April 1. 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



181 



that any kind of a pony would do for him, so an old, dilapi- 

 dated, lop-eared scrxiggy pony was killed at his grave. 

 However, to their great astonishment, he returned a few 

 weeks later on the same old pony, and he was worn out 

 with hunger and fatigue. When the men of his tribe saw 

 his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes they fled from him in 

 consternation. He begged for food, and one bolder than 

 the rest offered him a piece of meat on the end of a lodge- 

 pole. When he appeared at his own camp, the Comanches 

 and Wichitas fled in dismay to a place on Rush Creek. 

 " When the troubled spirit from the sunsetting world was 

 questioned why he thus appeared among the inhabitants of 

 earth, he made reply that when he came to the gates of 

 Pai-adise the keepers would on no account permit him to 

 enter upon such an ill-conditioned beast as that which boi-e 

 him, and thus in sadness he returned to Iiaunt the homes of 

 those whose stinginess and gi'eed permitted him no better 

 equipment. Since then no Comanche has been permitted 

 to depart with the sun to his chambers without a steed 

 ■which in appearance should do honour alike to the rider 

 and his friends.' * 



The body is buried on the western side of the camp, that 

 " the spirit may accomplish the journey to the setting sun 

 beyond." It is supposed among the Comanches that the 

 spirit starts on its journey the following night. 



Among the mourning observances of the Comanches are 

 many strange customs ditfering from those of other tribes. 

 Instead of the property of the deceased being disposed of 

 among the relations, it is all destroyed or buried in the 

 ground. It is believed that when the goods are burnt 

 they ascend to heaven in the smoke, and wiU thus be 

 of service to the owner in the other world. '■ Imme- 

 diately after death, the relatives begin a peculiar wailing, 

 and the immediate relatives of the family take ofi" their 

 customaiy apparel and clothe themselves in rags, and cut 

 themselves across the arms, breast, and other portions of 

 the body, until sometimes a fond wife or mother faints from 

 loss of blood.-i- This is also customary among the Dacotah 

 Indians. A missionary at Fort Snelling reLited the story of 

 a woman who had lost a brother. With her friends she set 

 up a most piteous crying, or rather wailing, which continued 

 dm-ing all the night. She would keep on repeating the 

 words which in English would mean, " Come, my brother, 

 I shall see you no more for ever." Xext morning prepai-a- 

 tions were made for the ceremony of cutting their flesh. 

 The thermometer was at ten to twenty below zero, and the 

 snow lay thick on the gi-ound. However, a space was 

 cleared, in the centre of which a very small fii-e was 

 kindled, not so much for warmth as to cause a smoke which 

 woidd ascend to the land of the setting sun. The sister 

 and three other women came out of her lodge barefooted, 

 and nearly naked, and all three began wailing and crying. 

 They cut their knees and ankles with sharp stones, and one 

 poor woman made more than a hundred gashes in her flesh. 

 She was thoroughly exhausted with pain, loss of blood, cold, 

 and long-continued fasting, and soon she sank on the frozen 

 ground, shivering from the cold, and moaning with pain. 

 She appeared frantic with gi'ief; but it is not easy to 

 imagine what benefit she expected for herself or her dead 

 brother in i-eturn for this self-inflicted torture.J 



I may quote in conclusion the following translation of 

 Schiller's bmial song, believed to have been written by 

 Bulwer : 



See on his mat, as if of yore, 

 How life-like sits he here, 



» First Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, 1879-80, p. 100. 

 t IMd. 

 X Neirs " History of Minnesota,'' p. 445. 



With the same aspect that he wore 



^Tien life to him was dear. 

 But where the right arm's strength, and where 



The breath he used to breathe 

 To the Great Spirit aloft in air 



The peace-pipe's lusty wreath ? 

 And where the hawk-like eye, alas 1 



That wont the deer pursue 

 Along the waves of rippling grass 



Or fields that shone with dew ? 

 Are these the limber, bounding feet 



That swept the winter snows ? 

 What startled deer was half so fleet 1 



Their speed outstripped the roe's. 

 These hands that once the sturdy bow 



Could supple from its pride, 

 How stark and helpless hang they now 



Adown the stiffened side 1 

 Yet weal to him '. at peace he strays 



Where never fall the snows. 

 Where o'er the meadow springs the maize 



That mortal never sows ; 

 Where birds are blithe in every brake, 



Where forests teem with deer, 

 ANTiere glide the fish through every lake. 



One chase from year to year ! 

 With spirits now he feasts above ; 



All left us, to revere 

 The deeds we cherish with our love. 



The rest we bury here. 



FIGURE OF THE MILKY WAY IN SPACE. 



Bv EicHARD A. Pkoctor. 



IXETEEN years ago* I wrote a paper 

 called " Notes on Star-streams," in which 

 I discussed the relations presented by the 

 Milk}' Way, looked upon as in reality a 

 star-stream and not the mere projection 

 on the celestial sphere of a widely extended 

 disc of stars. I endeavoured to show that 

 although Sir W. Herschel's view respecting our galaxy was 

 perhaps the only one which he was justified in forming 

 when prosecuting his celebrated star-gaugings, it is yet one 

 wliich is far from being in accordance with the information 

 which he himself gathered for us, and is still further 

 opposed by the facts which Sir John Herschel observed 

 during his survey of the southern heavens. And I 

 dwelt in particular on the evidence which the strange 

 convolutions of the Milky Way, its narrow necks or 

 isthmuses, the knots or clustering aggi-egations upon it, 

 and still more the circular gaps which pierce it, aflbrd 

 respecting its structure. These point to the conclusion 

 that whatever the Milky Way may be, it is certainly not 

 what Sir W. Herschel had supposed. But I was forced 

 at that time to admit that the problem of suggesting 

 the real configuration of our galaxy was more than I 

 could manage. Its complexities seemed unintelligible ; 

 though I did not wholly dismiss the hope of discovering 

 a tolerably simple solution of the difliculties which pre- 

 sented themselves. " I may, perhaps," I remarked, " return 

 on some future occasion to the consideration of the subject." 

 When I thus wrote I was in hopes that the apparently 

 intractable windings of the galaxy, as exhibited to us in 

 the draw-ings of Sir John Herschel, would have been long 

 ere this reduced into something like order. 



♦ " Intellectual Obser\er " for August, 1867. This iiaper was 

 written, however, seventeen years ago. I found it along with the 

 letters of Sir John Herschel published in the first and third 

 numbers of the present series of KnoicUdge. The paper and the 

 illustrations appeared to me worth preserving in connection with 

 Sir J. Herschel's letters. 



