ive on while pursuing his way to the land of
spirits, the blissful regions of Ha wah ne u.20 Several Indian
nations, instead of burying the food, suspended it above the
grave, and renewed it from time to time. Some writers have
explained this custom by the hypothesis of an Indian belief in two
souls, one of which departed to the realm of the dead, while the
other tarried by the mound until the body was decayed, or until it
had itself found a chance to be born in a new body.21 The
supposition seems forced and extremely doubtful. The truth
probably lies in a simpler explanation, which will be offered
further on.

19 Baumgarten, Geschichte der Volker von America, xiii. haupts.:
vom Tod, Vergribniss, und Trauer.

20 Clarke, Onondaga, vol. l. p. 51.

21 Muller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, sect.
66.

The Winnebagoes located paradise above, and called the milky way
the "Road of the Dead." 22 It was so white with the crowds of
journeying ghosts! But almost all, like the Ojibways, imagined
their elysium to lie far in the West. The soul, freed from the
body, follows a wide beaten path westward, and enters a country
abounding with all that an Indian covets. On the borders of this
blessed land, in a long glade, he finds his relatives, for many
generations back, gathered to welcome him.23 The Chippewas, and
several other important tribes, always kindled fires on the fresh
graves of their dead, and kept them burning four successive
nights, to light the wandering souls on their way.24 An Indian
myth represents the ghosts coming back from Ponemah, the land of
the Hereafter, and singing this song to the miraculous Hiawatha:

"Do not lay such heavy burdens
On the graves of those you bury,
Not such weight of furs and wampum,
Not such weight of pots and kettles;
For the spirits faint beneath them.
Only give them food to carry,
Only give them fire to light them.
Four days is the spirit's journey
To the land of ghosts and shadows,
Four its lonely night encampments.
Therefore, when the dead are buried,
Let a fire, as night approaches,
Four times on the grave be kindled,
That the soul upon its journey
May not grope about in darkness." 25

The subject of a future state seems to have been by far the most
prominent one in the Indian imagination. They relate many
traditions of persons who have entered it, and returned, and given
descriptions of it. A young brave, having lost his betrothed,
determined to follow he