by Longfellow, describing the burial of an indian chief, very beautifully illustrates this custom. I will transcribe a few lines.
"A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds, the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid.
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and beads.
******They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose—and on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again."
It is not very important to determine whether the indian really supposes that the identical horses that are slain upon the grave of the warrior, and the weapons that are buried there, accompany him to the elysian fields; or whether he only regards these things as the consecrated representatives of similar things with which he supposes his departed brother will be furnished in that world to which he has gone.—In either case there is full evidence of a firm belief in the existence of such a world. Nothing could more fully demonstrate the depth and strength of that impression which tells of a world unseen, but real, where spirits live and act. And is there not something to be learned, even here? You suppose the poor indian to be removed far beyond the reach of the dimmest ray of spiritual light. For many ages neither he nor his fathers have seen even one line of the divine Word. And yet in the midst of this cold desolation, this spiritual darkness, he retains a distinct and vivid impression of the existence of an unseen world into which he is soon to go, and where he expects to be surrounded by those very things in which he delights. I am not disposed to intimate that the indian's impressions in regard to the spiritual world are correct. Of the nature of those laws by which spiritual things exist, it is scarcely possible that he can have any correct idea. But if the views which will hereafter be presented, in regard to a resemblance between spiritual appearances and natural forms, be seen to be correct, it will
