ii6 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. VIII. 



the young man was slowly descending on the kilt as if he were flying 

 with wings. 



When he .had arrived on the ground below the bluff he put on his 

 kilt again and proceeded. In the distance he saw a column of smoke 

 rising from the ground. After he had proceeded a distance he came 

 upon Skeleton Woman (Mas Wuhti). He asked her what that was. 

 "Yes," she said, "some of those who had been wicked while living in 

 the village were thrown in there. There is a chief there who tells 

 them to go o»ver this road, and throws them in there. Those who 

 are thrown in there are destroyed, they no longer exist. You must 

 not go there," she added, "but you keep on thisj-oad and go straight 

 ahead towards Skeleton house." When he arrived there he could not 

 see any one at first except a few children who were playing there. 

 "Oh!" they said, "here a Skeleton has come." There was a very 

 large village there, so he went in and now the people or Skeletons living 

 there heard about him. So they assembled there on all sides -and 

 looked at him. "Who are you?" they asked the young man. "I 

 am the village chief's son. I came from Shongopavi." 



So they pointed him to the Bear clan, saying, "Those are the 

 people that you want to see. They are your people." Because there 

 were a great many different clans there. They are sleeping there in 

 the daytime. So the Skeleton took him over to the house where his 

 clan lived. "Here your ancestors are," they told him, and showed 

 him the ladder that led up to the house, but the rungs of the ladder 

 were made of sunflower stems. He tried to go up but the first rung 

 broke as soon as he stepped on it, but when the Skeletons went up 

 and down the ladder the rungs did not break. So he was wondering 

 how he should get up. "I shall stay down here," he said ; " I shall not 

 go up. You bring me food here and feed me down here," he said to 

 them. So the Skeletons brought him some melon, watermelon, and 

 chukuviki. 



When they saw him eat they laughed at him, because they never 

 eat the food, but only the odor or the soul of the food. That is the 

 reason why they are not heavy. And that is the reason why the 

 clouds into which the dead are transformed are not heavy and can 

 float in the air. The food itself the Skeletons threw out behind the 

 houses. So this young man, when he was wandering around there, 

 would sometimes eat of it. When he had eaten they asked him what 

 he had come for. "Yes," he said, "I was always thinking whether 

 Skeletons live somewhere. I spoke to my father about it and told him 

 that I wanted to go and find out whether they were staying some- 

 where, and my father was willing and he dressed me up in this way, 



