, and the
shadows of death are brilliant lights for the stars." 18

13 Squier, Serpent Symbol in America, p. 13.

14 Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, book v. ch. 7.

15 Book ii. ch. 7.

16 Clavigero, History of Mexico, book vi. sect. 1.

17 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. ch. 6.

18 Ibid. sect. 39.

Amidst the mass of whimsical conceptions entering into the faith
of the widely spread tribes of North America, we find a ruling
agreement in the cardinal features of their thought concerning a
future state of existence. In common with nearly all barbarous
nations, they felt great fear of apparitions. The Sioux were in
the habit of addressing the deceased at his burial, and imploring
him to stay in his own place and not come to distress them. Their
funeral customs, too, from one extremity of the continent to the
other, were very much alike. Those who have reported their
opinions to us, from the earliest Jesuit missionaries to the
latest investigators of their mental characteristics, concur in
ascribing to them a deep trust in a life to come, a cheerful view
of its conditions, and a remarkable freedom from the dread of
dying. Charlevoix says, "The best established opinion among the
natives is the immortality of the soul." On the basis of an
account written by William Penn, Pope composed the famous passage
in his "Essay on Man:"

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind.
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way:
Yet simple nature to his faith hath given,
Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heaven,
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Or happier island in the watery waste.
To be, contents his natural desire:
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire,
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."

Their rude instinctive belief in the soul's survival, and surmises
as to its destiny, are implied in their funeral rites, which, as
already stated, were, with some exceptions, strikingly similar
even in the remotest tribes.19

In the bark coffin, with a dead Indian the Onondagas buried a
kettle of provisions, a pair of moccasins, a piece of deer skin
and sinews of the deer to sew patches on the moccasins, which it
was supposed the deceased would wear out on his journey. They also
furnished him with a bow and arrows, a tomahawk and knife, to
procure game with to l