Stealing Souls in China

In Traditional Chinese thinking the human soul has a precarious existence, being vulnerable to theft as well as loss. Each person is believed to have two souls: the po soul, which rules physical functions, and the hun soul, which rules the mind and heart. The sun soul may sometimes detach itself from the body, usually when a person is asleep or entranced. If it cannot return to the body, the person can become sick, go mad or die. The roaming hun soul may also be snatched by demons or spectres, who extract its vital essence. Evil humans can also steal it, usually through charms and spells, and through paper cut-offs of human figures called manikins.

                In 1768 a wave of soul stealing swept over eastern central China. Beggars and monks were accused of clipping hair from men’s pigtails in order to graft their souls onto manikins. The men would fall ill and die, while it was believed that the manikins were brought to life by being sprinkled with human blood and then used to rob others of their possessions. In the province of Zhejiang an uncle even tried to steal the souls of his nephews. He has copied their names onto some scraps of paper and asked a workman to hammer these onto the pilings of a bridge under repair. But the workman reported him to the authorities, and for attempted soul stealing the uncle received 25 strokes.

                Six years before this incident, according to Chinese records of the time, a beggar monk was convicted of sorcery for stealing souls near Nanjing. And 60 years before that it was said that 11 baby girls died in Zhejiang when their vital bodily essence was sucked from them. The authorities found a 70-year-old man guilty of this horrifying crime and sentenced him to death by slow slicing.

                The beggars and monks were finally exonerated of the charges of should stealing. Yet even this could not quell and age-old fear buried deep in the hearts of the people.