METEMPSYCHOSIS.
Some tribes among the Hyperboreans actually disbelieved in a future existence, while others held the doctrine of a future reward and punishment. The conceptions of a soul were well defined however; the Thlinkeets supposed it to enter the spirit-world, among the yeks, on being released from the body. The braves who had fallen in battle, or had been murdered, became keeyeks, 'upper ones,' and went to dwell in the north, where the aurora borealis, omen of war, flashes in reflection from the lights which illuminate their dances; so at least the Eskimos regard it.[XII-9] Those who died a natural death became tákeeyeks, land-spirits, and tékeeyeks, sea-spirits, and dwelt in takankon, doubtless situated in the centre of the earth,[XII-10] the road to which was watered, and made smooth by the tears of relatives, but if too much crying was indulged in, it became swampy and difficult to travel. The tákeeyeks and tékeeyeks appear to have attached themselves as guardian spirits to the living, and were under the control of the shamáns, before whom they came in the form of land and sea animals, to do their bidding and reveal the past and future.[XII-11] The keeyeks were evidently above the conjuration of the sorcerers. The comforts of heaven, like the road to it, depended on earthly conditions; thus, the body was burned in order that it might be warm in its new home. Slaves, however, who were buried, were condemned to freeze, but the shamáns whose bodies were also left to moulder, had doubtless power to avoid such misery. All lived in heaven as on earth, earning their living in the same manner, to which end the implements and other articles burnt with them were brought into use; wealthy people appointed two slaves to be sacrificed at the pyre, upon whom devolved the duty of attending to their wants. The slaves carried their long-pending doom very philosophically, it is said.[XII-12] It appears, however, that the soul had the option of returning to this life, and as I have said, generally entered the body of a female relative to form the soul of a coming infant. If the child resembled a deceased friend or relation, this reëmbodiment was at once recognized, and the name of the dead person was given to it. Metempsychosis does not appear to have been restricted to relatives only, for the Thlinkeets were often heard to express a desire to be born again into families distinguished for wealth and position, and even to wish to die soon in order to attain this bliss the earlier.[XII-13] This belief in the transmigration of souls was widely spread, and accounts to some extent for the fearlessness with which the Hyperboreans contemplated death.[XII-14] The Tacullies and Sicannis asked the deceased whether he would return to life or not, and the shamán who put the question decided the matter by looking at the naked breast of the body through his fingers; he then raised his hand toward heaven, and blew the soul, which had apparently entered his fingers, into the air, that it might seek a body to take possession of; or the shamán placed his hands upon the head of one of the mourners and sent the spirit into him, to be embodied in his next offspring. The relative thus favored added the name of the deceased to his own. If these things were not done the deceased was supposed to depart to the centre of the earth to enjoy happiness, according to their estimate of it. The Kenai supposed that a soft twilight reigned perpetually in this place, and that its inhabitants pursued their avocations; while the living slept they worked. The soul did not, however, attain perfect rest until a feast had been given in its honor, attended by a distribution of skins.[XII-15]
FUTURE OF THE COLUMBIAN TRIBES.
Dall, in speaking of the Tinnehs, to which family the Tacullies and Kenai belong, states that he found few who believed in the immortality of the soul, and none in future reward and punishment; any contrary assertion he characterizes as proceeding from ignorance or exaggeration. Other authors, however, in treating of tribes situated both in the extreme north, and in the center of this family, as the Loucheux and Chepewyans, declare that good and wicked were treated according to their deserts, the poor and rich often changing lots in the other life. Terrible punishment was sometimes inflicted upon the wicked in this world; thus, in Stickeen River stand several stone pillars, which are said to be the remains of an evil-doing chief and his family, whom divine anger placed there as a warning to others. According to Kennicott, the soul, whether good or bad, was received by Chutsain, the spirit of death, who was, for this reason probably, called the bad spirit.[XII-16] The Eskimos seem to have believed in a future state, for Richardson relates that a dying man whom he saw at Cumberland Inlet declared his joy at the prospect of meeting his children in the other world and there living in bliss. It is also a suggestive fact that implements and clothes were buried with the body, care being taken that nothing should press heavily upon it. The large destruction of property practiced by some Rocky Mountain tribes was for the purpose of obliterating the memory of the deceased.[XII-17] The Aleuts believed that the spirits of their relatives attended them as good genii, and invoked them on all trying occasions, especially in cases of vendetta.[XII-18] The Chepewyan story relates that the soul arrives after death at a river upon which floats a stone canoe. In this it embarks and is borne by the gentle current to an extensive lake in the midst of which is an enchanted island. While the soul is drifting toward it, the actions of its life are examined, and if the good predominate, the canoe lands it on the shore, where the senses revel in never-ending pleasures. But if the evil of its past life out-weigh the good, the stone canoe sinks, leaving the spirit-occupant immersed up to the chin, there eternally to float and struggle, ever beholding but never realizing the happiness of the good.[XII-19] This pronounced belief in a future reward and punishment obtained among several of the Columbian tribes. The natives of Millbank Sound picture it as two rivers guarded by huge gates, and flowing out of a dark lake—the gloom of death. The good enter the stream to the right, which sparkles in constant sunshine, and supplies them with an abundance of salmon and berries; the wicked pass in to the left and suffer cold and starvation on its bleak, snow-clad banks.[XII-20] The Okanagans call paradise, or the abode of the good spirit, elemehumkillanwaist, and hell, where those who kill and steal go, kishtsamah. The torments of the latter place are increased by an evil spirit in human form, but with tail and ears like a horse, who jumps about from tree to tree with a stick in his hand and belabors the condemned.[XII-21]
Some among the Salish and Chinooks describe the happy state as a bright land, called tamath by the latter, evidently situated in the direction of the sunny south, and abounding in all good things. Here the soul can revel in enjoyments, which, however, depend on its own exertions; the wealthy, therefore, take slaves with them to perform the menial duties. The wicked on the other hand are consigned to a desolate region under the control of an evil spirit, known as the Black Chief, there to be constantly tantalized by the sight of game, water and fire, which they can never reach. Some held that tamath was gained by a difficult road called otuihuti, which lay along the Milky Way, while others believed that a canoe took the soul across the water that was supposed to separate it from the land of the living.[XII-22]
The Nez Percés, Flatheads, and some of the Haidah tribes believed that the wicked, after expiating their crimes by a longer or shorter sojourn in the land of desolation, were admitted to the abode of bliss. The Haidahs called the latter place keewuck, 'above,' within which seems to have been a still brighter spot termed keewuckkow, 'life above,' the abode of perennial youth, whither the spirit of the fallen brave took its flight. Those who died a natural death were consigned with the wicked to seewukkow, the purgatorial department, situated in the forest, there to be purified before entering the happy keewuck.[XII-23] The Queen Charlotte Islanders termed paradise 'the happy hunting-ground,' a rather strange idea when we consider that their almost sole avocation was fishing.[XII-24] The Nez Percés believed also in a purgatory for the living, and that the beavers were men condemned to atone their sins before they could resume the human form.[XII-25] It seems to have been undecided whether the wives and young children shared the fate of the head of the family; the Flatheads expressed a belief in reunion, but that may have been after one or all had been purified in the intermediate state. Those who sacrificed slaves on the grave, sent them alike with the master that died gloriously on the battle-field, or obscurely in his bed.
QUAWTEAHT AND CHAYHER.
The Ahts hold that the soul inhabits at once the heart and the head of man. Some say that after death it will return to the animal form from which its owner can trace his descent; others that, according to rank, disembodied souls will go to live with Quawteaht or with Chayher. Quawteaht inhabits a beautiful country somewhere up in the heavens, though not directly over the earth; a goodly land flowing with all manner of Indian milk and honey; no storms there, no snow nor frost to bind the rivers, but only warmth and sunshine and abundant game and fish. Here the chiefs live in the very mansion of Quawteaht, and the slain in battle live in a neighboring lodge, enjoying also in their degree, all the amenities of the place. And these are the only doors to this Valhalla of the Ahts; only lofty birth or a glorious death in battle can confer the right of entry here. The souls of those that die a woman's death, in their bed, go down to the land of Chayher. Chayher is a figure of flesh without bones—thus reversing our pictorial idea of the grisly king of terrors—who is in the form of an old gray-bearded man. He wanders about in the night stealing men's souls, when, unless the doctors can recover the soul, the man dies. The country of Chayher is also called chayher. It resembles a subterranean earth but is every way an inferior country: there are no salmon there and the deer are wretchedly small, while the blankets are so thin and narrow as to be almost useless for either warmth or decoration. This is why people burn blankets when burying their friends; they cannot bear that their friend be sent shivering to the world below. The dead Aht seems to have been allowed in some cases to roam about on earth in the form of a person or animal, doing both good and evil, a belief which induced many to make conciliatory offerings of food to the deceased. Some Chinook tribes were afraid to pronounce the names of their dead lest they should be attracted and carry off souls. This was especially feared at the sick-bed, and the medicine-man had to be constantly on guard with his familiars to frustrate such attempts.[XII-26] The Aht sorcerer even sent his own soul down to chayher to recover the truant, in which he generally succeeded, unless the spirit of the sick man had entered a house.[XII-27] Some among the tribes believed that the soul issued from animals, especially sea-gulls and partridges, and would return to its original form. The Songhies said the hunter was transformed into a deer, the fisherman into a fish; and the Nootkas, that the spirit could reassume a human form if the celestial abode were not to its taste.[XII-28]
FUTURE OF THE CALIFORNIANS.