182 THE GALLINOMERO. 
that they go to the Happy Western Land beyond the sea; others, that they 
ascend up indefinitely. The bad return into coyotes, or sink immeasurably 
deep into the bowels of the earth. 
There is one very curious conceit which they entertain concerning that 
region, which is not to be mentioned to ears polite. They say it is an island 
in the bitter, salt sea, an island naked, barren, and desolate, covered only with 
brine-spattered stones, and with glistening salt, which crunches under the 
tread, and swept with cursed winds and blinding acrid sea-spray. On this 
abhorred island bad Indians are condemned to live forever, spending an 
eternity in breaking stones one upon another, with no food but the broken 
stones and no drink but the choking brine. They are forced to this unend- 
ing toil by a task-master who is the most hideous of conceivable beings. 
Though created in the human form, he is scarcely recognizable ; one shoul- 
der is higher than the other; his face is horribly contorted and drawn to 
one side; one eye is protruded and ten times its natural size, while the other 
is shrunken, bleared, and infernal; one arm is twice as long as the other; 
one of his legs is wrenched forward, and the other backward; they are of 
uneven length, ete. 
The dead are mourned for a year. Every morning and evening for 
about two hours, during that length of time, the relatives seat themselves 
in a circle on the ground, and set up their mournful wails and chants, while 
they beat themselves and tear their hair. Lifting their eyes to heaven, 
they cry out, ‘Wa, toch-i-dé! Wa, toch-i-dé!” (O, my mother!) or whatever 
may be the relation. During the remainder of the day they go about their 
several employments with their ordinary composure. 
They have a vague notion of a great ruling power somewhere in the 
heavens, whom they call Kal-li-top’-ti, which means “The Chief Above”. 
But the coyote performed all the work of creation. They do not pretend 
to explain the origin of the world, but they believe that astute animal to 
be the author of man himself, of fire, of the luminaries of heaven, ete. Fire 
he created by rubbing two pieces of wood together in his paws, and the 
sacred spark he has preserved in the tree-trunks to this day. 
ORIGIN OF LIGHT. 
In the early days of the world all the face of the earth was wrapped 
