+38+. The mysterious character of death, the final departure of the soul from the body, called forth in savage communities feelings of awe and dread. As death, in the savage view, was due to the intervention of a supernatural agency, the dead body and everything connected with it partook of the sacredness that attached to the supernatural.[65] Hence, probably, many of the customs relating to the treatment of corpses--taboos that survived into comparatively late times.[66] The Old Testament ritual term 'unclean' is used of corpses and other things that it was unlawful to touch, things taboo, and in this sense is equivalent to 'sacred.'[67]
+39+. In the preceding section only the general fact of the existence of the soul is considered. We find, however, a widespread belief among savage and half-civilized peoples that every human body is inhabited by several souls (two or more).[68] Thus, the Fijians, the Algonkins, and the Karens recognize two souls; the Malagasy, the Dahomi, and the Ashanti three; the Congoans three or four, the Chinese three, the Dakotas four, the Malays (of the peninsula) seven; and this list is not exhaustive.[69] To these various souls different procedures and functions are assigned.
+40+. In general, as to place and function during the man's life, the following classes of souls are distinguished: the vital soul, or the principle of life, whose departure leaves the man insensible or dead (Malagasy _aina_, Karen _kalah_, Eẃe 'ghost-soul'); the dream-soul, which wanders while the man is asleep (probably a universal conception in early stages of culture); the shadow-soul, which accompanies him by day (also, probably, universal); the reflection-soul (similar to the preceding); the beast-soul, or bush-soul, incarnate in a beast (among the Congoans, the Eẃe, the Tshi, the Khonds), with which may be compared the Egyptian view that revenant souls and Underworld shadows may assume the form of animals, and the Hindu metempsychosis. A particular responsible moral soul is also reported (among the Karens),[70] but it is doubtful whether this is native; and still more doubtful are the Karen 'reason' (_tsō_) and the Khond beatified soul.[71]
+41+. In regard to procedure after the man's death, it is generally held in early stages of culture that one soul stays with the body, or at the tomb, or in the village, or becomes air, while another departs to the land of the dead (Fijians, Algonkins, and others), or is reborn (Khonds), and in some cases a soul is said to vanish.[72]