Thomas Dyer - The Ghost World

It is still a common belief with our seafaring community on the east coast of England, that the soul takes its departure during the falling of the tide. Everyone remembers the famous scene in ‘David Copperfield,’ where Barkis’s life ‘goes out with the tide.’ As Mr. Peggotty explained to David Copperfield by poor Barkis’s bedside, ‘People can’t die along the coast except when the tide’s pretty nigh out. He’s a-going out with the tide – he’s a-going out with the tide. It’s ebb at half arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns he’ll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide.’ In the parish register of Heslidon, near Hartlepool, the subjoined extract of old date alludes to the state of the tide at the time of death: ‘The xith daye of Maye, A.D. 1595, at vi of ye clocke in the morninge, being full water, Mr. Henrye Mitford, of Hoolam, died at Newcastel, and was buried the xvi daie, being Sondaie. At evening prayer, the hired preacher made ye sermon.’ Mrs. Quickly in ‘Henry V.’ (ii. 3) speaking of Falstaff’s death says: ‘’A made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; ‘a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide.’ In Brittany, death claims its victim at ebb of the tide, and along the New England coast it is said a sick man cannot die until the ebb-tide begins to run. It has been suggested that there may be some slight foundation for this belief in the change of temperature which takes place on the change of tide, and which may act on the flickering spark of life, extinguishing it as the ebbing sea recedes.

Many of the conceptions of the human soul formed by savage races arose from the phenomena of everyday life. According to one of the most popular dream theories prevalent among the lower races, the sleeper’s soul takes its exit during the hours of slumber, entering into a thousand pursuits. Now, as it is well known by experience ‘that men’s bodies do not go on these excursions, the explanation is that every man’s living self, a soul, is his phantom or image, which can go out of his body and see, and be seen itself, in dreams.’ 24 24 Tylor’s Anthropology , 1881, p. 343. In the opinion of the savage, therefore, dreams have always afforded a convincing proof of the soul’s separate existence, and Dr. Tylor considers that ‘nothing but dreams and visions could ever have put into men’s minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of bodies.’

Thus the Dayaks of Borneo believe that in the hours of sleep the soul travels far away, and the Fijians think that the spirit of a living man during sleep can leave the body and trouble some one else. But Mr. E. im Thurn, in his ‘Indians of Guiana’ (344-346), gives some very striking instances of this strange phase of superstitious belief: ‘One morning, when it was important to me to get away from a camp on the Essequibo River, at which I had been detained for some days by the illness of some of my Indian companions, I found that one of the invalids, a young Macusi Indian, though better in health, was so enraged against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, with great want of consideration for his weak health, I had taken him out during the night, and had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts. Nothing could persuade him that this was but a dream, and it was some time before he was so far pacified as to throw himself sulkily into the bottom of the canoe. At that time we were all suffering from a great scarcity of food, and, hunger having its usual effect in producing vivid dreams, similar events frequently occurred. More than once the men declared in the morning that some absent men whom they named had come during the night, and had beaten, or otherwise maltreated them; and they insisted on much rubbing of the bruised parts of their bodies.’ 25 25 See further instances in Tylor’s Primitive Culture , i. pp. 440, 441.

Another evidence in savage culture of the soul’s having its own individuality, independently of the body, is the fact that a person through some accident may suddenly fall into a swoon, remaining to all outward appearance dead. When such a one, however, revives and is restored to consciousness, the savage is wont to exclaim that he died for a time until his soul was induced to return.

Hence Mr. Williams informs us 26 26 Fiji and the Fijians , i. p. 242. how the Fijians believe, when anyone dies or faints, that the soul may sometimes be brought back by calling after it; and in China, when a child is at the point of death, the mother will go into the garden and call its name, thinking thereby to bring back the wandering spirit. On this account divination and sorcery are extensively employed, and certain ‘wise men’ profess to have a knowledge of the mystic art of invoking souls that for some reason or other may have deserted their earthly tenement. 27 27 See Sir John Lubbock’s Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man , 1870, p. 141.

The Rev. W. W. Gill, in his ‘Myths and Songs from the South Pacific’ (171-172), gives a curious instance of the wandering of the soul during life. ‘At Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, it was the custom formerly, when a person was very ill, to send for a man whose employment it was to restore souls to forsaken bodies. The soul doctor would at once collect his friends and assistants, to the number of twenty men, and as many women, and start off to the place where the family of the sick man was accustomed to bury their dead. Upon arriving there, the soul doctor and his male companions commenced playing the nasal flutes with which they had come provided, in order to entice back the spirit to its old tenement. The women assisted by a low whistling, supposed to be irresistibly attractive to exile spirits. After a time the entire procession proceeded towards the dwelling of a sick person, flutes playing and the women whistling all the time, leading back the truant spirit. To prevent its possible escape, with their palms open, they seemingly drove it along with gentle violence and coaxing. On entering the dwelling of the patient, the vagrant spirit was ordered in loud tones at once to enter the body of the sick man.’

In the same way, too, according to a popular superstition among rude tribes, some favoured persons are supposed to have the faculty of sending forth their own souls on distant journeys, and of acquiring, by this means, information for their fellow creatures. Thus the Australian doctor undergoes his initiation by such a journey, and those who are not equally gifted by nature subject themselves to various ordeals, so as to possess the supposed faculty of releasing their souls for a time from the body. From this curious phase of superstition have arisen a host of legendary stories, survivals of which are not confined to uncivilised communities, but are found among the folk-tales of most countries. Mr. Baring Gould, 28 28 Werewolves , p. 29. for instance, quotes a Scandinavian story in which the Norse Chief Ingimund shut up three Finns in a hut for three nights so that their souls might make an expedition to Iceland, and bring back information of the nature of the country where he was eventually to settle. Accordingly their bodies soon became rigid, they dismissed their souls on the errand, and on awakening after three days, they gave Ingimund an elaborate description of the country in question. We may compare this phase of belief with that which is commonly known in this country as second sight. 29 29 See Chapter on Second Sight.

Among the Hervey Islanders, Mr. Gill says: ‘The philosophy of sneezing is that the spirit having gone travelling about – perchance on a visit to the homes or burying-places of its ancestors – its return to the body is naturally attended with some difficulty and excitement, occasionally a tingling and enlivening sensation all over the body. Hence the various customary remarks addressed to the returned spirit in different islands. At Rarotonga, when a person sneezes, the bystanders exclaim, as though addressing a spirit, “Ha! you have come back.”’