SPIRIT DEITIES. XCvii 



The common belief of the Oregonians is that after death the soul 

 travels the patli traveled by the sun, which is the westward path; there it 

 joins in the spirit-land (e'ni) the innumerable souls which have gone the 

 same way before.* If tlie deceased was a chief, commander, or man of 

 note, his "heart" can l>e seen going west in the form of a shooting star. 

 The Egyptian belief was that the soul of the dead was following Atum, 

 the sinking sun, to the west; and since then innumerable nations and tribes 

 have adhered to the same belief. 



From the Texts obtained from Dave Hill, pp. 129, 130, we learn that 

 other abodes of dead men's spirits are the bodies of living fish. Perhaps 

 Hill learned of this belief among the maritime and river Indians with whom 

 he lived on the Columbia River, where the idea of fish eating corpses could 

 suggest itself more readily than upon the lakes of the Klamath highlands. 

 The Notes which I added to these curious texts give all the explanations which 

 it is at present possible to give. It appears from them that such spirits can 

 enter the bodies of "spirit-fish," that one ski'iks can see another, and that 

 Indians, not white men, sometimes see the skuks, but at the peril of their 

 lives. A distinction is also made between good and bad skuks, the latter 

 being probably those who render the Indian's sleep uncomfortable by 

 unpleasant dreams. 



Some natural phenomena often appear to these Indians in the form of 

 specters or hobgoblins, as clouds, water-spouts, snow-storms, columns of 

 dust, etc Noisily and rapidly they pursue tlieir lonely path, and their 

 gigantic, terrific frames reach up to the skies; whoever meets tliem una- 

 wares is knocked down senseless or killed outright, or must exchange his 

 body for another. Some of these specters look dark on one side and light 

 on the other. 



In northern latitudes, where polar lights are frequently visible, they 

 are supposed by the Indians to represent the dance of the dead, and when- 

 ever Christianity is introduced among them they identify this beautiful 

 spectacle with the last judgment, when the spirits of the deceased move 

 about in the expectation of the coming Christ. 



• Cf. Dictionary, sab voce e'ni and Grammar, Ajjpendix Vf, p. 702. The Warm 

 Spring Indians call the spirit land: ayayAni. See also Texts, p. 174; 11. 

 vii 



