Belief In After Life:Native Americans

The Huron, north of Lake Ontario, used communal graves to bury those that had died in

past years. Both the prominent and common people were buried together. Property was set aside in anticipation of the ritual of resuscitation. At the end of this ritual, the dead gained new life as others took their names and responsibilities, some of the names of important chiefs becoming clan or lineage titles.

The Mandan of North Dakota held great respect for their dead. When a prominent

woman died the family immediately began preparation. The woman was dressed in her finest clothes and her favorite possessions were placed with her body. She was oiled and her face painted. She then was wrapped in bison hide and secured with leather thongs. The body was then carried to an area within sight of

one hundred years, but among other tribes on the Great Plains there were varying views. The Blackfeet on the northern plains believed Old Man disputed with Old Woman concerning whether people should die or live forever. After some discussion, Old Woman tossed a rock into a lake, saying that if it floated people would come back to life in four days time; if it sank people would die forever. In that ancient time, as a consequence of this act, death became an indelible part of human destiny. Similar traditions were told elsewhere on the northern plains as well as on the southern plains, but the gods had different identities.

The land of the dead was imagined in very different ways, but in many instances spirits lived there in much the same way as they had in the land of the living. For the Blackfeet, this land was in the Sand Hills, a place somewhere out on the plains away from the camps of the living. Others believed there was a sky country where the dead lived again. There the dead often danced, illuminating the horizon as the northern lights. In the Northwest some tribes believed the dead lived on an island in the middle of a great river. For many Pacific Coast peoples, the land of the dead was located far out in the sea, beyond the western horizon. The Pueblo people believed that ancestors became clouds, bringing life-giving rain to the people.

After death occurred, an individual's spirit traveled to a land of the dead. In some groups there were rituals that released the spirit for its journey while in others the spirits of relatives were kept for a time in a sacre

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