So the Eskimo of the
distant north, in the long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky
with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, believes he sees the
spirits of his ancestors clothed in celestial raiment, disporting
themselves in the absence of the sun, and calls the phenomenon _the
dance of the dead_.
The home of the sun was the heaven of the red man; but to this joyous
abode not every one without distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could
gain admittance. The conditions were as various as the national
temperaments. As the fierce gods of the Northmen would admit no soul to
the banquets of Walhalla but such as had met the "spear-death" in the
bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those who feebly
breathed their last in the "straw death" on the couch of sickness, so
the warlike Aztec race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who
died in their beds went downward and to naught; but of those who fell
in battle for their country to the east, "to the place whence comes the
sun.
Pages:
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402