SOUL

SOUL is the spiritual essence of a person, a special immaterial immortal power that lives in a person’s body (sometimes in the bodies of animals, plants). It leaves him when he dies or sleeps and appears again after a person dies in other material shape, according to religious be­ liefs. It is an independent substance (see Animism); it inhabits a baby’s body in his mother’s womb at the 4th month of the baby’s develop­ ment (the S. were considered to be sitting and waiting for their turn to have a body). It was believed that person who died in an accident could be revived if people show his S. the way to come back into the body, for example, they could stretch a rope or a ribbon from the mouth of a drowned person to the water. The S. of a dead person remains with the relatives for 40 days and then leaves them and visits only on Fridays. Bashkirs believed that the S. of the an­ cestors protect their descendants, it was impor­ tant to hold special rites to receive their favor (see Cults). It was also believed that the S. of a dead person could move into another body. The S. of a person who died in an accident, or of a person buried without special rites held, wan­ ders in the shape of a ghost (albasty, myaskay, ubyr, uryak). After the adoption of Islam, beliefs about the S. remained in burial rituals.

The Bashkir language has paremiyas that re­ flect the ideas about a S.: “yen alkymga kileu” (to be in bad condition), “yen atyu” (to look for­ ward with all your heart), “yen rekhete” (about a blessed feeling), “kara yen” (about a cruel person) etc. There are ideas about S. in mythology of many peoples.

F.G. Khisamitdinova