'Ah seahb! shed-da bud-dah ah-ta-bud! ad-de-dah!
Ah chief my child dead! alas!'
When in dreams they see any of their deceased friends this lamentation is renewed."
Very beautiful and touching in the extreme is the conduct of the
Kabinapek of California:—
"A peculiarity of this tribe is the intense sorrow with which they mourn for their children when dead. Their grief is immeasurable. They not only burn up everything that the baby ever touched, but everything that they possess, so that they absolutely begin life over again—naked as they were born, without an article of property left" (519. 206).
Besides the custom of "feeding the spirits of the dead," just noticed, there exists also among certain of the Californian Indians the practice of "whispering a message into the ear of the dead." Mr. Powers has preserved for us the following most beautiful speech, which, he tells us, was whispered into the ear of a child by a woman of the Karok ere the first shovelful of earth was cast upon it (519. 34): "O, darling, my dear one, good-bye! Never more shall your little hands softly clasp these old withered cheeks, and your pretty feet shall print the moist earth around my cabin never more. You are going on a long journey in the spirit-land, and you must go alone, for none of us can go with you. Listen then to the words which I speak to you and heed them well, for I speak the truth. In the spirit-land there are two roads. One of them is a path of roses, and it leads to the Happy Western Land beyond the great water, where you shall see your dear mother. The other is a path strewn with thorns and briars, and leads, I know not whither, to an evil and dark land, full of deadly serpents, where you wander forever. O, dear child, choose you the path of roses, which leads to the Happy Western Land, a fair and sunny land, beautiful as the morning. And may the great Kareya [the Christ of these aborigines] help you to walk in it to the end, for your little tender feet must walk alone. O, darling, my dear one, good-bye!"
This whispering to the dead is found in other parts of the world. Mr. Hose, describing the funeral of a boy, which he witnessed in Borneo, says (475. 198):—
"As the lid of the coffin was being closed, an old man came out on the verandah of the house with a large gong (Tetawak) and solemnly beat it for several seconds. The chief, who was sitting near, informed me that this was done always before closing the lid, that the relations of the deceased might know that the spirit was coming to join them; and upon his arrival in Apo Leggan [Hades] they would probably greet him in such terms as these: 'O grandchild, it was for you the gong was beating, which we heard just now; what have you brought? How are they all up above? Have they sent any messages?'" The new arrival then delivers the messages entrusted to him, and gives the cigarettes—which, rolled up in a banana-leaf, have been placed in his hand—as proof of the truth of what he says. These cigarettes retain the smell of the hand that made them, which the dead relations are thought to be able to recognize.
Motherhood and Infanticide.
The intimate relationship recognized as existing between the infant and its mother has been among many primitive peoples a frequent cause of infanticide, or has been held at least to excuse and justify that crime. Of the natives of Ashanti, Ellis says:—
"Should the mother die in childbirth, and the child itself be born alive, it is customary to bury it with the mother…. The idea seems to be that the child belongs to the mother, and is sent to accompany her to Srahmanadzi [ghost-land], so that her srahman [ghost] may not grieve for it" (438. 234). Post states that in Unyóro, when the mother dies in childbirth, the infant is killed; among the Hottentots it was exposed (if the mother died during the time of suckling, the child was buried alive with her); among the Damara, "when poor women die and leave children behind them, they are often buried with the mother" (127. I. 287).