A Chippewa chief, heading his war party against the Sioux, received an
arrow in his breast, and fell. No warrior thus slain is ever buried.
According to ancient custom, he was placed in a sitting posture, with
his back against a tree, his face towards his flying enemies; his
head-dress, ornaments, and all his war-equipments, were arranged, with
care, and thus he was left. But the chief was not dead; though he could
neither move nor speak, he was sensible to all that passed. When he
found himself abandoned by his friends as one dead, he was seized with a
paroxysm of rage and anguish. When they took leave of him, lamenting, he
rose up and followed them, but they saw him not. He pursued their track,
and wheresoever they went, he went; when they ran, he ran; when they
encamped and slept, he did the like; but he could not eat with them, and
when he spoke they heard him not. "Is it possible," he cried, exalting
his voice, "that my brothers do not see me--do not hear me? Will you
suffer me to bleed to death without stanching my wounds? will you let me
starve in the midst of food? have my fellow-warriors already forgotten
me? is there none who will recollect my face, or offer me a morsel of
flesh?" Thus he lamented and upbraided, but the sound of his voice
reached them not. If they heard it at all they mistook it for that of
the summer wind rustling among the leaves.
The war party returned to the village: the women and children came out
to welcome them. The chief heard the inquiries for himself, and the
lamentations of his friends and relatives over his death. "It is not
true!" he shrieked with a loud voice, "I am not dead,--I was not left on
the field; I am here! I live! I move! see me! touch me! I shall again
raise my spear in the battle, and sound my drum at the feast!" But no
one heeded him; they mistook his voice for the wind rising and whistling
among the boughs. He walked to his wigwam, and found his wife tearing
her hair, and weeping for his death. He tried to comfort her, but she
seemed insensible of his presence. He besought her to bind up his
wounds--she moved not. He put his mouth close to her ear, and shouted,
"I am hungry, give me food!" She thought she heard a mosquito buzzing in
her ear. The chief, enraged past endurance, now summoned all his
strength, and struck her a violent blow on the temple; on which she
raised her hand to her head, and remarked, "I feel a slight aching
here!"
When the chief beheld these things, he began to reflect that possibly
his body might have remained on the field of battle, while only his
spirit was among his friends; so he determined to go back and seek his
body. It was four days' journey thither, and on the last day, just as he
was approaching the spot, he saw a flame in the path before him; he
endeavoured to step aside and pass it, but was still opposed; whichever
way he turned, still it was before him. "Thou spirit," he exclaimed in
anger, "why dost thou oppose me? knowest thou not that I too am a
spirit, and seek only to re-enter my body? thinkest thou to make me turn
back? Know that I was never conquered by the enemies of my nation, and
will not be conquered by thee!" So saying, he made an effort, and leapt
through the opposing flame. He found himself seated under a tree on the
field of battle, in all his warlike array, his bow and arrows at his
side, just as he had been left by his friends, and looking up beheld a
great war-eagle seated on the boughs; it was the manito of whom he had
dreamed in his youth, his tutelary spirit who had kept watch over his
body for eight days, and prevented the ravenous beasts and carrion birds
from devouring it. In the end, he bound up his wounds and sustained
himself by his bow and arrows, until he reached his village; there he
was received with transport by his wife and friends, and concluded his
account of his adventures by telling them that it is four days' journey
to the land of spirits, and that the spirit stood in need of a fire
every night; therefore the friends and relatives should build the
funeral fire for four nights upon the grave, otherwise the spirit would
be obliged to build and tend the fire itself,--a task which is always
considered slavish and irksome.
Such is the tradition by which the Chippewas account for the custom of
lighting the funeral fire.