After that the sick man kept seeing the ghost all the time. He said it did not go away; and he died that same night. For burial they dressed him in his best clothes—a suit of soft-tanned deerskin, with leggings and moccasins to match. They wrapped the body in a robe and placed it on the summit of a high ridge—his favorite place to sit and dream. The Blackfoot believed that the spirit went eastward to the Sand Hills, a barren country on the plains. It was inhabited by the ghosts of people and animals, which exist together as in this life. They placed their dead upon scaffolds in trees, on the summit of a hill, or in a death lodge hidden away among the trees. The dead were clothed according to their station in life, believing they went to the Sand Hills in their burial clothes. Often the things a person valued most were left beside the grave. Sometimes the best horses of a chief were killed, that they might go with him to the Spirit Land. In mourning they denied and tortured themselves to excite the pity of the Great Spirit, to show their indifference to pain and to manifest their high regard for the dead. During the time of mourning, which lasted several months, they went daily at sunset and sunrise to a lonely hill, to weep and cut themselves with arrow-points and knives. As a sign of deep mourning, they cut off a finger, generally the first joint of the small finger. Sometimes they made the tepee smaller to bring discomfort to all the family. When a prominent chief died, his family would place their lodge at a distance from the others. Parents who lost a son led his saddle horse through the camp and made public lamentations. People in mourning wore old clothes; they gave up painting themselves and all ornaments. They kept away from public gatherings, dances, and religious ceremonies. Sometimes they wore neither moccasins nor leggings; they cut off the manes of their saddle horses, but they had a superstition against the cutting of their horses’ tails. No Chief, a prominent man, mourned so deeply at the death of his brother that he journeyed several hundred miles to the place where he was killed and brought the body home. After that he carried the skeleton in a rawhide case wherever he went, and had it buried beside him when he died. It was customary for a man and his wife to give their sacred bundles into the care of another couple who were expected to make new clothes and give ceremonies for the couple in mourning. Finally friends of the mourners came and tried to make them forget their sorrow, and to persuade them to return to their ordinary life. CHAPTER XXXIX DANCE OF THE HAIR-PARTERS (GRASS DANCE)