The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1884-11-20
Dreams and Dreamer,

Dreams are in the main referred bv
the savage either to the entrance into
him Of some outside spirit as among the
Feejeeans, who believe that the spirit
lof living man will leave the body to
trouble sleeping folk-or to the real
dolngs OF himself. When the Green
lander dreams of hunting, or fishing, or
courtlng, he believes that the soul quits
the body; the Dyaks of Borneo think
that during sleep the soul sometimes
remains in the body or travels far away,
heing endowed, whether present or alb
sent, with conditions which in walking
moments are lacking. Wherever we
find 3 low state of mental development,
the like belief exists. In MIR. Thurnims
elaborate work on the Indians of Guiana
we have corroborative evidence the
more valuable because of it's freshness.
He tells us that the dreams which come
to the Indian are to him as real as any
of the events of his waking life. To
him dream acts and waking acts differ
only in one respect, namely, that the for
mer are done only by the spirit, the lat.
ter ore done by the spirit in it's body.
Seeing other men asleep and afterward
hearing from them the things which
they suppose themselves to have done
when asleep, the Indian has no difficult
ty in reconoiling that which he hears
with the fact that the bodies of the
sleepers were IN his sight ard motion
less throughout the time of supposed
action, because he never questions that
the spirits, leaving the sleepers, played
their part in dream adventures.
In the Scandinavian Vatnsdela Saga
there is curious account OF three Firms
who were shut up in hut three nights,
and ordered by Ingimund, a Norwegian
chief, to visit Iceland and inform him of
the line of the country where he was to
settle. Their bodies became rigid, and
they sent their sons on their GRAND,
and on their awaking, at the end of
three days, gave an accurate account of
the Vatnsdal, in which lngimund ulti-
mately dwelt. No wonder that in med
iaeval times, when witches swept the air
and harried the cattle, swooning and
other forms of insenslbility were 3D.
duced in support of the theory of soul
absence, or that we find among savages
AS the Tejads of the Luzon islands
objections to waking sleeper, lest the
soul happens to be out of the body. A.
. corollary to this belief in soul alb.
sence, fear arises lest it be prolongedtc
the peril of the owner, and hence
rough-and-lead theory of the cause OF
disease is framed, for savages rarely
die in their beds. That disease
is q arrangement of functions, in.
terrupting their natural action, and car
rying attendant pain as its indication,
could not enter the head of the uncivil-
lied; and, indeed, among ourselves .
cold or fever is commonly thought of as
IN entity in the body which has stolen
in, and, having been caught. must be
somehow expelled. With the universal
primitive belief in spiritual agencies
everywhere inhaled with the breath or
swallowed with the food or drink, all
diseases were regarded Is their work,
whether, % remarked above, through
undue absence Of the rightful spirit or
subtle entrance of some hostile one.
II these be the causes to which sickness
e are due, obviously the only cure is to
at rid Of them, and hence the sorcerer
.. ~edicine.man And their services
p ~ w. -. casting out tho demon by
M rsa9 a. sn M IN Ry cajolery, or 10
bringing baek tke tIae!ss 49,