Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/75

Rh for which the Polynesian word tabu has been adopted. The moral idea of goodness of a Pani chief is to be a successful warrior or hunter. The actual condition at the moment of death decided the condition in the future far more than any conduct during the past. In the portions of the continent where the scalp was taken, the scalped man remained scalped in the world of spirits, though some tribes believed that scalping prevented his reaching that world. If he had but one leg or eye here, he had but one leg or eye afterward. In tribes where they cut off the ears of slain foes the spirit remained without ears. A special instance is where the victim was considered too brave to be scalped, but the conquerors cut off one hand and one foot from the corpse to keep him from inflicting injury upon the tribe of the conquerors in the next world. Some of the tribes thought that if an Indian died in the night he remained in total darkness ever afterward.

One of the most curious of their beliefs was in connection with drowning and hanging, the conceit being that the spirit (which was in the breath) did not escape from the body. This doctrine was made of special application to prevent suicide, which was generally performed either by hanging or drowning, the deduction being that suicides could not go to the home of the ancestors.

It is probable that the various trials which the spirit is supposed to undergo before reaching the other world were devised to secure confidence in the absence thereafter of the ghosts of the dead, because the same difficulty would attend their return. As without the assistance of mortuary rites the ghosts would not be able to reach their final home, their permanent absence was secured because there were no repetitions of those rites to assist their return. Fear of the ghosts, not only of enemies but of the dearest friends, generally prevailed. After a death all kinds of devices were employed to scare away the spirit. Sometimes a new exit, through which the corpse was taken, was cut through the wigwam and afterward filled up, it being supposed that the spirit could re-enter only by the passage through which it went out. Sometimes the whole wigwam was burned down. There was often a long period, which travelers called that of mourning, during which drums and rattles were used to drive away the spirits. After firearms were obtained, they were discharged in and around the late home of the deceased with the same object. The loud cries of so-called lamentation had probably a similar origin, and this is more marked when the lamenters were strangers to the dead, and even professionals, not unlike the Irish keeners.

In this general connection it is proper to allude to the common abstinence from pronouncing the true name of any dead person. This is more distinct than the sociologic custom where the man's true name should not be used in his life except on special