Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1854-05-03
THE INDIAN HEAVEN.

Bancroft gives the following sketch of the In
dian faith:
The same motive prompted them to bury with
the warrior his pipe and his manitou; his toma-
hawk, culver. and bow ready bent for action, and
his most splendid apparel to place by his side
his bowl, his maize, and his venson, for the long
Journey to the country of his ancestors. Festi-
vaIs in honor of the dead were also frequent,
when part of the food was given to the flames,
that so it might serve to nourish the departed.
The traveller would find in the forests dead
body placed on scaffold erected upon piles,
carefully wrapped 10 bark for its shroud, and at
tired in warmest furs fla mother lost her babe,
she would cover it with bark, and envelope it
anxiously in the softest beaver skins; at the bu-
rial place she would put by its side its cradle,
Its beads and its rattles; and as last service of
maternal love, would draw milk from her bosom
in cup of bark, and burn it in the fire, that her
infant might still find nourishment on its solita-
ry journey to the land of shades. Yet the new
born babe would be buried, not, as usual, on a
scaftold, but by the waysde, that so its spirit
might secretly steal into the bosom of some pass
ing matron, and be born again under happier au-
spices. On burying her daughter, the Chippewa
mother adds, not snow-shoes and beads and moe
casins only, but (sad emblem of woman's lot in
the widernessD the carrying belt and the pad
die. know my daughter will be restored to
me, she once said, as she clipped lock Of hair
as memorial for, by this lock of hair
shall discover her, for | shall take it with me !;
alluding to the day, when she too, with her car
rying belt and paddle, and the little relic of her
child, d,shouid pass through the grave to the dwell
ing place of her ancestors.
The faith, as well as the sympathies of the
savage, descended also to inferior things. Of
each kind of animal they say there exists one,
the source and origin of all, of vast size, the
type and original of the whole class From the
immense invisible beaver come all the beavers,
by whatever run of water they are found the
same is true of the elk and buffalo, of the eagle
and robin, of the meanest quadruped Of the for
est, of the smallest insect that buzzes in the air.
There lives for each class of animals this invisi-
BILE, vast type, or elder brother. Thus the saw
age established his right to be classed by philos-
ophers in the rank Of realists, and his chief eff
fort at generalization was reverent exercise of
the religious sentiment Where these elder
brothers dwell they do not exactly know yet it
may be that the giant manitous, which are BROTH
ers to beast, are hid beneath the waters, and
that those of the birds make their homes in the
blue sky. But the Indian believes also, of each
individual animal, that it possesses the mysteri-
Gus, the indisructibe principle of life there is
not breathing thing but has its shade, which
never can perish Regarding himsefin compari-
son with other animals, but as the first among
coordinate existences, he respects the brute-cre-
alton, and assigns to it, as to himself, perpetu.
ity Of being. The ancients of these lands be.
leved that the warrior, when released from life,
renews the passions and activity of this world;
is seated once more among his friends; shares
again the joyous feast; walks tbro' the shadowy
forests, that are alive with the spirits of birds
and there in his PARADISE
BY midnight moons, DER moistening dcws,
In vestments for the chase arrayed.
The hunter still the deer pursues-
The hunter and the deer q shade.