. Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ... sist the spirit in preparing its repast. Stephen Powers* gives a tradition current among the Yurok of Cali-fornia as to the use of fires: After death they keep a fire burning certain nights in the vicinity of the hold an 1 believe, at least the Big Indians do, that the spirits of the departedare compelled to cross an extremely attenuated greasy pole, which bridges over thechasm of the debatable land, and that they require the fire to light them on theirdarksome journey. A righteous soul tr
. Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ... sist the spirit in preparing its repast. Stephen Powers* gives a tradition current among the Yurok of Cali-fornia as to the use of fires: After death they keep a fire burning certain nights in the vicinity of the hold an 1 believe, at least the Big Indians do, that the spirits of the departedare compelled to cross an extremely attenuated greasy pole, which bridges over thechasm of the debatable land, and that they require the fire to light them on theirdarksome journey. A righteous soul traverses the pole quicker than a wicked one,hence they regulate the number of nights for burning a light according to the charac-ter for goodness or the opposite which the deceased possessed in this world. Dr. Emil Bessels, of the Polaris expedition, informs the writer that asomewhat similar belief obtains among the Esquimaux. Figure 47 is a fair illustration of a grave-fire; it also shows one ofthe grave-posts mentioned in a previous section. *Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. ii., p. ( ? , BURIAL SUPERSTITIONS—CHIPPEWAS. 199 SUPERSTITIONS. An entire volume might well be written which should embrace onlyan account of the superstitious regarding death and burial amoug theIndians, so thoroughly has the matter been examined and discussed byvarious authors, and yet so much still remains to be commented on, butin this work, which is mainly tentative, and is hoped will be provoca-tive of future efforts, it is deemed sufficient to give only a few first is by Dr. W. Mathews, United States Army,* and relates tothe Hidatsa: When a Hidatsa dies, his shado lingers four nights around the camp or village inwhich he died, and then goes to the lodge of his departed kindred in the village ofthe dead. When ho has arrived there ho is rewarded for his valor, self-denial, andamhition on earth by receiving the same regard in the one place as in the other, for thereas here the br
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