an scudding
across a lake in a boat whose ribs were live rattlesnakes.37 An
exercise of mind virtually identical with that which gave these
strokes made the Philippine Islanders say that the souls of those
who die struck by lightning go up the beams of the rainbow to a
happy place, and animated Ali to declare that the pious, on coming
out of their sepulchres, shall find awaiting them white winged
camels with saddles of gold. The Ajetas suspended the bow and
arrows of a deceased Papuan above his grave, and conceived him as
emerging from beneath every night to go a hunting.38 The fisherman
on the coast of Lapland was interred in a boat, and a flint and
combustibles were given him to light him along the dark cavernous
passage he was to traverse. The Dyaks of Borneo believe that every
one whose head they can get possession of here will in the future
state be their servant: consequently, they make a business of
"head hunting," accumulating the ghastly visages of their victims
in their huts.39 The Caribs have a sort of sensual paradise for
the "brave and virtuous," where, it is promised, they shall enjoy
the sublimated experience of all their earthly satisfactions; but
the "degenerate and cowardly" are threatened with eternal
banishment beyond the mountains, where they shall be tasked and
driven as slaves by their enemies.40 The Hispaniolians locate
their elysium in a pleasant valley abounding with guava, delicious
fruits, cool shades, and murmuring rivulets, where they expect to
live again with their departed ancestors and friends.41 The
Patagonians say the stars are their translated countrymen, and the
milky way is a field where the departed Patagonians hunt
ostriches. Clouds are the feathers of the ostriches they kill.42
The play is here seen of the same mythological imagination which,
in Italy, pictured a writhing giant beneath Mount Vesuvius, and,
in Greenland, looked on the Pleiades as a group of dogs
surrounding a white bear, and on the belt of Orion as a company of
Greenlanders placed there because they could not find the way to
their own country. Black Bird, the redoubtable chief of the O Ma
Haws, when dying, said to his people, "Bury me on yonder lofty
bluff on the banks of the Missouri, where I can see the men and
boats passing by on the river." 43 Accordingly, as soon as he
ceased

36 Browne, Trees of America, p. 328.

37 Schoolcraft, Hist. &c part i. pp. 32-34.

38 Earl, The Papuans, p. 132.

39 Earl, The