Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/351

 FRACHTENBERG] ESCHATOLOGY OF THE QUILEUTE 339

which causes the pole to stop its swinging motion while the shaman goes by. A shaman lacking in such a guardian-spirit can go no further and must turn back. Beyond this pole there is another obstruction in the form of a rotten log lying clear across the road in such a way that each person must step over it. And since this log keeps on shrinking and expanding just like a rubber, only a soul or a shaman having the " ghost magic" can go over it. From here on the trail becomes fine and unobstructed, ending at the very river. Extending clear across the river there is a fishtrap in which the souls catch all their fish.

The souls of recently departed people cannot cross at once to the other side. If they do so, they are driven back. They must stay on the nearer side until they have lost all scent of " recent death." The "older" souls have a sentinel on each side of the river called tci'ali'qlwayo 1 "guardian" whose duty it is to see to it that no "new" soul comes across until the proper time has arrived. As soon as the "new" soul has completed it apprenticeship and becomes "ripe" for dwelling in the "older community," it is instructed by one of these sentinels how to act and what to do in the real Country of the Souls. New arrivals are usually met and welcomed by the souls of those relatives and .friends who had preceded them into the underworld.

The grouping of the souls in the underworld corresponds to their grouping in the upper world; that is to say, souls belonging to one and the same family constitute an individual house-group and own and live in a house of their own. The Country of the Souls differs in nothing from the upper world. It is abundantly supplied with all necessities of life. Each soul pursues the same occupation as in the world above. Sickness prevails among the souls to the same degree as among the living Indians, and the soul- shamans are kept constantly busy. Good and bad weather, day and night, changes of the season prevail also in the underworld. Women'bear children in the usual way, and wars are not infrequently waged among the souls. The souls have an ocean of their own, thereby giving them the opportunity to follow the whale-hunting profession. All souls stay in the underworld forever.

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