Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/491

Rh discussed. At this point it is not proper to outline more than the religious ideas upon the subject.

The Apache is assured that the touch of a corpse is defilement, and, whenever possible, will, after paying the last rites to the dead, subject himself to copious lustrations.

A belief and custom almost identical prevailed among the ancient Israelites, Aztecs, and Parsis.

The spirit of the good Apache is accompanied to its abode in the "house of ghosts" by the essence or spirit of all property which can be of service. For this reason a horse is killed (if the deceased possessed one during life); bows and arrows laid by the corpse, if that of a man, and a full supply of clothing wrapped about it. More than this, in former days widows followed their lords in death as in life. There are no traditions to the effect that Sutteeism prevailed among the Apaches, but the cutting off of the squaw's hair is doubtless a survival of a far more bloody sacrifice, one which, among the Cheyennes, is yet typified by the slashing of arms and legs, and even the amputation of finger-joints. So, likewise, scalping, among the Indian tribes which practise it, recalls decapitation and the torture of captives, human sacrifice, if not cannibalism.

A general worship of animals and reptiles, especially of venomous ones, and of those necessary as food, can be distinctly traced among the American Indians. Snake-worship, pure and simple, has been delineated in a previous treatise. It is openly practised, with well-defined ritual, among the Moquis of Orizona. Its former existence is admitted by Pueblos and Zunis; vestiges of it remain among the Sioux, and it is to be found, in a mild form, among the Apaches. These people will not kill a snake when it