Original - North Central Michigan College Library

grave, along with the carrying-belt and paddle,this little relic, hallowed by maternal tears.I have frequently inquired into the ideas andopinions of the Indians in regard to futurity,and always found that they were somewhatdifferent in different individuals.Some suppose their souls to remain in thisworld, although invisible to human eyes; andcapable, themselves, of seeing and hearingtheir friends, and also of assisting them inmoments of distress and danger.Others dismiss from the mortal scene theunembodied spirit, and send it to a distantworld, or country, in which it receives rewardor punishment, according to the life which ithas led in its prior state. Those who havelived virtuously are transported into a placeabounding with every luxury, with deer and allother animals of the woods and water, andwhere the earth produces, in their greatestperfection, all its sweetest fruits. While, on theother hand, those who have violated or neglectedthe duties of this life are removed toa barren soil, where they wander up and downamong rocks and morasses, and are stung bygnats as large as pigeons.146