_Felices errore suo_.--
LUCAN i. 454.
Happy in their mistake.
The Americans believe that all creatures have souls, not only men and
women, but brutes, vegetables, nay, even the most inanimate things, as
stocks and stones. They believe the same of all works of art, as of
knives, boats, looking-glasses; and that, as any of these things perish,
their souls go into another world, which is inhabited by the ghosts of
men and women. For this reason they always place by the corpse of their
dead friend a bow and arrows, that he may make use of the souls of them
in the other world, as he did of their wooden bodies in this. How absurd
soever such an opinion as this may appear, our European philosophers have
maintained several notions altogether as improbable. Some of Plato's
followers, in particular, when they talk of the world of ideas, entertain
us with substances and beings no less extravagant and chimerical. Many
Aristotelians have likewise spoken as unintelligibly of their substantial
forms. I shall only instance Albertus Magnus, who, in his dissertation
upon the loadstone, observing that fire will destroy its magnetic
virtues, tells us that he took particular notice of one as it lay glowing
amidst a heap of burning coals, and that he perceived a certain blue
vapour to arise from it, which he believed might be the substantial form
that is, in our West Indian phrase, the soul of the loadstone.
There is a tradition among the Americans that one of their countrymen
descended in a vision to the great repository of souls, or, as we call it
here, to the other world; and that upon his return he gave his friends a
distinct account of everything he saw among those regions of the dead. A
friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentioned, prevailed upon one of the
interpreters of the Indian kings to inquire of them, if possible, what
tradition they have among them of this matter: which, as well as he could
learn by those many questions which he asked them at several times, was
in substance as follows:
The visionary, whose name was Marraton, after having travelled for a long
space under a hollow mountain, arrived at length on the confines of this
world of spirits, but could not enter it by reason of a thick forest,
made up of bushes, brambles, and pointed thorns, so perplexed and
interwoven with one another that it was impossible to find a passage
through it. Whilst he was looking about for some track or pathway that
might be worn in any part of it, he saw a huge lion couched under the
side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the same posture as when he
watches for his prey. The Indian immediately started back, whilst the
lion rose with a spring, and leaped towards him. Being wholly destitute
of all other weapons, he stooped down to take up a huge stone in his
hand, but, to his infinite surprise, grasped nothing, and found the
supposed stone to be only the apparition of one. If he was disappointed
on this side, he was as much pleased on the other, when he found the
lion, which had seized on his left shoulder, had no power to hurt him,
and was only the ghost of that ravenous creature which it appeared to be.
He no sooner got rid of his impotent enemy, but he marched up to the
wood, and, after having surveyed it for some time, endeavoured to press
into one part of it that was a little thinner than the rest, when, again
to his great surprise, he found the bushes made no resistance, but that
he walked through briars and brambles with the same ease as through the
open air, and, in short, that the whole wood was nothing else but a wood
of shades. He immediately concluded that this huge thicket of thorns and
brakes was designed as a kind of fence or quickset hedge to the ghosts it
inclosed, and that probably their soft substances might be torn by these
subtile points and prickles, which were too weak to make any impressions
in flesh and blood. With this thought he resolved to travel through this
intricate wood, when by degrees he felt a gale of perfumes breathing upon
him, that grew stronger and sweeter in proportion as he advanced. He had
not proceeded much further, when he observed the thorns and briers to
end, and give place to a thousand beautiful green trees, covered with
blossoms of the finest scents and colours, that formed a wilderness of
sweets, and were a kind of lining to those ragged scenes which he had
before passed through. As he was coming out of this delightful part of
the wood, and entering upon the plains it enclosed, he saw several
horsemen rushing by him, and a little while after heard the cry of a pack
of dogs. He had not listened long before he saw the apparition of a milk-
white steed, with a young man on the back of it, advancing upon full
stretch after the souls of about a hundred beagles, that were hunting
down the ghost of a hare, which ran away before them with an unspeakable
swiftness. As the man on the milk-white steed came by him, he looked
upon him very attentively, and found him to be the young prince
Nicharagua, who died about half a year before, and, by reason of his
great virtues, was at that time lamented over all the western parts of
America.
He had no sooner got out of the wood but he was entertained with such a
landscape of flowery plains, green meadows, running streams, sunny hills,
and shady vales as were not to be represented by his own expressions,
nor, as he said, by the conceptions of others. This happy region was
peopled with innumerable swarms of spirits, who applied themselves to
exercises and diversions, according as their fancies led them. Some of
them were tossing the figure of a quoit; others were pitching the shadow
of a bar; others were breaking the apparition of a horse; and multitudes
employing themselves upon ingenious handicrafts with the souls of
departed utensils, for that is the name which in the Indian language they
give their tools when they are burnt or broken. As he travelled through
this delightful scene he was very often tempted to pluck the flowers that
rose everywhere about him in the greatest variety and profusion, having
never seen several of them in his own country: but he quickly found, that
though they were objects of his sight, they were not liable to his touch.
He at length came to the side of a great river, and, being a good
fisherman himself, stood upon the banks of it some time to look upon an
angler that had taken a great many shapes of fishes, which lay flouncing
up and down by him.
I should have told my reader that this Indian had been formerly married
to one of the greatest beauties of his country, by whom he had several
children. This couple were so famous for their love and constancy to one
another that the Indians to this day, when they give a married man joy of
his wife, wish that they may live together like Marraton and Yaratilda.
Marraton had not stood long by the fisherman when he saw the shadow of
his beloved Yaratilda, who had for some time fixed her eye upon him
before he discovered her. Her arms were stretched out towards him;
floods of tears ran down her eyes; her looks, her hands, her voice called
him over to her, and, at the same time, seemed to tell him that the river
was unpassable. Who can describe the passion made up of joy, sorrow,
love, desire, astonishment that rose in the Indian upon the sight of his
dear Yaratilda? He could express it by nothing but his tears, which ran
like a river down his cheeks as he looked upon her. He had not stood in
this posture long before he plunged into the stream that lay before him,
and finding it to be nothing but the phantom of a river, stalked on the
bottom of it till he arose on the other side. At his approach Yaratilda
flew into his arms, whilst Marraton wished himself disencumbered of that
body which kept her from his embraces. After many questions and
endearments on both sides, she conducted him to a bower, which she had
dressed with her own hands with all the ornaments that could be met with
in those blooming regions. She had made it gay beyond imagination, and
was every day adding something new to it. As Marraton stood astonished
at the unspeakable beauty of her habitation, and ravished with the
fragrancy that came from every part of it, Yaratilda told him that she
was preparing this bower for his reception, as well knowing that his
piety to his God, and his faithful dealing towards men, would certainly
bring him to that happy place whenever his life should be at an end. She
then brought two of her children to him, who died some years before, and
resided with her in the same delightful bower, advising him to breed up
those others which were still with him in such a manner that they might
hereafter all of them meet together in this happy place.
The tradition tells us further that he had afterwards a sight of those
dismal habitations which are the portion of ill men after death; and
mentions several molten seas of gold, in which were plunged the souls of
barbarous Europeans, who put to the sword so many thousands of poor
Indians for the sake of that precious metal. But having already touched
upon the chief points of this tradition, and exceeded the measure of my
paper, I shall not give any further account of it.