An Indian Legend
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.