252 THE PIMA INDIANS [eth. axn. 26 



sleepino; parents, an informant declared. Considering the manner 

 in wliich tlie moon is supposed to have originated, it is strange that 

 it should contain the figure of a co3'ote. No explanation of this 

 belief was found. 



The stars are living beings: Morning Star is the daughter of a 

 magician; her name is Su'mas Ho'-o, Visible Star. Polaris is the Not- 

 walking Star, but is otherwise not distinguished from his fellows. 

 Possibly this term has been adopted since the advent of the whites. 

 Once a mule with a pack load of flour was going along in the sky, 

 but he was fractious and not gentle, as is the horse. He bucked off 

 the load of flour, which was spilled all along the trail. A part of it 

 was eaten by Coyote, but some remains to form the Milky Way. 



TUE SOIL AND ITS DESTINY 



The soul is in the center of the breast. It makes us breathe, but 

 it is not the breath. It is not known just what it is like, whether 

 it is white or any other color. 



The views of the Pimas concerning the destiny of the soul varied 

 considerably. Some declared that at death the soul passed into 

 the body of an owl. Should an owl happen to be hooting at the time 

 of a death, it was believed that it was waiting for the soul. Referring 

 to the diet of the owl, dying persons sometimes said, "I am going 

 to eat rats." Owl feathers were always given to a dying person. 

 They were kept in a long rectangular box or basket of maguey leaf. 

 If the family had no owl feathers at hand, they sent to the medicine- 

 man, who always kept them. If possible, the feathers were taken 

 from a living bird when collected; the owl might then beset free 

 or killed. If the short downy feathers of the owl fell upon a person, 

 he would go l)lind. Even to-day the educated young people are 

 very chary about entering an abandoned building tenanted by an 

 owl." 



By some it is said that after death souls go to the land of the 

 dead in the east.' All souls go to Si'alik Rsan, Morning Base, or 



o " Having been asked what information they possessed of their ancestors ^antepasadoif), they told 

 me about the same things as (lo mismo poco mas 6 menos que) the (Pimas [Maricopas?Ji Gilenos said 

 to the senor comandante. and Padre Font put in his diary, concerning the deluge and creation; and 

 added, that their origin was from near the sea in which an old woman created their progenitors: that 

 this old woman is still somewhere (guien sabe fn dondr), and that she it is who sends the corals that 

 come out of the sea: that when they die their ghost (corazon) goes to live toward the western sea; 

 that some, after they die, live like owls (tecol6tes: and finnlly they said that they themselves do not 

 understand such things well, and that those who know il all are those who live in the sierra over 

 there beyond the Uio Colorado." Oarers' Diary in Coues, On the Trail of a Si)anish Pioneer. I. 122. 



*'.\fter death Mohaves become spirits; then they die again and beeonu' a. kind of an owl; a second 

 time they turn into a different kind of an owl. and a third time into still another; fourthly, they iiecome 

 water beetles; after that they turn into air. 



■' n an>^hing is left of their bodies, the arms, the muscles of the upper arms become one kind of an 

 owl, and the heart another." J. G. Bourke, Journal of American Folk-Lore, II, 181. 



''Compare the Navaho belief, as recorded by Matthews: "For is it not from the west that the snow 

 conies in the winter, the warm thawing breezes in the spring, and the soft rains in the summer to nour- 



