Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/21

Rh California, we find natives believing the spirits of their dead to enter into bears, and travellers have heard of a tribe begging the life of a wrinkle-faced old she grizzly bear as the recipient of the soul of some particular grandam, whom they fancied the creature to resemble. So, among the Esquimaux, a traveller noticed a widow who was living for conscience' sake upon birds, and would not touch walrus-meat, which the angekok had forbidden her for a time, because her late husband had entered into a walrus. Among other North American tribes, we hear of the Powhatans refraining from doing harm to certain small wood-birds which received the souls of their chiefs; of Huron souls turning into turtle-doves after the burial of their bones at the Feast of the Dead; of that pathetic funeral rite of the Iroquois, the setting free a bird on the evening of burial, to carry away the soul. In Mexico, the Tlascalans thought that after death the souls of nobles would animate beautiful singing birds, while plebeians passed into weasels and beetles and such like vile creatures. So, in Brazil, the Içannas say that the souls of the brave will become beautiful birds, feeding on pleasant fruits, but cowards will be turned into reptiles. Among the Abipones we hear of certain little ducks which fly in flocks at night, uttering a mournful hiss, and which fancy associates with the souls of the dead; while in Popayan it is said that doves were not killed, as inspired by departed souls. Lastly, transmigration into brutes is also a received doctrine in South America as when a missionary heard a Chiriquane woman of western