In the bark coffin, with a dead Indian the Onondagas buried a kettle of provisions, a pair of moccasins, a piece of deer skin and sinews of the deer to sew patches on the moccasins, which it was supposed the deceased would wear out on his journey. They also furnished him with a bow and arrows, a tomahawk and knife, to procure game with to live on while pursuing his way to the land of spirits, the blissful regions of Ha wah ne u.20 Several Indian nations, instead of burying the food, suspended it above the grave, and renewed it from time to time. Some writers have explained this custom by the hypothesis of an Indian belief in two souls, one of which departed to the realm of the dead, while the other tarried by the mound until the body was decayed, or until it had itself found a chance to be born in a new body.21 The supposition seems forced and extremely doubtful. The truth probably lies in a simpler explanation, which will be offered further on. 19 Baumgarten, Geschichte der Volker von America, xiii. haupts.: vom Tod, Vergribniss, und Trauer. 20 Clarke, Onondaga, vol. l. p. 51. 21 Muller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, sect. 66. The Winnebagoes located paradise above, and called the milky way the "Road of the Dead." 22 It was so white with the crowds of journeying ghosts! But almost all, like the Ojibways, imagined their elysium to lie far in the West. The soul, freed from the body, follows a wide beaten path westward, and enters a country abounding with all that an Indian covets. On the borders of this blessed land, in a long glade, he finds his relatives, for many generations back, gathered to welcome him.23 The Chippewas, and several other important tribes, always kindled fires on the fresh graves of their dead, and kept them burning four successive nights, to light the wandering souls on their way.24 An Indian myth represents the ghosts coming back from Ponemah, the land of the Hereafter, and singing this song to the miraculous Hiawatha: "Do not lay such heavy burdens On the graves of those you bury, Not such weight of furs and wampum, Not such weight of pots and kettles; For the spirits faint beneath them. Only give them food to carry, Only give them fire to light them. Four days is the spirit's journey To the land of ghosts and shadows, Four its lonely night encampments. Therefore, when the dead are buried, Let a fire, as night approaches, Four times on the grave be kindled, That the soul upon its journey May not grope about in darkness." 25