2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dead become beautiful birds feeding on luscious fruit.* Tbe 

 Powhatans sacredly regard small wood-birds, thinking they in- 

 shrine the souls of their dead, f Among the Aht tribes it is be- 

 lieved that the soul issued from gulls and partridges, and that 

 they will after death return to their original forms. J The Hurons, 

 according to Brebeuf, ** believed that the souls of the dead turned 

 to doves ; and among the cognate tribes of the Iroquois a dove 

 was freed over the couch of the dying at the moment the last 

 breath was drawn. || The Paris " Figaro" for October, 1872, gives 

 an account of a similar observance as happening in the Rue 

 Duhesme of that city. A young gypsy woman when dying was 

 surrounded by her companions, when a man, who appeared to be 

 the chief, entered the circle, carrying a bird in his hand, which he 

 held beneath the mouth of the dying, and freed when she ex- 

 pired."^ 



The providing the dead with passports or money with which 

 to lighten the journey of the soul to heaven is wide-spread. The 

 Greeks placed an obolus in the mouth of the corpse, as toll for 

 Charon, though this offering was omitted at Hermione, in Argolis, 

 where men thought there was a short descent to hades, and thus 

 avoided the fee.^ Becker % doubts if this custom was universal 

 among the Romans, the passages of Juvenal, vol. iii, p. 67, and 

 of Propertius, vol. iv, pp. 11, 7, affording no sufficient proof. 

 Among the Chinese, money was put into the mouth of the dead 

 to buy favor in the passage to heaven.^ In Washington Terri- 

 tory, in 1879, the mouth of a dead Twana squaw was filled with 

 money before burial.J At the present day, all over Europe at 

 Irish wakes money is placed in the hand of the dead.** In Tuh- 

 keim, the soul of the dead, having crossed the bridge leading out 

 of hell with the aid of the priests, receives a letter of recom- 

 mendation from them favoring its admittance into the western 

 heaven. ft The dead of the ancient Mexicans were furnished with 

 several passports, the first one enabling the soul to pass between 

 two mountains, which threatened to meet and crush it in their 

 embrace ; the second enabling it to pass the road guarded by a 

 big snake ; the third propitiated Xochitonal, the green crocodile ; 

 and the fourth insured the passage across eight deserts and over 

 eight hills. X\ 



That the soul materializes in the shape of the body it inhabited 



"■' Clavigero, " llessico," vol. ii, p. 5. * "Rel. des Jesuits," 1G36, p. 4. 



\ Brinton," Myths of the New World," p. 107. || Morgan, "League of the Iroquois," p. 174. 



X Bancroft, " Native Races," vol. iii, p. 522. •*■ Jones, " Credulities," p. 380. 



Tylor, "Primiuvc Culture," vol. i, p. 490. % "Gallus," Excursus xii. 



% Ball, in Williams's " Middle Kingdom," vol. ii, p. 244, note. 



% "American Antiquary," October, 1880, p. 53. 



** Tylor, " Anthropology," p. 347. f f Du Bose, "Dragon, Image, and Demon," p. 452. 



X\ Bancroft, "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 537. 



