TRANSMIGRATION, or the passing from one place, state, or condition into another, means, in the theological acceptation of the term, the supposed transition of the soul after death into another substance or body than that which it occupied before. The belief in such a transition is one of the most important phases in the religious of man kind. It was common to the most uncivilized and the most civilized nations of the earth; it was the object of fantastical superstition, as well as that of philosophical specu lation, and it is the property of both ancient and modern times. Its basis being the assumption that the human soul does not perish together with the body, it could belong to those nations only which had already conceived an idea of the immortality of the soul; but in proportion as such an idea is crude or developed, as it is founded merely on a vague fear of death, and a craving for material life, or on ethical grounds, and a supposed casual connection between this and a future life, the belief in transmigration assumes various forms, and influences more or less the actions of men.
The lowest forms of this belief are probably those met with among several tribes of Africa and America, which hold that the soul, immediately after death, must look out for a new owner, and, if need be, cuter even the body of an animal. Several negro tribes entertain this belief; they assume that the soul will choose with predilection the body of a person of similar rank' to that of its former owner, or a near relation of his; and they frequently therefore bury their dead near the houses of their relatives, in order to enable the souls of the former to occupy the newly-born children of the latter, and the princely souls to re-enter the princely family; and until the soul is thus accommodated, milk, brandy, and food are placed on the grave of the deceased, to keep it, as it were, from starving; and sometimes holes are dug in the grave to facilitate the soul's egress from it. In North America some tribes slaughter their captives to feed with their blood such souls in suspense. The negro widows of Matamba are especially afraid of the souls of their husbands, for at the death of these they immediately throw themselves into the water, to drown their husbands' souls, which otherwise, as they suppose, would cling to them. The natives of Madagascar seem to have invented a kind of artificial
transmigration, for in the hut where a man about to die, they make a hole in the roof, in order to catch the outgoing soul, and to breathe it into the body of another man on the point of death. From these and instances of a similar kind, it will be seen that nations which entertain such a belief in transmigration, assume that the souls of the deceased must continue to dwell upon earth, and that one human being may be possessed of several souls. With them, the final destination of the soul is a matter of comparative indifference; its transition from one body into another a mere matter of chance, devoid —apparently, at least—of any ethical principle, and therefore without any moral effect on the living, except, perhaps, that of a stolid indifference to death, as often manifested in the plantations of the West Indies, where negroes hang themselves, in the belief that their souls will migrate into other countries, and there enjoy a happier life.
Another, more poetical, and in some respect also, more ideal form of this belief in transmigration, is that which occurs in Germanic mythology, and is still entertained in some parts of Germany and England. According to it, the soul, before entering its divine abode, assumes certain forms, or animates certain objects, in which it lives for a short period. Thus, it is supposed to enter some flower or tree, a rose, a vine, a plan tain, a pine-tree; or to animate a butterfly, a pigeon, and sometimes also—if a person dies while enchanted or sleeping—a serpent, a weasel, or a mouse. The most popular form of these supposed transmigrations, however, is that of a pigeon, a representation of which bird, therefore, often occurs on the oldest tombstones. When the robber Madej, for instance, under an apple-tree confessed his crimes, one apple after another, trans formed into a white pigeon, flew into the air. They were the souls of the persons mur dered by him; only one apple remained, because he had not yet confessed the murder of his father; but when he did so, the last apple also—the soul of his father—assuming the shape of a gray pigeon, flew after the rest.