GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 351' 



tlie log, and go thousands of feet to the water, which is dash- 

 ing over the rocks."i In the interior of South America the idea 

 ajjpears again among the Manacicas. Among these people, the 

 Maponos or priests performed a kind of baptism of the dead, 

 and were then supposed to mount into the air, and carry the 

 soul to the Land of the Departed. After a weary journey of 

 many days over hills and vales, through forests, and across 

 rivers and swamps and lakes, they came to a place where 

 many roads met, near a deep and wide river, where the god 

 Tatusiso stood night and day upon a wooden bridge to inspect 

 all such travellers. If he did not consider the sprinkling after 

 death a sufficient purgation of the sins of the departed, he 

 would stop the priest, that the soul he carried might be fur- 

 ther cleansed, and if resistance were made, would sometimes 

 seize the unhappy soul and throw him into the river, and when 

 this happened some calamity would follow among the Manacicas 

 at home." 



The Bridge of the Dead may possibly have its origin in the 

 rainbow. Among the Northmen the rainbow is to be seen in the 

 bridge Bifrost of the three colours, over which the ^sir make 

 their daily journey, and the red in it is fire, for were it easy to 

 pass over, the Frost-giants and the Mountain-giants would get 

 across it into heaven. In a remark, evidently belonging to the 

 North American story of the Sun- Catcher, the rainbow replaces 

 the tree up which the mouse climbs, and gnaws loose a captive 

 in the sky.^ The Milky Way, which among the North Ame- 

 rican Indians is the road of souls to the other world, has also a 

 claim to be considered.'* As in the Old World, so in the New, 

 the Bridge of the Dead is but an incident, sometimes, but not 

 always or even mostly, introduced into a wider belief that after 

 death the soul of man comes to a great gulf or stream, which it 

 has to pass to reach the country that lies beyond the grave. 

 The Mythology of Polynesia, though it wants the Bridge, deve- 

 lopes the idea of the gulf which the souls have to pass, in canoes 



> Catlin, vol. ii. p. 127. 

 2 Southey, ' Brazil,' vol. iii. p. 186 



^ Schoolcraft iu Pott, ' Uiigleichheit der Mensclilichen Eassen ;' Lemgo, 1856, 

 p. 267. * Le Jeune (1634), p. 63. 



