( i9 2 ) 



efpecially at the rifing and fetting of the fun, at 

 noon, and infome parts when they go forth to their 

 labour or return from it. Mothers mourn in much 

 the fame manner for their children. The chiefs 

 mourn for fix months only, after which they are 

 free to marry again. 



Laftly, the firft and oftentimes the only faluta- 

 tion paid to a friend and even to a ftranger on his 

 entering their cabbins, is to bewail the relations 

 they loft fince they laft faw them. They lay their 

 hand on his head and fignify the perfon they lament, 

 but without naming him. This is entirely found- 

 ed on nature, and favours nothing of the barba- 

 rian but what I am going to relate to you ap- 

 pears inexcufable in every refpect. This is the 

 conduct which thefe nations obferv.e, with regard 

 to all who have died a violent death, even in war 

 and in the fervice of their country. 



They have taken it into their heads, that the 

 fouls of thefe perfons in the other world, have no 

 commerce with the reft; and on this principle 

 they burn them or bury them immediately, and 

 even fometimes before they are quite dead. They 

 never lay them in the common burying-ground, 

 and allow them no fhare in the grand ceremony, 

 which is repeated every eight years among fome 

 nations, and every ten years amongft the Hurons 

 and Iroquois. 



This is called the feftival of the dead, or of fouls. 

 The following is what I have been able to collect, 

 and is the mod uniform as well as moft remark- 

 able account, of this moft lingular and extraordi- 

 nary act of religion known amongft the Indians. 

 They begin with agreeing upo.i the place where the 



aflembly 



