ABSTRACT
The term tama is often translated into Western languages as ‘soul’, ‘spirit’ or other equivalent words. An investigation into its use and meanings, however, reveals that this translation, if it is not qualified, is inadequate. Tama is a far more complex concept than the Judeo-Christian ‘soul’, and whenever we translate it as ‘soul,’ we must account for the differences between the two. This essay is meant to be a modest contribution towards defining tama by taking into account the nature of the sources we use in our investigation and the context in which it appears in them.
