the cowardly and weak are doomed to live in dreary regions of mist and darkness (compare Niflheim and the Iranian eschatology?).  To pass over other religious correspondences, the sacrifice of animals, use of amulets, love-charms, magic, and sorcery, which are all like those of Aryans (to compare, also, are the burying or exposing of the dead and the Hurons’ funeral games), let one take this as a good illustration of the value of ’comparative Aryan mythology’: 

According to the Aryan belief the soul of the dead passes over a stream, across a bridge, past a dog or two, which guard the gate of paradise.  The Hindu, Iranian, Greek, and Scandinavian, all have the dog, and much emphasis has been laid on the ‘Aryan’ character of this creed.  The native Iroquois Indians believed that “the spirits on their journey (to heaven) were beset with difficulties and perils.  There was a swift river to be crossed on a log that shook beneath the feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage[7].”  Here is the Persians’ narrow bridge, and even Kerberos himself!

It is also interesting to note that, as the Hindus identify with the sun so many of their great gods, so the Iroquois “sacrifices to some superior spirit, or to the sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian[8].”

Weber holds that because Greek and Hindu gave the name ‘bear’ to a constellation, therefore this is the “primitive Indo-Germanic name of the star[9].”  But the Massachusetts Indians “gave their own name for bear to the Ursa major” (Williams’ ‘Key,’ cited Palfrey, I. p. 36; so Lafitau, further west).

Again, three, seven, and even ‘thrice-seven,’ are holy not only in India but in America.

In this new world are found, to go further, the analogues of Varuna in the monotheistic god Viracocha of the Peruvians, to whom is addressed this prayer:  “Cause of all things! ever present, helper, creator, ever near, ever fortunate one!  Thou incorporeal one above the sun, infinite, and beneficent[10]”; of the Vedic Snake of the Deep, in the Mexican Cloud-serpent; of the Vedic Lightning-bird, who brings fire from heaven, in the Indian Thunder-bird, who brings fire from heaven[11]; of the preservation of one individual from a flood (in the epic, Manu’s ‘Seven Seers’) in the same American myth, even including the holy mountain, which is still shown[12]; of the belief that the sun is the home of departed spirits, in the same belief all over America;[13] of the belief that stars are the souls of the dead, in the same belief held by the Pampas;[14] and even of the late Brahmanic custom of sacrificing the widow (suttee), in the practice of the Natchez Indians, and in Guatemala, of burning the widow on the pyre of the dead husband.[15] The storm wind (Odin) as highest god is found among the Choctaws; while ‘Master of Breath’ is the Creeks’ name for this divinity.  Huraka (hurricane, ouragon, ourage) is the chief god