§ 4 Extension of the Ghost Theory to Animals
Spirits, having once been conceived of as explaining the actions of men and surviving their bodily death, may by analogy be conceived to explain the action of any other things in circumstances that suggest a motive for the action, and therefore to possess or inhabit such things, and to be capable of separating from them, like ghosts. Other things are already, by Magic and Animatism, force-things, in some degree conscious, whose forces may be capable of acting invisibly at a distance; and at the death of a man it is his conscious force that leaves the body and becomes a ghost. Since, then, there is hardly any natural object whose action may not in some circumstances seem to be interpretable by motives, especially amongst a timid and suspicious people, how can we assign any necessary limits to the spread of Animism? Moreover, the causes most influential in establishing the ghost theory for man directly require its extension to other things. For not human beings only are seen in dreams, but also their clothes, weapons and utensils, and also animals, plants, localities. If, then, the dead, because they are seen in dreams, are inferred still to live under conditions in which they are not visible by daylight to ordinary men, how can the inference be avoided that all sorts of things, artefacts, animals, plants, localities, share in that mode of existence—that all have their doubles? And “Why not?” the savage might ask, since it is literally true of all things, without exception, that they are sometimes visible, sometimes invisible.188 Similar inferences seem to be justifiable from the alliance of ghosts with shadows and reflections, and the fact that not man only but everything else has a shadow and a reflection, and that their shadows and reflections disappear at night, just when the things themselves sometimes appear in dreams. Moreover, so far as the breath, the pulse, the shining of the eye, which cease in the human corpse, are sometimes identified with the departed spirit, the same processes likewise cease at the death of animals; though, it is true, there is here no analogy with inanimate things, and the breathing and circulation of plants are beyond the savage’s observation. Therefore, although Animism is an inferential construction, were the construction entirely due to the logic of analogy, there would be nothing surprising in the discovery that the belief “that everything has a ghost” is just as universal and uniform in the human race as if it had been an innate or primitive belief. That, on the contrary, Animism prevails very irregularly amongst the tribes of men; that, in all directions, inferences that are analogically specious fail to be drawn; that instead of a general system of Animism every tribe has its own Animism; this is surprising and needs to be explained. The extension of the theory is easier to understand than its irregular limitation.
Bearing in mind that we are at present considering Animism as a belief in ghosts, not in spirits generally (to which we shall come in Sec. 6), I venture to think that, although dreams, shadows and reflections certainly suggest a double existence of everything, yet savages never assign a true ghost to anything inanimate, nor to plants, nor even to animals, unless there is a special reason for doing so; because only in the case of human beings is the suggestion interesting enough to take hold of the social imagination. Hence, even though other things appear in the ghost-world, they have no significance there, except in relation to human ghosts (or ghostlike spirits) on whom they attend. Accordingly, human ghosts have a place in the beliefs of every tribe, because human beings excite affection, admiration and fear, have well-marked individuality; are therefore remembered and have stories told of them; and if they are seen after death, it is, of course, reported. The evidence makes it only too plain that the paralysis of attention by fear is the chief (though not the only) emotional factor of belief in ghosts; and what other thing in all nature is to be feared in comparison with one’s fellow-man?
The belief in ghosts, escaped and roaming independent of any normally visible body, as a social belief, is involved in the practice of reporting and discussing dreams, which becomes the same thing as telling ghost-stories—the first and most persistent motive of literature. Stories can only be told effectively of things generally interesting; and, at first, such things must have been recognisable by the hearers and must have had some individuality. Hence—
(a) Animals that attain to such individuality may have ghosts: (i) An animal that occasions widespread fear, such as a man-eating tiger. We must distinguish from such cases the frequent beliefs that tigers, wolves, sharks, snakes, etc., are, or are possessed by, the spirits or ghosts of men. (ii) An animal that comes to be upon terms of special intimacy with men; such as the very tame dogs and pigs that come when they are called among the Bakongo;189 or hunting dogs that have been specially doctored among the Baloki.190
(b) Animals slain at funeral feasts to accompany the dead have ghosts so far as necessary for that purpose; but, wanting individuality and personal interest, they make no further figure in ghost-lore; they do not “walk” or revisit the glimpses of the moon. Thus the Tanghouls say that ghosts, on reaching Kazairam (their Hades), find the gates barred against them by the deity Kokto; so at the burial feast of a rich man a buffalo is killed, that his mighty ghost may burst open the massive gates of that abode. Poor ghosts must wait about outside, till a rich one comes up with his buffalo; when they all rush in behind him.191 But we hear nothing further of the buffalo. In the Banks’ Islands, pigs killed at a funeral feast have no true ghosts to follow the dead to Panoi, but only a sort of wraith; because they only go for show, that their master may be well received there.192
(c) Animals that are important prey to a hunting tribe are often believed to have ghosts that may be hunted by dead tribesmen; or that must be propitiated when one of them is slain: the ghosts, for example, of seals and bears are bribed by the Esquimo to entice other seals and bears to come and be killed. A seal desires above everything, they say, a drink of fresh water; so as soon as one is brought ashore a dipperful is poured into his mouth; else the other seals will not allow themselves to be caught. The polar bear (male) desires crooked knives and bow-drills, or (female) women’s knives and needle-cases. Hence, when a bear is killed, its ghost accompanies its skin into the hunter’s hut; and the skin is hung up with the appropriate tools for four or five days. Then the bear-ghost is driven out by a magic formula, takes with it the souls of the tools, and reports well of the hunter in bear-soul land. Whilst in the hut, as an honoured guest, nothing is done that it dislikes in human customs.193
(d) In the development of mythology, animals and monsters of various kinds may be found inhabiting shadow-land; but these are not true ghosts of any particular things that once died in this world.
This list of the ways in which animals may come to have ghosts is not offered as exhausting all the cases.