THE GRAVE FIRES
Ojibwa
A SMALL war party of Ojibwas fought, long ago, with enemies on an open plain. Then their chief was shot by an arrow in his breast as he rode after the retreating enemy. When his warriors found their chief dead, they placed him, sitting, with his back against a tree. They left him there with his bow and arrows.
But the chief was not dead. He saw the warriors leave him and he ran after them as they rode the homeward trail. He followed closely in their trail. He slept in their camp, yet they did not see him.
When the war party reached their own village, they sang the song of victory, yet they sent up the death wail for those who were killed. The women and children came out. The chief heard his warriors tell of his death. He said, “No, I am not dead,” but they did not hear him.
Then the chief went to his own wigwam. His wife was weeping, and wailing for his death. “I am here,” he said, but she did not hear him. “I am hungry,” he said. She made no answer. Only she raised again the death wail.
Then the chief thought. Perhaps only his spirit had returned. Perhaps his body was yet on the field of battle. So he followed the trail back to the battle field. It was a four days’ journey. For three days he saw no one as he journeyed. The fourth day, on the edge of the plain, he saw a fire in his trail. He walked to one side and the other; the fire moved also and always burned before him. Then he turned in another direction. The fire was again in his trail. Then he sprang suddenly, and jumped through the flame.
At once he awoke. He was sitting on the ground, with his back against a tree. Over his head in the branches sat a large war eagle. Now Eagle was his guardian, because he had come to him in his fasting vision in his youth.
Then the wounded chief arose. He followed the trail of the war party to his village. Four days he followed the homeward trail. He came to a stream which flowed between him and his wigwam, therefore he gave the whoop which means the return of an absent friend. Then the Indians began to think. They said, “No one is absent. Perhaps it is an enemy.” So they sent over a canoe with armed men. Thus the chief landed among his own people.
Then the chief gave them instructions. He said it was pleasing to a spirit to have a fire burning at the grave for four days after the body was buried. This was because it is four days’ journey on the death trail to the Ghost-land; so the spirit needed a fire at his camping place every evening.
Also he said the spirit needed his bow and arrow, his best robes, in his journey. Therefore the Ojibwas burn a fire four nights at a new grave, that the spirit may be happy in following the Trail of the Dead to the Spirit-land.[16]
[16] Thus they buried Minnehaha.
And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,
For her soul upon its journey
To the Islands of the Blessed.
From his doorway Hiawatha
Saw it burning in the forest,
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;
From his sleepless bed uprising,
From the bed of Minnehaha,
Stood and watched it at the doorway,
That it might not be extinguished,
Might not leave her in the darkness.
—Hiawatha