Ill 
The Parry Islander, however, regulated his life for this world only, 
and seldom troubled his thoughts about any world to come. He could 
accept totally contradictory theories provided that they seemed to carry 
the sanction of his forefathers. So old John Manatuwaba, while assenting 
to the usual conception of a spirit land somewhere in the west, believed also 
that a child was born every time a star disappeared, and that if the Indians 
lived aright, their souls would return to the stars. His parents had taught 
him this doctrine, claiming the authority of an Indian maiden who dreamed 
one night, as she lay on her back watching the stars, that the large, bright 
ones were old men and women, that the stars of medium brightness were 
Indians in the prime of life, and the faint stars little children. Whether 
this doctrine was of recent growth and peculiar to a small group of the Parry 
Islanders, or whether it was more widely spread and of considerable 
antiquity, I could not discover. 
4294—9 
