bystanders what they had seen.

The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom.
The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead--those of their
dogs included--as dancing joyously in the presence of Ataentsic and
Jouskeha. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of
endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the
drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from
the living world: for the spirit-land was not far off, and roving hunters
sometimes passed its confines unawares.

Most of the traditions agree, however, that the spirits, on their journey
heavenward, were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift
river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet,
while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the
abyss. This river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts
speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving
rocks, which each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less
nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass. The Hurons believed that a
personage named Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, dwelt in a bark house
beside the path, and that it was his office to remove the brains from the
heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality.
This singular idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according
to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner.

[ On Indian ideas of another life, compare Sagard, the Jesuit Relations,
Perrot, Charlevoix, and Lafitau, with Tanner, James, Schoolcraft, and the
Appendix to Morse's Indian Report.

Le Clerc recounts a singular story, current in his time among the