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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL LIFE 219
lies across the chasm, which is round, smooth and slippery. Over this the
disembodied spirits must pass if they would reach the land of a blissful
immortality. Such as have lived purely and honestly upon earth are enabled
to pass safely over the terrific abyss on the narrow bridge to the land of eternal
happiness. But such as have lived wickedly, in their attempt to pass over
on the log, are sure to lose their footing and fall into the mighty abyss yawning
below."
Farther on he elaborates on the subject of the foot log, which has
now turned from a pine into a sweet gum
They also believed that the spirits of the dead . . . had to cross a fearful
river wliich stretched its swirling waters athwart their way ; that this foam-
ing stream has but one crossing, at which a cleanly peeled sweet-gum log,
perfectly round, smooth and slippery, reached from bank to bank; that the
moment the spirit arrives at the log, it is attacked by two other spirits whose
business is to keep any and all spirits from crossing thereon. But if a spirit
is that of a good pei'son, the guardians of the log have no power over it, and
it safely walks over the log to the opposite shore, where it is welcomed by
other spirits of friends gone before, and where contentment and happiness will
forever be the lot of all.
But alas, when the spirit of a bad person arrives at the log-crossing of the
fearful river, it also is assailed by the ever wakeful guards, and as it attempts
to walk the slippery log they push it off into the surging waters below, to be
helplessly borne down by the current to a cold and barren desert, where but
little game abounds and over which he is doomed to wander, a forlorn hope,
naked, cold and hungry."
Folsom's testimony, quoted by Cushman, is naturally about the
same:
In common with the believers of the Scriptures, they held the doctrine of
future rewards and punishments. They differed from them, however, as to the
location of heaven and their views of happiness and misery. Heaven, or
the happy hunting grounds, in their imagination, was similar to the Elysian
fields of the heathen mythology. There the spirits of those who had been
virtuous, honest and truthful, while on earth, enjoyed, in common with
youthful angels, all manner of games and voluptuous pleasures, with no care,
no sorrow, nothing biit one eternal round of enjoyment. They believed that
angels or spirits seldom visited the earth, and cared but very little about
doing so, as being supplied in heaven with everything suitable to their wants,
nothing was required from the earth. According to their notion, heaven was
located in the southwestern horizon, and spirits, instead of ascending, accord-
ing to the Christian idea, sped their last journey in a line directly above the
surface of the earth in the direction of the southwest horizon. I'revious to
a spirit's admission into the happy hunting ground, it was examined by
the attendant angel at the gate, who consigned it to heaven or hell according
to its deeds on earth. Their hell, or place of punishment, as they termed
it, was the reverse of the happy hunting ground—a land full of briers, thorns,
and every description of prickly plants, which could inflict deep cuts,
causing intense pain from which there was no escape ; onward they must go
1- Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 31-32. « Ibid., pp. 226-227.