"
The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the departed soul wander
over a gloomy marsh ere it can discover the ladder leading to the world
below, where are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a land of
luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and covered with corn. To that land,
say they, sink all lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do
not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and ripen their
fruit.[241-1]
After four days, once more, in the superstitions of the Greenland
Eskimos, does the soul, for that term after death confined in the body,
at last break from its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance
in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant land beneath the
earth, according to the manner of death.[241-2]
That there are logical contradictions in this belief and these
ceremonies, that the fire is always in the same spot, that the weapons
and utensils are not carried away by the departed, and that the food
placed for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true.
Pages:
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396