Page:The Prairie Flower; Or, Adventures In the Far West.djvu/91

 essed.

Wep! weep! weep! But weep not in sorrow : With tears bend above him, With tears show you love him But weep for relief, Rather than grief

For to-inorrow to-morrow Ye may join him in glory, To tell the bright story, Of earthly denials, Losses and trials, Of unwavering faith, Of your joy to meet death, That your spirit in freedom

Forever might roam, O'er the sweet vales of Eden,

Your last lovely home To join there in singing,

As bright angels do, The songs of Great Spirit, Eternity through

This was sung to a mournful tune, and when the last strain had died away upon the air, all simultaneously dropped upon their knees, and bowed their heads to the earth in token of submission to the Divine will. Then they rose to their feet; mourn ers and all, and forming themselves into two long lines, the four bearers proceeded to raise the corpse slowly and in silence; and preceded by Great Medicine, and fol- low^dby the maidens, the relatives and the rest, two by two, all moved solemnly for ward to the last earthly resting place of the de?d a rude grave scooped out in the side of *he mountain, some forty rods dis tant from the village.

Deporiting the body in the ground with iril due -everence, the bearers threw upon it a hardful of loose earth, and moved aside for the others to do the same. This eoncludei, the villagers formed a large ring around the open grave, when Great Med'cim stepped forward to the center aoi! <sha v nted

THE LAST

Formed of dust

The spirit apurneth, Back to dust

The body turneth But the spirit,

Passed death's-portal, Dotli become

A thing immortal.

Ye who mourn him,

Be unshaken, That Who gave,

Again hath taken

6

That the dead,

Before ye lying, Made a happy

Change in dyinj And ye dead,

Here rest in quiet, Till ye hear

The final fiat, That in voice,

More loud than thundei, Shall command

Your tomb asunder! To earth we consign thee! To God we resign thee!

CHORUS.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! The birds shall carol o'er thy head, The stream shall murmur o'er its bed, The breeze shall make the forest sigh, And flowers above thee bloom and die But birds, and stream, and breeze, and flowers, Shall joy no more thy sleeping hours. To earth we consign thee! To God we resign tkee! Farewell!

The chorus was sung by all with im pressive solemnity, and on its conclusion, the four corpse bearers advanced, and with wooden spades buried the dead for ever from the sight of the living. Two by two, in the same order they had come hither, the whole party returned to the villao-e, and the day was spent in fasting and devo tional exercises.

The food of the Great Medicine Nation consisted, for the most part, of meat of various wild animals, which they gener ally killed with rifles, together with a few fish, for which they angled in the streams. Sometimes they planted and raised a small patch of corn, as was the case in the pre sent instance; but their roving life, as a general tiling, led them to depend upon such vegetable food as chanced in their way. Among them they owned some fif teen horses, as many tame goats, which they milked daily, and twice the number of mules. They also owned a few traps, and when in a beaver country, did not fail using them to procure pelts; which, to gether with buffalo and bear skins, they traded with the whites for such extras as they considered useful. With them, all property, with the exception of bodily rai ment, was in common; and each labored, not for himself alone, but for his neighboi also. During the day their animals fed around the encampment, and in the valley at the base of the mountain but at nio-hl