What wonder if the Indian shrinks with unspeakable horror from the
thought of _burying his friend's soul!_--of pressing and ramming
down with pitiless clods that inner something which once took such
delight in the sweet light of the sun! What wonder if it takes years
to persuade him to do otherwise and follow our custom! What wonder if
even then he does it with sad fears and misgivings! Why not let him
keep his custom! In the gorgeous landscapes and balmy climate of
California and India incremation is as natural to the savage as it is
for him to love the beauty of the sun. Let the vile Esquimaux and the
frozen Siberian bury their dead if they will; it matters little, the
earth is the same above as below, or to them the bosom of the earth
may seem even the better; but in California do not blame the savage if
he recoils at the thought of going under ground! This soft, pale halo
of the lilac hills--ah, let him console himself if he will with the
belief that his lost friend enjoys it still! The narrator concluded by
saying that they destroyed full $500 worth of property. 'The
blankets,' said he with a fine Californian scorn of such absurd
insensibility to a good bargain, 'the blankets that the American
offered him $16 for were not worth half the money.'

"After death the Se-nel hold that bad Indians return into coyotes.
Others fall off a bridge which all souls must traverse, or are hooked
off by a raging bull at the further end, while the good escape across.
Like the Yokaia and the Konkan, they believe it necessary to nourish
the spirits of the departed for the space of a year. This is generally
done by a squaw, who takes pinole in her blanket, repairs to the scene
of the incremation, or to places hallowed by the memory of the dead,
where she scatters it over the ground, meantime rocking her body
violently to and fro in a dance and chanting the following chorus: