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Romans spoke of the "shades." Closely allied is the
Egyptian conception of the ka, or "double," that accom-
panied the body during life as its exact counterpart. The
Andaman Islanders and some other equally low races
identify the immaterial part of man with the reflection
seen in still water, or with the image formed in the pupil
of another person's eye. The Australian bushmen regard
it as a sort of fog or smoke. Most primitive peoples
observed the fact that breathing ceases at death, and
therefore identified the vital principle with the breath.
In many languages the words for "spirit" denote pri-
marily "breath," or "wind," e.g., Skr., präna; Gr.,
pneuma, anemos; Lat., spiritus, anima; Germ. and Eng.,
Geist, ghost, which are etymologically connected with
gust.
b. b. The Continued Existence of the Disembodied
Soul. --Primitive man believed not only in the distinction
between soul and body but also in the ability of the soul
to survive the catastrophe of death. The Paleolithic
cave-dwellers of the Quarternary period in Belgium and
France were contemporary with the mammoth, the cave-
lion, and the cave-bear. Their skulls show that they were
nearer the apes than any existing race of man. They
were dressed in skins, and armed only with the rudest
undressed stone implements; yet they placed with their
dead ornaments, tools, arms, and food for use in the
other life, and celebrated funeral feasts in their honour.

The same was true of the cave-dwellers of the
Neolithic age. 1 They buried their dead in caves; or when
these were lacking, made dolmens, or box-like structures
of stone slabs to receive them. In the stone that covered
the entrance a small hole was drilled to allow the spirit
access to the tomb and egress from it. The corpse was
placed in the contracted position of an unborn child, with
its head resting upon its knees, thus perhaps expressing
the belief that death is birth into another life. In the

____________________
1 D'Alviella, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 14-19.

-2-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in Antiquity. Contributors: Lewis Bayles Paton - author. Publisher: Macmillan. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1921. Page Number: 2.
    
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