[236-1]
The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are said to have looked
forward to one going to a cold place, another to a warm and comfortable
country, while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a most
impartial distribution of rewards and punishments.[237-1] Some other
Dakota tribes shared their views on this point, but more commonly,
doubtless owing to the sacredness of the number, imagined _four_ souls,
with separate destinies, one to wander about the world, one to watch the
body, the third to hover around the village, and the highest to go to
the spirit land.[237-2] Even this number is multiplied by certain Oregon
tribes, who imagine one in every member; and by the Caribs of
Martinique, who, wherever they could detect a pulsation, located a
spirit, all subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the heart,
which alone would be transported to the skies at death.[237-3] For the
heart that so constantly sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is,
in most languages and most nations, regarded as the seat of life; and
when the priests of bloody religions tore out the heart of the victim
and offered it to the idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus
torn from the field of this world and consecrated to the rulers of the
next.
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