Adventure/"Going West"

OING WEST," as used by the men overseas to mean death, is of peculiarly American origin, aboriginal American origin. The Karok Indians of California believed the spirit of the good Karok went to the "happy western land." The Cherokee myths picture the west as the "ghost country," the twilight land where go the dead. The Shawnee tell of the boy who "traveled west" to find his sister in the spirit land. The Chippewa believed the spirit "followed a wide, beaten path toward the west." The spirit world of the Fox Indians is at the setting of the sun. And so on, in the theology of many Indian Nations we find the "West" as the storied abode of the great majority—who have passed over.