Page:West African Studies.djvu/256

 deal only with what the African regards as merely one class of spirits—an important class truly, but above it there are at least two more important classes, while beneath it in grade there are, I think, about eleven, and equal to it, but differing in nature, several classes—I don't exactly know how many. This class of spirits is the human soul—the Kla of the true Negro, the Manu of the Bantu. These human souls are also of different grades, for one sort is believed to be existent before birth, as well as during life and after death, while other classes are not. There is more interesting stuff here, but I am determined to stick to my main point now—the medical. Well, the number of souls possessed by each individual we call a human being is usually held to be four—(1) the soul that survives, (2) the soul that lives in an animal away wild in the bush, (3) the shadow cast by the body, (4) the soul that acts in dreams. I believe that the more profound black thinkers hold that these last-named souls are only functions of the true soul, but from the witch doctor's point of view there are four, and he acts on this opinion when doctoring the diseases that afflict these souls of a man.

The dream-soul is the cause of woes unnumbered to our African friend, and the thing that most frequently converts him into that desirable state, from a witch doctor's point of view of a patient. It is this way. The dream-soul is, to put it very mildly, a silly flighty thing. Off it goes when its owner is taking a nap, and gets so taken up with sky-larking, fighting, or gossiping with other dream-souls that sometimes it does not come home to its owner when he is waking up. So, if any one has to wake a man up great care must always be taken that it is done softly—softly, namely gradually and quietly, so as to give the dream-soul