Note 261 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man (continued 3)

The explanation of this ceremony is that the shadow is supposed in some way to embody or at least represent the soul. Thus the female reapers of the first ripe padi are specially enjoined to reap in a straight line facing the sun, so that their shadow may not fall upon the rice-soul in the basket at their sides (vide pp. 242–244, supra). No doubt the speaker’s shadow-soul is expected to fetch the woman’s body-soul, and the beating of the shadow-soul is perhaps purely ceremonial, to drive away evil influences from it, before it starts on its journey, but this latter suggestion is merely conjectural. The first line of the charm, however, in which the speaker addresses his shadow by name (Irupi) as he strikes it with the cane, points out most clearly the connection between the body-soul (or puppet-soul) and the shadow-soul, to which I have referred. The coverlet or white cloth is no doubt the soul-cloth, into which the woman’s soul is expected to enter when it arrives. ↑