They came to another village. Here she saw a man lying on the ground with grass growing up through his joints. He could move, but he could not rise. The grandfather said this shade was punished for pulling up and chewing grass stems when he was on earth. Then the grandfather suddenly disappeared.
The girl followed a trail to another village, but she came to a swift river. This river was made up of the tears of people who on earth weep for the dead. When the girl saw she could not cross the river, she began to weep. At once a mass of straw floated down the river to her. Upon this, as a bridge, she crossed the stream. Before she reached the village the shades smelled her. They crowded around her, saying, “Who is she? Where does she come from?” They looked for the totem marks on her clothing.
Some one said, “Where is she? Where is she?” and her grandfather came toward her. He led her into a house nearby and there was her grandmother. The old woman asked her if she were thirsty. The girl looked about and saw only one water vessel made like those of her own village. This had in it their own Yukon water. It had been given them at the festival of the dead by the girl’s father. The other tubs had only the water of the village of the shades. The old woman gave the girl a piece of deer fat. This, too, had been given at the festival of the dead. Then the grandmother explained that the guide had been the grandfather because the last person thought of by a dying person hurries away to show the road to the new shade. Thoughts are heard in the land of the shades.
THE GHOST LAND
Tlingit
THE young wife of a chief’s son died and the young man was so sorrowful he could not sleep. Early one morning he put on his fine clothes and started off. He walked all day and all night. He went through the woods a long distance, and then to a valley. The trees were very thick, but he could hear voices far away. At last he saw light through the trees and then came to a wide, flat stone on the edge of a lake.
Now all the time this young man had been walking in the Death Trail. He saw houses and people on the other side of the lake. He could see them moving around. So he shouted, “Come over and get me.” But they did not seem to hear him. Upon the lake a little canoe was being paddled about by one man, and all the shore was grassy. The chief’s son shouted a long while but no one answered him. At last he whispered to himself, “Why don’t they hear me?”
At once a person across the lake said, “Some one is shouting.” When he whispered, they heard him.