Mrs. Stevenson informs us that "although the Sia do not believe in a return of the spirits of their dead when they have once entered Shipapo [the lower world], there was once an exception to this." The priestly tale, as told to Mrs. Stevenson, is as follows (538. 143):-- "When the years were new, and this village had been built perhaps three years, all the spirits of our dead came here for a great feast. They had bodies such as they had before death; wives recognized husbands, husbands wives, children parents, and parents children. Just after sundown the spirits began arriving, only a few passing over the road by daylight, but after dark they came in great crowds and remained until near dawn. They tarried but one night; husbands and wives did not sleep together; had they done so, the living would have surely died. When the hour of separation came, there was much weeping, not only among the living, but the dead. The living insisted upon going with the dead, but the dead declared they must wait,--that they could not pass through the entrance to the other world; they must first die or grow old and again become little children to be able to pass through the door of the world for the departed. It was then that the Sia first learned all about their future home. They learned that the fields were vast, the pastures beautiful, the mountains high, the lakes and rivers clear like crystal, and the wheat and cornfields flourishing. During the day the spirits sleep, and at night they work industriously in the fields. The moon is father to the dead as the sun is father to the living, the dead resting when the sun travels, for at this time they see nothing; it is when the sun returns to his home at night that the departed spirits work and pass about in their world below. The home of the departed spirits is in the world first inhabited by the Sia." We learn further: "It is the aim of the Sia to first reach the intermediate state at the time the body ceases to develop, and then return gradually back to the first condition of infancy; at such periods one does not die, but sleeps to awake in the spirit-world as a little child. Many stories have come to the Sia by those who have died only for a time; the heart becomes still and the lips cold, and the spirit passes to the entrance of the other world and looks in, but does not enter, and yet it sees all, and in a short time returns to inhabit its earthly body. Great alarm is felt when one returns in this way to life, but much faith is put in the stories afterwards told by the one who has passed over the road of death." In the belief of these Indians of North America we see some foreshadowing of the declaration of Jesus, a rude expression of the fundamental thought underlying his words:-- "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in nowise enter therein."