“The Assinniboine believe that their dead go to a country in the south, where the good and brave find women and buffaloes, while the wicked or cowardly are confined on an island, where they are destitute of all the pleasures of life. The corpses of brave men are not deposited in trees, but on the ground, as they will help themselves, and they are covered with wood and stones to protect them from the wolves.”[196] GHOSTS NOT ALWAYS VISIBLE. § 270. The ghosts of the departed are not always visible to the living. Sometimes they are heard but not seen, though in the lodge with a mortal. Occasionally they become materialized, taking living husbands or wives, eating, drinking, and smoking, just as if they were ordinary human beings. DEATH AND BURIAL LORE. § 271. As ghosts visit the sick at night it is customary to drive them away by making a smoke from cedar wood, or else cedar is laid outside the lodge. Sometimes a piece of cedar is fastened up at the smoke-hole. (See § 42.) One Teton story shows how a female ghost disliked a bad odor and fled from it. When they hear a ghost whistling, some one leaves the lodge and fires a gun. Before death the lodge is surrounded by ghosts of deceased kindred that are visible to the dying person. All the dead man’s possessions are buried with him; his body is dressed in good clothing. The favorite horse is decorated and saddled, and to this day various articles belonging to the deceased are fastened to him. The horse is shot and part of his tail is cut off and laid near the head of the burial scaffold, as it is thought that in such a case the ghost can ride the ghost of the horse and use all the articles carried by that animal. § 272. _Why the Teton stopped burying in the ground._--Long ago the people buried some men on a hill and then removed camp to another place. Many winters afterwards a man visited this burial place, but all traces of the graves had disappeared. So many men came and dug far down into the hill. By and by one said, “A road lies here.” So they dug in that direction and made a fire underground. And there they found a tunnel large enough for men to walk in by stooping, with many similar intersecting ones. They followed the main one and finally came to a place whither a strange animal, the Waḣaŋksića, had dragged the corpses. For this reason the Lakota became unwilling to lay their dead in the ground, so they began to bury on scaffolds which could not be reached by beasts of prey. At the present day the Teton gives three reasons for not burying in the ground: (1) Animals or persons might walk over the graves; (2) the dead might lie in mud and water after rain or snow; (3) wolves might dig up the bodies and devour them.