TRANSFORMATION 195 



lived with them in this world. The arms and the 

 wealth which were buried or burned with the deceased 

 chieftain, the slaves and retainers who were offered at 

 his obsequies constituted his splendour and contributed 

 to his power in the next world. Arising thus from 

 the common ground of savagery, no more incon- 

 sistency would have been perceived in these two 

 beliefs than the Zulu perceives who holds that his 

 deceased father lives underground in a village, like 

 that which he inhabited in his lifetime, wealthy in 

 cattle and wives, yet that he may be the snake that 

 lurks about the kraal or comes to visit his descendants 

 in their huts. Neither Celtic mythology nor Celtic 

 folklore, as reported by mediaeval and modern writers, 

 warrants us in supposing that metempsychosis in any 

 philosophical sense was part of the ancient Celtic 

 creed. 1 



Before turning to rites and superstitious beliefs, we 

 may notice the legend of Oankoitupeh, son of the Red 

 Cloud, the hero of the North American Maidu. A 

 maiden sees a beautiful red cloud and hears sweet 

 music. The next day while picking grass-seed pinole 

 she finds an arrow trimmed with yellow-hammer 

 feathers ; and suddenly a man is standing beside her, 

 who is none other than the red cloud she had seen the 

 day before. The resplendent stranger declares his 

 love, and the maiden replies : " If you love me, take 



1 I have no space to discuss the question at length. The 

 literary evidence as to the Celtic belief in the life after death has 

 been examined in recent years by several writers, most fully and 

 conclusively by Mr. Alfred Nutt in The Voyage of Bran (2 vols. 

 London, 1895-7). The archaeological evidence is scattered through 

 the transactions of numerous learned societies in the United 

 Kingdom and France. 



