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SECTION 80

"Now another message.

"Every person has a song to sing when the time comes to leave the earth. When a person is departing he must sing that song

p. 61

and continue to sing on his journey to the other world. 1 They will do this who have repented and who believe in Gai'wiio`."

So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk.


Footnotes

61:1 Ideas of the soul. The following ideas of the human soul were anciently held by the Iroquois and their influence on the teachings of Handsome Lake's teachings will be noted upon reading the Gai'wiio`:

Every soul has a path to its destiny after death.

Every soul retains its personal identity whatever form it may inhabit.

Soul differs from life.

When the soul leaves the body life does not necessarily.

When life leaves the body the soul generally does, though not always immediately but may linger for ten days.

The soul may pass from a living body and enter any object or go to any place to acquire wisdom and returning reveal it to the person in dreams or visions.

Should a person refuse persistently to heed these warning visions the soul is liable to desert him, leaving the person simply a creature without power to resist or understand the influence of the various spirits good or bad.

Thinking that by some oversight or evil doing that be may lose his soul the Indian often offers sacrifice to his evil spirit. This is to satisfy his evil spirit with other things than wrong doing and thereby not offend his good spirit.


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