast of the child.
similar ceremony is occasionally gone through
when husband or wife is more than usually
overcome by the death of the yoke-feIlow.
The Leypbya idea is the cause of the great
unwillingness all Burmans have to wake
sleeping man. 1t is obvious from the above
explanation of the character of the Leypbya
that it would be very injurious to rouse =
man suddenly from his slumbers His but
terfy might be wandering far away from tbe
body and would not have time to hurry back
to its tenement. Then the man would GER
tainly fall sick, or at any rate would be in
disposed for short time. Consequently, it
is useless to tell Burman servant to wake
you at certain hour. He viii come IN at
the appointed time and look wistfully at you,
and wish something would fall down and
make noise; but he himself viii tread as
softly as house-breaker, and viii not even
have the heart to instigate somebody outside
to make a noise.
"whom God Hath Joined
lAugustA Moore in the Evangelist
took up daily paper one day and saw
nspafaar Aivorraa in I {nol ~, onnkhar