Note 219.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Among the Indians of the Thompson River in British Columbia both widows and widowers took elaborate precautions against the persecution of their deceased spouses. Directly death occurred the survivor went out and passed four times through a patch of rose-bushes, doubtless to ensure that the spirit should not cling to him or her. Probably for the same end ablutions in the creeks morning and evening for a year were prescribed. Rigid abstention from certain kinds of food was part of the discipline; and, contrary to the practice of the Ewhe, tobacco was also forbidden. During a whole year the survivor was required to sleep on a bed made of fir-branches, on which rose-bush sticks were also spread at the head and foot, while in the middle were not only rose-bush sticks, but also branches of bearberry, mountain-ash, juniper, sage, and so forth. A widow could neither lie or sit where her children slept, nor let them lie down on her bed. Finally, a widow often wore a breech-cloth made of dry bunch-grass for several days, that the ghost of her husband should not have conjugal intercourse with her.219.1 The aborigines of Hispaniola also believed that the dead walked in the night and entered into converse with living people, even in their beds; but if we may trust Peter Martyr, though in human shape they thus approached women, seeking sexual intercourse, “when the matter cometh to actual deede,” suddenly they vanished away.219.2 Our information concerning this unfortunate people, speedily destroyed by the Spaniards, is extremely meagre; and we do not know whether any precautions were taken against these ghostly visits. Among the Tarahumares of Mexico three great feasts are given at intervals after a death. Until the last of them is held the deceased hangs about the neighbourhood. Their object therefore is to get rid of the ghost. To that end he is presented with gifts and adjured to depart with them, and not to come and disturb the survivors. At the second, and especially at the third feast, ceremonial races are performed, in order to chase him away. Hikuli, the sacred plant of the Tarahumares, plays a prominent part in these festivities, for it “is thought to be very powerful in running off the dead, chasing them to the end of the world, where they join the other dead.” The third feast, the most elaborate of all, is deemed to be at last effectual. Not until it is over “will a widower or a widow marry again, being more afraid of the dead than are the other relatives.”219.3 It is not expressly stated what their fear is; but in the light of other examples it is perhaps not unreasonable to suspect that it arises from jealousy on the part of the deceased.