RELIGION 99

nection of these with one another and with the spirit, the
mental director of the life, is a matter of advanced Bella Coola
theology on which opinions differ. Only men of philosophical
temperament even hazard an opinion on such matters, which
are beyond the realm of daily routine.

When a man dies, his life leaves his body and the useless
flesh begins to decay. At the same time the life is freed to
travel as an intangible wraith, having the form and appearance
of its dead owner. It visits all the places where he had been
in the habit of going during life, irrespective of their distance
from the scene of death. Sometimes it journeys to the locality
where, in a dream, the mother of the deceased received her
first intimation of pregnancy (I,p.615). It wants to see former
friends and sometimes makes its presence known to them
by whistling. A person who hears this sound is saddened
by the realization that one of his associates has passed away
insome distant place. At other times, a man merely senses its
presence and feels frightened without hearing or seeing any-
thing to account for it. Very rarely, a dead person’s life speaks
to a dearly loved friend to inform him of his loss. During the
existence of the body, spirit and life are closely associated,
and the former sometimes accompanies the latter on its round
of farewell visits before ascending to Nusmdt-a.

After four days the life descends to the land below where it
lives forever as a ghost. Some believe that it is the shadow
which assumes this form, but the seeming contradiction is rela-
tively unimportant since the life is essentially shadow-like.
Ghosts have already been described in connection with super-
natural bodies, and further information will be found in
vol. I, chap. vutt.

At death, when the life as a whole becomes a ghost, its
constituent parts likewise undergo transformation. The one
situated in the feet remains with the corpse and disintegrates;
that located in the legs enters a wolf and nothing more is known
of its fate; no one knows what happens to the one situated in
the body. The part in the throat, including the voice, enters