This ocean stream is the water which all have to attempt
to pass, and woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented
either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of Hecate, seizes and
overcomes. In the lush fancy of the Orient, the spirit of the waters
becomes the spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and
those who fail in the passage the damned, who are foredoomed to evil
deeds and endless torture.
No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned the myth by the red
race before they were taught by Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only
find that the souls of suicides and those killed in war were supposed to
live apart from the others; "but as to the souls of scoundrels," he
adds, "so far from being shut out, they are the welcome guests, though
for that matter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total
desert, as Huron and scoundrel (_Huron et larron_) are one and the
same."[250-1] When the Minnetarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of
the La Plata the Jesuits,[250-2] that the souls of the bad fell into the
waters and were swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable either
to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruction.
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