302 
Yau-ya-hau;* and the Peruvians believed in the existence 
of a powerful Being, opposed to the Supreme Being, full of 
hatred to the eaten race, reminding one of the Mavinanh 
of the Persians, or the Satan of the Jews.t+ 
Bancroft, in describing a burial on the Mosquito coast in 
Central America, says that, as it is supposed that the Evil 
Spirit seeks to take possession of the body, means are taken 
to prevent it.t 
Among the Navajos, when a dead body is removed from a 
house, it is burned down, and the place always abandoned, as 
the belief is that the devil comes to the place and remains 
where it is.§ 
The name of the Evil Spirit of the Mojaves is Newathie,]|| 
and the Pimas of California believe in a Great Evil Spirit and 
a multitude of witches who cause sickness.4 
The Tatu of California are terribly afraid of snakes, because 
they believe them to contain the spirits of wicked people, 
sent back to this world by the devil; the Ashochimi worship 
the owl and the hawk, because they believe them to be the 
dwelling-place of powerful and wicked spirits whom they 
must appease; the Patawat believe in innumerable sprites in 
' the shape of men and women, who do various terrible things ; 
they do not appear to be dead Indians returned to life, but 
pre-existing demons taking the human form; the Tatus and 
others have secret societies, whose object is to keep the 
women in subjection by ‘‘raising the devil”; and the 
Maidus hold a great spirit dance to propitiate the evil 
demons.** 
The Klamath and Trinity Indians of Northern California 
keep a fire and howl around the grave of a deceased person 
to prevent him from being captured by the devil on his way 
to the spirit-land.+t+ 
The Shoshones believe in the existence of i imps or demons, | 
the natives of Nevada in that of an Evil Spirit; the name of 
that of the Okinagans is Chacha, and, of the Konigas, Hyak.tt 
The Indians around the mouth of the Columbia River had a 
belief in an Hyil Spirit which inhabits the fire, and which, 
* Brett’s Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 336. 
+ Tschudi’s Peruvian Antiquities, p. 152. 
~ Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i. p. 744. 
Yarrow’s Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs, p. 13. 
; Ibid., p. 14. “I_ Native Laces of the Pacific, vol. ini. 
** Contributions to N. A. Eth nology, vol. di. pp. 98, 142, 144, 199, 286. 
++ Yarrow’s Introduction, p. 10. 
Tt Bancroft’s Native Races of the Pacrfic, vol. iii, 
