AMONG the Ibo and other Delta tribes the belief in the exist-
ence of the human soul is universal. To them it is an active
principle that is awake and about when the body is asleep.
Further, it appears as a something indefinite and indefinable,
an invisible yet to some extent tangible essence apart from,
and of different texture to the material body, which leaves the
latter during sleep, or for good at dissolution, and returns for
disposal to the Creator, who, as such, also as master and owner
of all that He creates, has the first claim on every soul.

In reality, to these natural people the terms " soul " and
" spirit " are synonymous, in spite of the fact that they have a
separate word for each " Nkpulobe " for the former, and " Moa
Moa" for the latter; for although they recognise a differ-
ence between the two, it is merely a difference without a
distinction. This difference is best defined by the position
occupied, being the soul when confined in the human body,
and the spirit when at large, or when confined to an object or
an organism outside the human, the actual texture of the
essence being the same, irrespective of its situation. The
meaning attached to the word is, in fact, that of the living or
life-giving essence, i.e. the essence which not only gives but
which is life, and which also gives a man that intelligence and
reason which raises Mm above the brutes.