ny
you have seen, will signify to you whether I am right or
not. Remember that if these people have this ceremonial in
connection with the treatment of disease, they will also have
it in the treatment of the weather, etc., when "diseased,"
so to say. You have opened up a new significance of many
outlines among the older lava-remains, and if my record
of these in turn has helped to explain your diagram, etc.,
you can judge of my pleasure and appreciation."

Chapter XX

The Tarahumare's Firm Belief in a Future Life--Causes of
Death--The Dead are Mischievous and Want Their Families to Join
Them--Therefore the Dead Have to be Kept Away by Fair Means or
Foul--Three Feasts and a Chase--Burial Customs--A Funeral Sermon.

The idea of immortality is so strong with the Tarahumares that death
means to them only a change of form. They certainly believe in a future
life, but they are afraid of the dead, and think that they want to
harm the survivors. This fear is caused by the supposition that the
dead are lonely, and long for the company of their relatives. The dead
also make people ill, that they too may die and join the departed. When
a man dies in spite of all efforts of the shamans to save his life,
the people say that those who have gone before have called him or
carried him off. The deceased are also supposed to retain their love
for the good things they left behind in this world, and to be trying
every way to get at them. So strong is the feeling that the departed
still owns whatever property he once possessed, that he is thought to
be jealous of his heirs who now enjoy its possession. He may not let
them sleep at night, but makes them sit up by the fire and talk. To
soothe his discontent, tesvino and all kinds of food are given him,
because he needs the same things he needed here. In the course of
the year several ceremonies are performed, by which he is actually
chased off, and the survivors constantly take precautions against
his return to bother them.

Sometimes the dead are sent by sorcerers to harm people and make them
ill, but generally they come of their own accord. They enter the house
at night and drink the tesvino and eat the food prepared for a feast,
and what they cannot eat they spoil. To protect the beer against such
mischief the people place bows and arrows next the jars, and cover
the vessels with sprigs of the odorous artemisia. The dead will al