point. A West African native expressed his belief in the form of the
general proposition, "The dead must die"; that is, apparently, the dead
man must submit to the universal law to which the living are
subject.[82] In another African community some held and others denied
that a spirit could be killed, and one man was certain that spirits
lived long, but was not certain whether they ever died.[83] Differences
of opinion in regard to the fact of immortality are said to exist in
Banks Islands.[84] The Eskimos are reported as holding that the soul may
be destroyed, and then, however, repaired.[85]

+47+. It thus appears that even among low tribes there is speculation on
the question of the continuance of existence after earthly death; there
is admission of ignorance. We have, however, examples of a definite
belief in annihilation. In some cases, when the theory of several souls
is held,[86] one of these souls is supposed to become extinct at death:
this is the case with the Malagasy _saina_, and the 'beast-soul' among
the E['w]e, Tshi, and Congoans; but such a soul represents only a part
of the man, and its disappearance does not signify the extinction of the
man's personality.

+48+. Complete extinction of the soul and the personality, in the case
of certain persons, is found among the Fijians: in the long and
difficult way to the Underworld, bachelors (as a rule), untattooed
women, false boasters, and those men who failed to overcome in combat
the "slayer of souls" (the god Sama) are killed and eaten.[87] Something
like this is reported of the Hervey Islands,[88] New Zealand,[89] the
Hawaiians,[90] and other tribes. Among the wild tribes of India, the
Khonds and the Oraons, or Dhangars, hold to annihilation of the soul in
certain cases.[91] Miss Kingsley reports a specially interesting view in
Congo to the effect that souls die when the family dies out.[92] The
ground of this sense of the solidarity of the living and the dead is
not clear; the most obvious explanation is that the latter get their
sustenance from the offerings of the former, and perhaps from their
prayers; such prayers, according to W. Ellis,[93] are made in Polynesia.
This belief appears also in some advanced peoples: so the Egyptians,[94]
and apparently the Hindus.[95]

+49+. In these cases no explanation is offered of how a soul can die.
Earthly death is the separation of the soul from the body, and by
analogy the death of a soul should involve a di