When a man dies, where will his spirit dwell? {228} Perhaps it will pass into some animal, a bear, a walrus, or a beautiful bird. Perhaps it will haunt his old home. In that case it were well that he should not die where he has lived; let him be carried into the open air as death approaches, or laid in the loneliness of the woods. The Eskimo of Greenland build a small snow hut, the entrance of which is closed as death approaches that the inmate may pass away alone. Dr. Franz Boas relates that a young girl once sent for him from such a lodging a few hours before her end, to ask for some tobacco and bread, that she might take them to her mother who had died only a few weeks before. Or the connection between the dead man and his former dwelling may be severed by burning down the hut and forsaking the locality, even though (as among the Sakais of the Malay peninsula) the coming crop of tapioca or sugar-cane should be lost by departure. Or strong measures may be taken with the corpse by thrashing it to hasten the ejection of the soul; the walls of the death-chamber may be beaten with sticks to drive it away; or a professional functionary may be invoked with his broom to sweep it out. And when the body has been carried forth, precautions must be taken to prevent the spirit from finding its way back, and barriers erected against its return. Only occasionally, as in ancient Athens, was burial permitted in the house, where the venerated dead could still protect and bless those whom they loved. {229} The tomb was sometimes constructed to resemble the home and admit the members of the family together. Under the cliffs of Orvieto is an Etruscan city of the dead, where the stone houses (usually with two rooms) stand side by side in streets. The prehistoric gravemounds of Scandinavia have disclosed sepulchral burial chambers, entered by a gallery or passage, divided by large slabs of granite into alcoves or stalls, round which the dead were seated. Just so does the Eskimo of the present day arrange his dwelling. Those who had lived in caves and left their dead there, retained the usage long after they had learned to construct tents or build houses for themselves. The chief was carried to the hills, as the barrows on our own moors show, or to the mountain top, where his spirit blended perhaps with the spirit of the place and lent an additional awe to the heights; or to secure him from disturbance, as the Spanish observers noted in Columbia (S. America), a river was diverted from its course, his grave was made in its bed, and the waters, restored to their former channel, kept the secret safe.