We read of some tribes of Indians which believed that after death the spirits of the departed went to a happy hunting ground where game was always plenty and life was full of joy.  The Blackfeet knew no such place as this.  When they died their spirits were believed to go to a barren, sandy region south of the Saskatchewan, which they called the Sand Hills.  Here, as shadows, the ghosts lived a life much like their existence before death, but all was unreal—­unsubstantial.  Riding on shadow horses they hunted shadow buffalo.  They lived in shadow camps and when they moved shadow dogs hauled their travois.  There are stories which tell that living people have seen these hunters, their houses, and their implements of the camp, but when the people got close they found that what they thought they had seen was something different.  It reminds us a little of the old ballad of Alice Brand, where Urgan tells of the things seen in fairy-land: 

     “And gayly shines the Fairy-land—­
        But all is glistening show,
      Like the idle gleam that December’s beam
        Can dart on ice and snow.

     “And fading, like that varied gleam,
        Is our inconstant shape,
      Who now like knight and lady seem,
        And now like dwarf and ape.”

Books have been written about the Blackfeet Indians which tell much more about how they lived than can be given here.

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