civilized animist, expressed as both may be in Milton's familiar lines:—
'Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.'[1]
As with souls, so with other spirits, man's most distinct and direct intercourse is had where they become actually present to his senses in dreams and visions. The belief that such phantoms are real and personal spirits, suggested and maintained as it is by the direct evidence of the senses of sight, touch, and hearing, is naturally an opinion usual in savage philosophy, and indeed elsewhere, long and obstinately resisting the attacks of the later scientific doctrine. The demon Koin strives to throttle the dreaming Australian;[2] the evil 'na' crouches on the stomach of the Karen;[3] the North American Indian, gorged with feasting, is visited by nocturnal spirits;[4] the Caribs, subject to hideous dreams, often woke declaring that the demon Maboya had beaten them in their sleep, and they could still feel the pain.[5] These demons are the very elves and nightmares that to this day in benighted districts of Europe ride and throttle the snoring peasant, and whose names, not forgotten among the educated, have only made the transition from belief to jest.[6] A not less distinct product of the savage animistic theory of dreams as real visits from personal spiritual beings, lasted on without a shift or break into the belief of mediæval Christendom. This is the doctrine of the incubi and succubi, those male and female nocturnal demons which consort sexually with men and women. We may set out
- ↑ Ellis, 'Polyn. Res.' vol. i. p. 331.
- ↑ Backhouse, 'Australia,' p. 555; Grey, 'Australia,' vol. ii. p. 337.
- ↑ Mason, ' Karens,' l.c. p. 211.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part iii. p. 226.
- ↑ Rochefort, 'Antilles,' p. 419.
- ↑ Grimm, 'D. M.' p. 1193; Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 332; St. Clair and Brophy, 'Bulgaria,' p. 59; Wuttke, 'Volksaberglaube,' p. 122; Bastian, 'Psychologie,' p. 103; Brand, vol. iii. p. 279. The mare in nightmare means spirit, elf, or nymph; compare Anglo-Sax. wudumære (wood-mare)=echo.
