Why do these weeping Greeks approach the dead man, as he lies on his bier for burial, and open his mouth to put in an obolus? That coin is passage money for the surly ferryman who rows the spirit over Styx’s stream.
And why, in that forest grave, around which plumed and painted warriors stand unmoved and unmovable as statues, do they bury with the body of the Indian chief his canoe and bow and arrow.
He goes to follow the chase and hunt the deer in the spectre land, where the Great Spirit lives, and the spirits of his fathers have gone before him. How easy it is to teach in these customs and beliefs a sort of rude copy of the words Life and Immortality. I shall not die but live.—GUTHRIE.