Soul dualism or multiple souls is a range of beliefs that a person has two or more kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions and the other one can leave the body. Sometimes the plethora of soul types can be even more complex. Sometimes, a shaman's "free soul" may be held to be able to undertake a spirit journey.
Examples
Austronesia
The belief in soul dualism found throughout most Austronesianshamanistic traditions. The reconstructed Proto-Austronesianword for the "body soul" is *nawa. It is located somewhere in the abdominal cavity, often in the liver or the heart. The "free soul" is located in the head. Its names are usually derived from Proto-Austronesian *qaNiCu, which also apply to other non-human nature spirits. The "free soul" is also referred to in names that literally mean "twin" or "double", from Proto-Austronesian *duSa. A virtuous person is said to be one whose souls are in harmony with each other, while an evil person is one whose souls are in conflict. The "free soul" is said to leave the body and journey to the spirit world during sleep, trance-like states, delirium, insanity, and death. The duality is also seen in the healing traditions of Austronesian shamans, where illnesses are regarded as a "soul loss" and thus to heal the sick, one must "return" the "free soul" into the body. If the "free soul" can not be returned, the afflicted person dies or goes permanently insane. In some ethnic groups, there can also be more than two souls. Like among the Tagbanwa people, where a person is said to have six souls - the "free soul" and five secondary souls with various functions.
China
Traditional Chinese culture differentiates two hun and pospirits or souls, which correlate with yang and yin respectively. Within this soul dualism, every human has both an etherealhun "spiritual soul; spirit; mood" that leaves the body after death and a substantive po "physical soul; spirit; vigor" that remains with the corpse. Chinese traditionsdiffer over the number of hun and po souls in a person, for example, Daoism has the sanhunqipo 三魂七魄 "three hun and seven po".
Kalbo Inuit groups believe that a person has more than one type of soul. One is associated with respiration, the other can accompany the body as a shadow. Soul concepts of different Inuit groups are diverse; they are not alike. In some cases, it is connected to shamanistic beliefs among the various Inuit groups. Also Caribou Inuit groups believed in several types of souls.
Ural
The concept of more kinds of souls can be found also at several Finno-Ugric peoples. See notion of shadow-soul, e.g. :hu:Íz |“íz” in Hungarianfolk beliefs. The concept of a dualistic shadow-soul called itse, related to the Hungarian conception, is also part of Finnish and general Baltic-Finnic folklore. The Estonian soul concept has been approached by several authors, some of them using rather complex frameworks.
