NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.            163

compliments. In other places they hire women to weep,
wcho perform their duty punctually; they sing, they
-dance, they weep without ceasitng, always keeping time;
but these demonstrations of a borrowed sorrow do not
prevent what nature requires from the relations of the
deceased. They carry the body without ceremony to
the place of interment; at least, I find no mention about
it in any relation; but when it is in the grave, they take
care to cover it in such a manner, that the earth does
not touch it; it lies iii a little cave lined with skins, nmuch
richer and better adorned than their cabins. Then they
set up a post on the arave, and fix on it every thing that
may show the esteem they had for tlie deceased. They
sometimes put on it his portrait and every thing that
may serve to show to passengers who he was, and the
finest actions of his life. They carry fresh provisions
to his tomb every morning; and as the dogs and other
beasts do not fail to reap the benefit of it, they are will-
ing to persuade themselves that these things have been
eaten by the souls of the dead.
   4* It is not strange after this, that the savages believe
in apparitions; and in fact, they tell stories of this sort
all. manner of ways. I krnew a poor man, who, by con-
tinually hearing these stories, fancied that he had always
a troop of ghosts at his heels; and as people took a
pleasure to increase his fears, it made him grow foolish;
nevertheless, at the end of a certain number of years,
they take as much care to efface out of their minds the
remembrance of those they have lost, as they did before
to praserve it; and this is solely to put an end to the
grief they felt for their loss..,
   "Some missionaries one day asking their new con-
verts, why they deprived themselves of their most ne-
cessary things in favour of the dead.  They replied,
'It is not only to show the love we bore to our relations,
but also that we may not have before our eyes, in the
things they used, objects which would continually renew
our grief.' It is also for this reason that they forbear,