FOOD LORE. § 355. They have queer notions respecting the effects of different articles of diet; thus: an expectant mother believes that if she eats a part of a mole or shrew, her child will have small eyes; that if she eats a piece of porcupine, her child will be inclined to sleep too much when it grows up; that if she partakes of the flesh of the turtle, her offspring will be slow or lazy, etc.; but they do not suppose that such articles of food affect the immediate consumer. FOUR SOULS IN EACH HUMAN BEING. § 356. “It is believed by some of the Hidatsa that every human being has four souls in one. They account for the phenomena of gradual death where the extremities are apparently dead while consciousness remains, by supposing the four souls to depart, one after another, at different times. When dissolution is complete, they say that all the souls are gone, and have joined together again outside of the body. I have heard a Minnetaree quietly discussing this doctrine with an Assinneboine, who believed in only one soul to each body.”[269] SORCERY. § 357. “They have faith in witchcraft, and think that a sorcerer may injure a person, no matter how far distant, by acts upon an effigy or upon a lock of the victim’s hair.”[270] DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. § 358. The Hidatsa always lay their dead upon scaffolds. As the Lord of Life is displeased when they quarrel and kill one another, those who do so are buried in the earth, that they may be no longer seen. In this case a buffalo head is laid on the grave, that the herds of buffalo may not keep away, for, if they were to smell the wicked, they might remove and never return. The good are laid upon scaffolds, that they may be seen by the Lord of Life.[271] The Crows have no fear of death, but they have a horror of being buried in the ground.[272] HIDATSA BELIEF AS TO FUTURE EXISTENCE. § 359. They think that after death they will be restored to the mansions of their ancestors under ground, from which they are intercepted by a large and rapid watercourse. Over this river, which may be compared to the Styx of the ancients, they are obliged to pass on a very narrow footway. Those Indians who have been useful to the nation, such as brave warriors or good hunters, pass over with ease and arrive safely at A-pah-he, or ancient village. But the worthless Indians slip off from the bridge or footway into the stream which * * * hurries them into oblivion.[273]