and till I die I shall walk with the French; had it not been for
them I should have gone with my brother, and all the roads would
have been covered with dead bodies."

Improbable as this account may appear, it has nevertheless been credited
by some of the wisest and most careful of ethnological writers, and its
seeming appearance of romance disappears when the remembrance of similar
ceremonies among Old World peoples comes to our minds.

An apparently well-authenticated case of attempted burial sacrifice is
described by Miss A. J. Allen,[94] and refers to the Wascopums, of
Oregon.

At length, by meaning looks and gestures rather than words, it was
found that the chief had determined that the deceased boy's friend,
who had been his companion in hunting the rabbit, snaring the
pheasant, and fishing in the streams, was to be his companion to the
spirit land; his son should not be deprived of his associate in the
strange world to which he had gone; that associate should perish by
the hand of his father, and be conveyed with him to the dead-house.
This receptacle was built on a long, black rock in the center of the
Columbia River, around which, being so near the falls, the current
was amazingly rapid. It was thirty feet in length, and perhaps half
that in breadth, completely enclosed and sodded except at one end,
where was a narrow aperture just sufficient to carry a corpse
through. The council overruled, and little George, instead of being
slain, was conveyed living to the dead-house about sunset. The dead
were piled on each side, leaving a narrow aisle between, and on one
of these was placed the deceased boy; and, bound tightly till the
purple, quivering flesh puffed above the strong bark cords, that he
might die very soon, the living was placed by his side, his face to
his till the very lips met, and extending along limb to limb and
foot to foot, and nestled down into his couch of rottenness, to
impede his breathing as far as possible and smother his cries.

Bancroft[95] states that--

The slaves sacrificed at the graves by the Aztecs and Tarascos were
selected from various trades and professions, and took with them the
most cherished articles of the master and the implements of their
trade wherewith to supply his wants--

while among certain of the Central American tribe death was voluntary,
wives, attendants, slaves, friends, and relations sacrificing themselv