[145-1] The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional
custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan as that of Michabo,
the Great Hare, should not rot in the ground as common folks, but rise
to the heavens on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua seemed to
think it the sole path to immortality, holding that only such as offered
themselves on the pyre of their chieftain would escape annihilation at
death;[145-2] and the tribes of upper California were persuaded that
such as were not burned at death were liable to be transformed into the
lower orders of brutes.[145-3] Strangely, enough, we thus find a sort of
baptism by fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave.
Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force of fire as life. This is
that which exists between the sensation of warmth and those passions
whose physiological end is the perpetuation of the species. We see how
native it is to the mind from such coarse expressions as "hot lust," "to
burn," "to be in heat," "stews," and the like, figures not of the
poetic, but the vulgar tongue.
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