Motif
illness or death caused by absence of the soul
illness_or_death_caused_by_absence_of_the_soul
A motif of the Soul Loss and Restoration family. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.
1 occurrences
1 traditions
comparative
-
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2) CHAPTER I. THE KING OF THE WOOD. / MACAULAY. / CHAPTER II. THE PERILS OF THE SOUL. / HEINE.; lines 3423-3497 confidence: high
Salish or Flathead example: souls may leave without immediate death; a medicine-man learns the names in a dream, receives soul tokens through a roof hole with feathers, lights a fire, sorts dead from living souls, and restores each soul through the head into the heart.
The passage repeatedly states that failure to restore a lost or captured soul results in death, pining, or sickness, and that a person may be ill or speechless because spirits have caught the soul.
read in the book →