(M156) Amongst the Takilis or Carrier Indians of North-West America, when a corpse was burned the priest pretended to catch the soul of the deceased in his hands, which he closed with many gesticulations. He then communicated the captured soul to the dead man’s successor by throwing his hands towards and blowing upon him. The person to whom the soul was thus communicated took the name and rank of the deceased. On the death of a chief the priest thus filled a responsible and influential position, for he might transmit the soul to whom he would, though doubtless he generally followed the regular line of succession.(540) In Guatemala, when a great man lay at the point of death, they put a precious stone between his lips to receive the parting soul, and this was afterwards kept as a memorial by his nearest kinsman or most intimate friend.(541) Algonquin women who wished to become mothers flocked to the side of a dying person in the hope of receiving and being impregnated by the passing soul. Amongst the Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbed the infant was held over her face to receive her parting spirit.(542) When infants died within a month or two of birth, the Huron Indians did not lay them in bark coffins on poles, as they did with other corpses, but buried them beside the paths, in order that they might secretly enter into the wombs of passing women and be born again.(543) The Tonquinese cover the face of a dying person with a handkerchief, and at the moment when he breathes his last, they fold up the handkerchief carefully, thinking that they have caught the soul in it.(544) The Romans caught the breath of dying friends in their mouths, and so received into themselves the soul of the departed.(545) The same custom is said to be still practised in Lancashire.(546)