The strongest analogies to these myths are offered by the superstitious
rites of distant tribes. Some of the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the
death of a relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix them
with their food, a nauseous practice they defended by asserting that the
soul of the dead remained in the bones and lived again in the
living.[259-1] Even the lower animals were supposed to follow the same
law. Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original manners
were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in
the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They
were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes
that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if
the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and
the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among
that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient
extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that
unless this was done the fish and game would disappear from the
country.
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