“Yes,” Sam replied.
“Indian customs at the burial of a Catholic! What do you say to that, my dear Sam?”
“You don’t like it?” asked Sam.
“Certainly not.”
“Then don’t show it. You would offend the Apaches mortally.”
“But this absurd mumming annoys me more than I can say.”
“They mean well; they can’t do better than they know. It isn’t heathenish. These good folks believe in one Great Spirit, to whom their dead friend and teacher has gone. They bid him farewell, and mourn his death in their own way, and everything that medicine-man does has a symbolic meaning. Let them do as they will. There is no priest anywhere near here, and they won’t prevent us putting our cross at the head of the grave.”
As we placed the cross before the coffin Winnetou asked: “Shall this sign of Christianity be placed over the grave?”
“Yes.”
“That is right. I should have asked my brother Old Shatterhand to make a cross, for Kleki-Petrah had one in his dwelling, and begged us to put one over his grave when he should die. Where must it stand?”