Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/370

360 But Owayne with prayer passed safely over and reached the Earthly Paradise on the other side. The adaptation of the myth in Paradise Lost is too familiar to be quoted.

Looking to the far East, we find in the Hinduized and Islamized mythology of Java the bridge which leads across the abyss to the single opening in the stone wall round Suralaya, the dwelling of the gods; off this bridge the evildoers fall into the depths below. Other myths from this region have more special and seemingly more local character. The conception of a bridge being needed for the passage of souls is well shown among the Karens of Birmah, who at this day tie strings across the rivers for the ghosts of the dead to pass over to their graves; among these people the Heaven-bridge is a sword, those who cross it become men, those who dare not, women. And among the Idaan of Borneo, the passage for men into paradise is across a long tree, which to those who have not killed a man is scarcely practicable.

In America, the bridge over the abyss is distinct in native mythology. The Greenland angekok, when he has passed through the land of souls, has to cross an awful gulf over a stretched rope, his guardian spirit holding him by the hand, till he reaches the abode of the great female Evil Spirit below the sea. Among the North American Indians the Ojibwa soul has to cross the river of death on the great snake which serves as a bridge, while the Minnetarees, in their way to the mansions of their ancestors after death, have to cross a narrow footing over a rapid river, where the good warriors and hunters pass, but the worthless ones fall in. Catlin's account of the Choctaw belief is as follows:—"Our people all believe that the spirit lives in a future state; that it has a great distance to travel after death towards the west—that it has to cross a dreadful deep and rapid stream, which is hemmed in on both sides by high and rugged hills—over this stream, from hill to hill, there lies a long and