Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/388

 They are anxious to depart on their long journey, and to join their ancestors in the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit. If, some days after, they are successful in the chase, they return as quickly as possible to render assistance and consolation. These practices are common to all the nomadic tribes of the mountains.

The Pawnees have nearly the same ideas concerning the universal deluge as those which I have given of the Potawotomies. In relation to the soul, they say, that there is a resemblance in the body which does not die, but detaches itself when the body expires. If a man has been good during his life, kind to his parents, a good hunter, a good warrior, his soul (sa ressemblance) is transported into a land of delights, abundance, and pleasures. If, on the contrary, a man has been wicked, hard-hearted, cruel and indolent, his soul passes through narrow straits, difficult and dangerous, into a country where all is confusion, contrariety and unhappiness.

In their religious ceremonies, they dance, sing and pray before a bird stuffed with all kinds of roots and herbs used in their superstition. They have a fabulous tradition, which teaches them that the morning star sent this bird to their ancestors, {358} as its representative, with orders to invoke it on all important occasions and to exhibit it in times of sacrifice.[236] Before the invocation, they fill the calumet with the sacred herb contained in the bird. They then puff out the smoke towards the star, offer the prayers and make their demands, dancing and singing, and celebrating in verses the great power of the bird. They implore its assistance and its favor, whether to obtain success in hunting or in war, or to demand snow in order to make the buffalo descend from the mountains, or to appease the Great Spirit when a public calamity befalls the nation,