The Zunis set apart a day in each year which they
spent among the graves of their dead, communing with their spirits, and
bringing them presents--a kind of All-souls-day. (Dorman, "Prim.
Superst.," p. 35.) The Stygian flood, and Scylla and Charybdis, are
found among the legends of the Caribs. (Ibid., p. 37.) Even the boat of
Charon reappears in the traditions of the Chippewayans.
The Oriental belief in the transmigration of souls is found in every
American tribe. The souls of men passed into animals or other men.
(Schoolcraft, vol. i., p. 33.) The souls of the wicked passed into toads
and wild beasts. (Dorman, "Prim. Superst.," p. 50.)
Among both the Germans and the American Indians lycanthropy, or the
metamorphosis of men into wolves, was believed in. In British Columbia
the men-wolves have often been seen seated around a fire, with their
wolf-hides hung upon sticks to dry! The Irish legend of hunters pursuing
an animal which suddenly disappears, whereupon a human being appears in
its place is found among all the American tribes.
That timid and harmless animal, the hare, was, singularly enough, an
object of superstitious reverence and fear in Europe, Asia, and America.
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