The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-04-25
WEST AFRICAN FOURFoLD SOULS
Strange Beliefs of the Natives De-
scribed by Miss Kingsley.

scribed by Miss Kingsley.
From the London Spectator.
Miss Mary Kingsley seemed to affirm
with seriousness that not a few of the ne
gro and Bantu tribes of West Africa be-
lieve in the composite nature of the hu-
man soul; that they most of them accept
one soul which survives death, and also
some other subsidiary souls which do not
survive it; that many of the negro tribes
suppose that each man or woman has also
a bush SOUL" which is a ghost-lke ami
NAL with taste for ranging out freely
in the bush, and which may be trapped
ana kept in cage, to the great discom-
fort of the true proprietor; that, again,
not only low negroes, but Bantus, believe
in dream soul, which also flies abroad
when the owner is sleeping, and if he is
awakened too suddenly may not be able
to get back home in time for his awaken
ing, whence again many evils result: and
further, that there is a shadow soul which
may be seriously injured if any one treads
on the shadow. Miss Kingsley even re-
4ateS that she saw woman who had a
hatred for a certain man stealthily creep
behind him to where his shadow was fall
ing on the earth, and hammer a great
darning needle into the shadow of his
head intending thereby to bring about
death. The West African tribes think the
bush soul is the animal part of them,
which, when it is relieved of the superin-
tendence of its human intelligence, enjoys
its freedom in the bush like the animals
to which they retain so close an affinity;
that when they dream there is some part
of them that can leave the body and play
fantastic tricks among their neighbors;
and, again, that there is a life in the
shadow which accompanies every one dur
Ing the day time-which life is closely
linked to the life which survives the body.
Such creeds as these are. we suppose, the
frst rude efforts at something like abb
straction.
Even the most cultivated men
win speak of another as think
ing certain things with his legal
mind" or with his commercial mind" or
with his medical mlnd,'' or with some
other professional mind, all of these be-
ing distinguished from the human mind
of the ordinary impulses and affections.
Indeed, 1t is more or less true that there
is often kind of separateness between
the professional life of a man and his
more natural human life. He thinks one
thing with his legal or his medical or his
commercial or his political mind, and
quite another thing with his domestic or
practical mind, and the two things are
not seldom in conflict The only differ
ence in that respect between us and the
West African races is that we never inn
agine that the legal or political mind can
fly off from the domestic or practical mind
and take separate excursion on its own
account.
The four separate souls of the West At
rican creed are not at all hypothesis need
ed for evidences of change of character,
but rather explanations of the normal
phases of character In average men and
women Every man has life in the bush
which, with its risks and pleasures. Is
quite distinct from domestic life; and
every man has a life in dreamland which
Is full OF grotesque and marvellous Incl
dents that are quite beyond the experience
of his waking life. AS to the imaginary
shadow life, that is a mere consequence
of the observed likeness and unlikeness of
the shadow to the body itself, with its
apparently capricious Iengthening and
shortening that suggests something arbi-
trary about II in spite of the close tie
which is never severed so long as the
shadow is visible at all. The most unique
point In this strange creed Is the belief
In the absolute separability OF these four
phases of ordinary life, so that each can
take independent excursions of it's own,
so long as IL comes back again at the
proper time to give the others the meeting
That suggests to US that these West At
rican races feel a much greater looseness
In their mental structure, a much greater
tendency to decompose or break up into
mental or moral fragments than CIVILIZED
man Is conscious OF.