l^w'S] TALES 459 



woman heard a noise behind her, near the place where her husband 

 lay; it sounded like the noise made in the chewing of flesh. She 

 began to think about the corpse on the shelf and remembered that the 

 dead man was a wizard. Putting on more wood and making the fire 

 blaze up, she looked toward the bunk, where she saw a stream of 

 blood trickling out. From this she knew at once that her husband 

 had been killed by the dead man. 



The bread under the ashes was baked. She then spoke, saying, 

 " I must make a torch and bring some water." Thereupon she pre- 

 pared a torch of hickory bark taken from the lodge, making it long 

 enough to last until she could run home. Taking the pail, she stole 

 out, but once outside of the door she quickly di'opped the pail, and 

 ran through the woods with all her might. She had gotten more 

 than halfway home when the dead man, the vampire, found that 

 she was gone. At once he rushed out, whooping, and ran after her. 

 She heard him, and knew that he was following her. The sound of 

 the whooping came nearer and nearer, and for a while, imnerved 

 completely by fear, she could scarcely move, but at last, having re- 

 gained her strength, she ran on. Again the vampire whooped, and 

 the woman fell down from fear and exhaustion; but she arose again 

 and ran on, until finally she came within sight of a place near her 

 own village where there was a dance. The pursuing man-eating 

 skeleton was gaining on her, and her torch was almost gone; but, 

 running ahead, she fell into the lodge in which the dancing was in 

 progress, and then fainted. When she came to her senses, she told 

 what had occurred to her and her husband. 



In the morning a body of men went over to the cabin, in which they 

 found the bones of her husband, from which all the flesh had been 

 eaten. Taking down the bark box, they looked at the skeleton of the 

 dead man and found his face and hands bloody. The chief said it 

 was not right to leave dead people in that way; therefore they dug 

 a hole, in which they buried the man-eating skeleton, and took the 

 bones of the other man home. The chief had him buried and or- 

 dered that thereafter all dead peojale should be buried in the 

 ground. At first the dead were put on scaffolds, but the people used 

 to see sights which frightened them, for the dead would rise and 

 run after the living. Then it was resolved to build bark lodges for 

 the dead and to put them on shelves therein. This plan did not work 

 well, as the foregoing stoi'y shows. About one hundred years ago, 

 says the relator, the present system of earth burial was begun. Be- 

 fore the burial system was adopted they used to put the corpse on 

 the ground, into a chamber like a room dug into a hillside. If the 

 deceased was married, the husband or wife had to watch with the 

 corpse in this place, and every ten days for a year friends brought 

 food to the watcher. If the watcher lived through the year, he or 



