Note 75 — Chapter XIII · The Symbolism of Jade
Reading edition
Professor Elliot Smith, reviewing the Chinese ideas regarding the two souls, comes to the conclusion that “the early Chinese conceptions of the soul and its functions are essentially identical with the Egyptian, and must have been derived from the same source”.75 As the Chinese have the shen and the Kwei, so had the Egyptians the Ka and the ba. The Ka was the spirit of the placenta, “which was accredited with the attributes of the life-giving and birth-promoting Great Mother and intimately related to the moon and the earliest totem”.76 In China the beliefs and customs connected with the placenta and the moon are quite Egyptian in character.77