>So do you think it might
>mess with the actual body
>positioning a bit when Smokey
>"inhabits" another body?

No idea. Maybe that's it. Smokey isn't lighfooted! Or, maybe the boar or the polar bear came in the cave? Maybe a wave? I don't get the fixation on a detail.

It's like the fabric issue and the 50 year comment: When you involve time travel, anything is possible. The centuries that have elapsed on our world could have been only 50 years of island time.

>I still don't understand if it
>was Smokey in MIB's body,
>why Smokey would tell Richard
>later on that Jacob "stole
>his body." Smokey would have
>stolen MIB's body. Maybe I'm
>being obtuse.

The quote, if I remember correctly was: "Jacob stole my humanity." Anyway, it could have been a lie to convince Richard to kill Jacob or Smokey meant that Jacob drew him out of the cave where there was the light. Maybe "humanity" was the only way Smokey could make an 19th century uneducated man like Richard understand that he meant his essence.

Have you read my post below?