also in the mightier empire of Peru, where each sun-descended Inca, feeling the approach of death, announced to his assembled vassals that he was called to heaven to rest with his father the Sun.[1] But in the higher religions, the change in this respect from the doctrine of continuance to the doctrine of retribution is wonderful in its completeness. The story of that great lady who strengthened her hopes of future happiness by the assurance, 'They will think twice before they refuse a person of my condition,' is a mere jest to modern ears. Yet, like many other modern jest, it is only an archaism which in an older stage of culture had in it nothing ridiculous.
To the happy land of Torngarsuk the Great Spirit, says Cranz, only such Greenlanders came as have been valiant workers, for other ideas of virtue they have none; such as have done great deeds, taken many whales and seals, borne much hardship, been drowned at sea, or died in childbirth.[2] Thus Charlevoix says of the Indians further south, that their claim to hunt after death on the prairies of eternal spring is to have been good hunters and warriors here. Lescarbot, speaking of the belief among the Indians of Virginia that after death the good will be at rest and the wicked in pain, remarks that their enemies are the wicked and themselves the good, so that in their opinion they are after death much at their ease, and principally when they have well defended their country and slain their enemies.[3] So Jean de Lery said of the rude Tubinambas of Brazil, they they think the souls of such as have lived virtuously, that is to say, who have well avenged themselves and eaten many of their enemies, will go behind the great mountains and dance in beautiful gardens with the souls of their fathers, but the souls of the effeminate and worthless, who
- ↑ 'Rec. des Voy. au Nord,' vol. v. p. 23 (Natchez); Garcilaso de la Vega, 'Commentaries Reales,' lib. i. c. 23, tr. by C. R. Markham; Prescott, 'Peru,' vol. i. pp. 29, 83; J. G. Müller, p. 402, &c.
- ↑ Cranz, 'Grönland,' p. 259.
- ↑ Charlevoix, 'Nouvelle France,' vol. vi. p. 77; Lescarbot, 'Hist. de la Nouvelle France,' Paris, 1619, p. 679.
