Let my brother listen to my words, and ponder deeply. Let him remain
mute, and his question shall be answered. He has asked the opinion
which the red men of the wilderness entertain of the Country of
Souls;--he has asked us whither the spirits of good men repair when
the sleep which knows no waking has come over them. Again, I say, let
my brother listen deeply, for the words he will hear are concerning
the question he has asked. We shall sing in his ears no tale of bloody
deeds--of scalps taken from stricken warriors, or of victims bound to
a naming stake. Our songs shall be songs of a state far happier than
that enjoyed by mortals; we shall tell of worlds, the air of which is
purer, the sun brighter, the moon milder, and the stars far more
glorious--of the Land of the Happy Hunting-Grounds. As my brother will
see, each nation has its own beloved place of rest for the soul. It is
well. Could the Chippewas dwell with the Hurons, whose blood they
have so frequently shed? Could a man of the Pawnee Loups embrace an
Omawhaw, who carried at his back the scalps of his wife and his
children? No; and, therefore, as they could not on earth dwell in
peace together, so each has in the world of souls his separate
hunting-grounds, his own rivers, lakes, valleys, mountains, forests,
where no envious hunter may intrude, which no bloody-minded warrior
may invade. An insurmountable and eternal barrier is placed between
tribes who had formerly been at war, lest they disturb the peace of
the blessed shades by a renewal of the quarrel, and shake the glorious
mansions with the violence of wars, like those they wage on earth. My
brother asks how, the Dahcotahs know these things. I answer, it was
seen by one of them in his sleep; it came in the shape of a dream to a
very wise man of our nation.
There was among us, in the days that are gone, a priest who was much
beloved by his Master, and was taught by him to know the future as he
knew the present, and to see and speak truly of things unseen by other
eyes. He had been many years on the earth, and was now called
"Akkeewaisee," a name signifying his great age. That he might better
converse with, and worship his master he had taken up his abode in a
hollow hill, near the great village of the Dahcotahs. Thither the tribe
resorted, to be taught those things which were necessary to be known in
respect to the proper ordering of the hunt or the war expedition, to the
season at which the corn should be planted, or the gathering of the
tribe at the chosen waters of the salmon should take place. Having never
known any thing predicted by him prove false; having ordered, under his
guidance, all their hunting and war expeditions right, and never failed,
when relying on his presentiments, to go to the haunts of the salmon, at
the proper season, and to return from thence with full bellies and glad
hearts, they listened to the words of Akkeewaisee, the Aged, and
believed the tale which he told them of the Land of Spirits.
Akkeewaisee, the Aged, was sleeping on his bed of skins and soft grass,
when the Manitou of Dreams came to him, and led him out of the hollow
cave towards the Wanare-tebe, or dwelling-place of the souls of the
Dahcotahs, and their kindred tribes. Onward they travelled for many
suns, over lofty mountains, up whose rocky sides they were obliged to
scramble as a wild goat scrambles; now swimming deep rivers, now
threading mazy forests, now frozen in the regions of intense cold, and
now burnt in those of great heat, till at length they came to a very
high rock, the edge of which was as sharp as the sharpest knife.
Waiting, at its hither end, their turn to essay the dangerous test of
their good or bad deeds, the unerring trial of their guilt or purity,
stood many souls of Dahcotahs, and others whom Akkeewaisee had known on
the earth. He stood and beheld the punishment of the bad, and the
blessed escape of the good from the dreadful ordeal to which all alike
were subjected. He saw a Dahcotah attempt the dangerous passage who had
been too lazy to hunt, who had lain whole days stretched out upon his
mat, while his wife begged food of the husbands of other women, and his
children were clothed with skins, the produce of the labours of other
men. He saw him precipitated from the dizzy height into the depths
below, where the Evil Spirit received him into ids arms, and condemned
him to that--to the criminal--hardest of punishments, a life of labour
and fatigue. The great stick of wood was placed upon his shoulders, and
a great pail of water in each hand, while the evil creature appointed to
be his task-master flogged him incessantly to incite to a quicker walk.
Again was the passage attempted by another. A Dahcotah came forward, who
had dared to paint his cheeks as a warrior paints, and to shave his
crown to the scalp-lock, and to prepare a sheaf of arrows, and to strike
the painted pole, that stood by the council fire, and to dance the
war-dance, and to utter the whoop of a warrior. Yet, when he came to the
field where the hostile Tetons were assembled to do battle with his
tribe--when his brothers had rushed like men upon their foes--he wiped
the paint from his cheeks, he cut off the scalp-lock, he threw away his
sheaf of arrows, he forgot that he had struck the war-pole, or danced,
or whooped, and fled from the field as a deer flies from the bark of a
dog. Him the master of the fetes of the bad ordained to a ceaseless
warfare with the shades of the Tetons, from whom he had fled. He saw a
liar attempt the dreadful passage--he fared no better than those who had
preceded him; a reviler of the priests, and disbeliever in their power,
met with the same fate. He saw the son of the aged Tadeus-kund, who had
beaten his mother and spat in the face of his father, double chained to
a wheel which moved over the floor of the abyss, at the top of the speed
of the unnatural son.
Then came the turn of the good to make the trial of the rock. He saw
pass safely over all who had been good to their parents, who had hunted
well, fought bravely, told no lies, nor ridiculed, nor doubted, the
priests. Having seen them all arrive in safety at the other end of the
rode, the spirit conducted Akkeewaisee over also. They had yet a long
way to travel, but they were guided by their observation of the
encamping places of the souls who had preceded them. At each of these
places tents were pitched, and fires always lighted where they could
warm themselves, and rest until they had driven away the pains of
fatigue, and recovered strength to pursue their journey. After many
moons of weary travel, they arrived at the habitation of the Waktan
Tanka, or Great Spirit. It was situated in the middle of a flowery vale,
watered by cool and refreshing streams, and shaded by groves of larch
and cypress. Many villages of the dead were scattered over it; here one,
and there one, like single buffaloes feeding on a prairie. Akkeewaisee
asked if the souls of his father and mother had reached the happy vale,
and was directed to the village in which they dwelt. He found, gathered
in this village, the souls of all his race who had passed the rock; the
joyful reunion had there taken place for a long succession of ages--of
fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters: they now
composed one great family. Their life--the life of all assembled in the
valley of the Waktan Tanka--was blissful and happy beyond measure. They
planted corn, which never failed to grow tall; they hunted the buffalo
through flowery vales, till they pierced his side with a never-varying
arrow, Akkeewaisee asked the spirits if it was permitted to them to
revisit the land of the living. They answered never, except when
children were about to die, and then their departed relatives recrossed
the rock of judgment to guide their tender feet to their latest home.
Having lain three moons in the trance, the soul of the Aged Man
re-animated his body, and he awoke. He related to the people of the tribe
his dream of the Land of departed Spirits, and it has travelled down to
my time as I have told it to my brother.