20 King, Folk-lore of the North A in er lean Indians. 



might renew the bond with their god and serve as a 

 recommendation in his eyes. Not only do the living 

 mourners gash their bodies, but in some cases they cut 

 off and eat a bit of the dead body, or the corpse is raised 

 up, a fire lighted underneath, and the mourners sit till the 

 grease from the corpse drops upon them. Similarly with 

 the hair. The hair of the living mourners is cut off and 

 offered to the dead, and the hair of the dead is plucked 

 and worn as a relic by the living. The action is reciprocal 

 between the dead and the living. 



With the dead the Hurons buried all that belonged to 

 them — skins, bows, utensils, wigwams, &c., as well as 

 provisions for the benefit of the soul. Presents are added 

 by the survivors as tokens of regard. " The Hurons," 

 says Father Breboeuf, " will strip themselves to give 

 presents to their dead," or again, " if there be anything 

 sacred to the Hurons, it is their law of burial." The 

 practice of giving gifts to the dead, of burying or burning 

 with them all that they are likely to need, is so general 

 that I need scarcely illustrate it.* Father Le Jeune 

 relates, to take a single instance, that a mother at the 

 burial of her infant drew milk from her breast and burnt 

 it in the fire for the benefit of the dead child. 



The bodies of the dead Hurons remain in the local 

 village cemeteries for a period variously given as 8, lo, or 

 12 years, until the time of the great Feast of the Dead, 

 with which we may compare the Greek vetcwo-za, or the 

 mediaeval All Souls' Day. At the Feast of the Dead the 

 bodies were taken from the bark coffins and brought to 

 the cabins, the bones were cleaned (except in the case of 

 the most recently dead) and taken off to a common burial 

 pit for eight or nine villages, where all met at a fixed 

 time. 



* Cf. Tylor, Prim. Culttire, i. , 458. 



