XCvi ETITNOGRAPniC SKETCH. 



can be perceived only by the trained eye of sucli as are initiated into the 

 conjurer's profession. 



The chisses of specters mentioned more frecjuently than otliers in 

 mytliology are the spirits of the dead, and giants, dwarfs, and fairies. 



The Sko'ks, or spirits of the deceased, occupy an important place in the 

 psychologic marvels of the Klamath Indian, and are objects of dread and 

 abomination, feelings which are increased by a belief in their omnipresence 

 and invisibility. The popular idea of a ghost is suggested in all climates 

 and historic epochs by that of a shadow of somebody's former self, and in 

 several Indian languages the same word is used for shadow, soul, and ghost* 

 The proper signification of sko'ks, shkfx'ksh is "what comes out of;" like 

 sk(3'hs, sk() spriM) of the year; it is derived from skoa to come out of, to 

 emerge from, sproid up. 



In the mind of the Indian the appearance of a sko'ks comes pretty near 

 the popular idea of a witch or spook as held by the uneducated classes of 

 our population. The soul of ii man becomes a skuks as soon as the corpse 

 has been buried or consumed by fire. It hovers in the air around its former 

 home or the wigwams of the neighbors and at night-time only. Its legs 

 hang down and produce a rattling noise, and the whole a|)pears in a white 

 or a black shade of coloi-. Usually nobody sees them, they do not harm 

 anybody, nor do they produce any dreams; they appear to the senses and 

 sight of the living only when they come to presage death to them. They 

 undergo no metempsychosis into animals or plants; after hovering awhile 

 around their former homes they retire to the spirit-land in the sky, "some- 

 where near K'nn'ikamtch." Their arrival there is afterwards revealed by 

 dreams to the surviving relatives, who express in songs what they have 

 seen during their slumbers. 



♦ In the ToiiiUa or Tt'uii;^ka laugiiage of Louisiaua telia or tt'lia'Utch signify 

 shadoic, soul, anil reflection in the icater; in the Clia'hta, State of Mississippi, shihimbish 

 is shadow and soul, while a ghost is shilup. The Egyptian ka and the Greek afdwXuy, 

 the soul after deatli, really signify image, and to this we may compare the use made of 

 the Latin imago. Tlie CheroUees, as Mr. James Mooney informs me, distinguish 

 between adanta soul in the living being, u"dali' secondary soul of an animal killed once 

 before, and asgina an ordinaiy specter, ghost of iiiah^voloiit disposition, which last term 

 served the missionaries for transcribing the word "de\il." 



