Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/99

Rh through such an intermediate stage the doctrine of simple future existence was actually developed into the doctrine of future reward and punishment, a transition which for deep import to human life has scarcely its rival in the history of religion.

The effect of earthly rank on the future life, as looked at by the lower races, brings out this intermediate stage in bold relief. Mere transfer from one life to another makes chiefs and slaves here chiefs and slaves hereafter, and this natural doctrine is very usual. But there are cases in which earthly caste is exaggerated into utter difference in the life to come. The aerial paradise of Raiatea, with its fragrant ever-blooming flowers, its throngs of youths and girls all perfection, its luxurious feasts and merrymakings, were for the privileged orders of Areois and chiefs who could pay the priests their heavy charges, but hardly for the common populace. This idea reached its height in the Tonga islands, where aristocratic souls would pass to take their earthly rank and station in the island paradise of Bolotu, while plebeian souls, if indeed they existed, would die with the plebeian bodies they dwelt in. In Vancouver's Island, the Ahts fancied Quawteaht's calm sunny plenteous land in the sky as the resting-place of high chiefs, who live in one great house as the Creator's guests, while the slain in battle have another to themselves. But otherwise all Indians of low degree go deep down under the earth to the land of Chay-her, with its poor houses and no salmon and small deer, and blankets so small and thin that when the dead are buried the friends often bury blankets with them, to send them to the world below with the departed soul. The expectation of royal dignity in the life after death, distinct from the fate of ordinary mortals, comes well into view among the Natchez of Louisiana, where the sun-descended royal family would in some way return to the Sun; thus