Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/371

Rh slippery pine-log, with the bark peeled off, over which the dead have to pass to the delightful-hunting grounds. On the other side of the stream there are six persons of the good hunting-grounds with rocks in their hands, which they throw at them all when they are on the middle of the log. The good walk on safely to the good hunting-grounds. . . The wicked see the stones coming, and try to dodge, by which they fall down from the log, and go thousands of feet to the water, which is dashing over the rocks." In the interior of South America the idea appears again among the Manacicas. Among these people, the Maponos or priests performed a kind of baptism of the dead, and were then supposed to mount into the air, and carry the soul to the Land of the Departed. After a weary journey of many days over hills and vales, through forests, and across rivers and swamps and lakes, they came to a place where many roads met, near a deep and wide river, where the god Tatusiso stood night and day upon a wooden bridge to inspect all such travellers. If he did not consider the sprinkling after death a sufficient purgation of the sins of the departed, he would stop the priest, that the soul he carried might be further cleansed, and if resistance were made, would sometimes seize the unhappy soul and throw him into the river, and when this happened some calamity would follow among the Manacicas at home.

The Bridge of the Dead may possibly have its origin in the rainbow. Among the Northmen the rainbow is to be seen in the bridge Bifrost of the three colours, over which the Æsir make their daily journey, and the red in it is fire, for were it easy to pass over, the Frost-giants and the Mountain-giants would get across it into heaven. In a remark, evidently belonging to the North American story of the Sun-Catcher, the rainbow replaces the tree up which the mouse climbs and gnaws loose a captive in the sky. The rainbow is a ladder by which New Zealand chiefs climb to heaven, and by it the souls of the Philippine islanders who died violent deaths were carried to the happy