Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/815

Rh corporeal man; (2) his soul, the vehicle of independent personal existence, which, at the death of the body, survives and continues its career in the land of spirits; (3) his spiritual body, which Dr. Matthews terms his "third element." The Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast—that is, the Ashantis, Fantis, Wassaws, Gamans, and several other tribes—believe similarly in three entities: (1) The corporeal man; (2) his soul, or ghost; (3) the indwelling spirit of the living man, which they term his kra.

Now, though the kra has frequently been confounded with the soul or ghost, it is essentially distinct. The soul or ghost only comes into being when the corporeal man ceases to exist, and so may be considered to be the latter deprived of his material body; but the kra, the Tshi-speaking negro believes, existed independently before the birth of the man, and after his death will continue to exist equally independently of the soul or ghost. A kra may have, and almost always has, been a kra in the bodies of other men since deceased, and, at the death of the individual whose body he is now tenanting, will seek to enter the body of some new-born human being. Failing this, it enters the body of an animal, and, if unable to enter the body either of a human being or of an animal, it becomes a sisa, a kra without a tenement, and wanders about the earth, causing sickness to mankind. The ghost or soul which, at the death of the corporeal man, proceeds to Dead-land, and there continues the former vocations of the man, and for whose service in Dead-land slaves and wives are sacrificed, and arms, implements, and clothing buried with the corpse, is the vehicle of individual personal existence, the true soul; and the kra, whose connection with the man commences with the birth and terminates at his death, is something quite different.

The difference between the kra and the soul is also well shown by the different results which ensue when they quit the body. The kra can and does quit the body at will. Usually it does so only during the sleep of the man, who is unconscious of its departure, and its adventures are the occurrences of which the man dreams. If it should leave while the man is awake, the latter is only made conscious of it, if at all, by a yawn, a sneeze, a shudder, or some such slight convulsion, which indicates to him that his kra is going out. In any case, whether sleeping or waking, he suffers no pain, feels no inconvenience, and is subject to no apparent change consequent on the departure of his kra. The absence of the kra is, however, dangerous, as it affords an opportunity for a sisa, or kra without a tenement, to enter the vacant body, for which the insisa are believed to be always on the lookout. The man is not conscious of the entry of the sisa, and nothing happens until the kra returns and attempts to eject the intruder, when the effect of the internal struggle is to throw the man into