290 FOSSIL MEN. 



have been seen to shed the milk from their breasts on 

 their little graves; and I have been informed that 

 among some tribes there is more mourning for the 

 death of a child than for an adult, on the ground of 

 its greater helplessness in the lone land of spirits. 

 The woodcut (Fig. 43) of Chippewa mourners is from a 

 photograph, and shows the roofed grave with objects 

 suspended on it as offerings, and an opening to in- 

 troduce supplies of food, and the grave-post whereon 

 to hang other offerings or emblems. After the funeral, 

 presents were given to the relatives of the dead by 

 their friends or by the tribe collectively, and a funeral 

 feast was held by the family. This was accompanied 

 by games, ending, says Charlevoix, who records these 

 rites, with songs and cries of victory. 



In some cases the offerings to the dead took the 

 form, not of valuable articles, but of mere models oE 

 these, like the tissue-paper garments burned by the 

 Chinese as sacrifices to their ancestors. This may be 

 regarded as the creeping in of hypocrisy or ritualism, 

 properly so called, into a practice once high and 

 noble. Different from this, however, was the practice 

 of defacing and rendering useless, either by mechani- 

 cal injury or by fire, the objects offered to the dead, 

 an act which implies the final renunciation of them 

 on the part of the living, and may have also been 

 understood as a species of death ushering them into 

 the other world for the benefit of the dead. All this 

 has its analogues in the Eastern continent, even in 

 historic times. 



