so
kill cattle and sheep, and spit and blow in the faces of the people,
to make them ill, and possibly cause their death. Sometimes the dead
are viewed as spirits, and the shaman sees them flying through the
air, like birds. If the spirit of a dead person takes up his abode
in a house, the owner of the dwelling will feel a choking sensation,
dry up, and die, unless the shaman gives to the dead plenty of tesvino,
and drives him away with incantations.

The dead are supposed to be about at night; therefore the Tarahumares
do not like to travel after dark, for fear of meeting the dead, who
whistle when they pass the living. Only shamans can travel at night,
although sometimes even they have to fight with the dead, who come
running out of the caves on all fours. In the daytime the Tarahumares
are not afraid of the dead, though even then they do not dare to visit
burial-places, modern or ancient. I found it difficult to get Indians
to carry bones of skeletons excavated from ancient burial-caves, and
even the Mexicans would not allow their animals to carry burdens of
that kind, for fear that the mules would get tired, that is to say,
play out and die.

When a person dies, his eyes are closed, his hands crossed over
his breast, and the relatives talk to him one by one, and bid him
good-bye. The weeping widow tells her husband that, now that he has
gone and does not want to stay with her any longer, he must not come
back to frighten her or his sons or daughters or anyone else. She
implores him not to carry any of them off, or do any mischief, but
to leave them all alone.

A mother says to her dead infant: "Now go away! Don't come back
any more, now that you are dead. Don't come at night to nurse at my
breast. Go away, and do not come back!" And the father says to the
child: "Don't come back to ask me to hold your hand, or to do things
for you. I shall not know you any more. Don't come walking around here,
but stay away."

The body is wrapped in a blanket almost before it is cold, to be
buried later, but food is at once placed around it, and ashes are
liberally strewn over and around the corpse, to enable the relatives
to discover, by the tracks, into what kind of animal the dead has
changed. At night some fox or coyote, polecat or rat, is sure to be
attracted by the smell of the food; but the people believe that it
was the departed who returned in the form of the animal to get his
food. A shaman, without even looking at t