block of wood was laid at once on the body, and fire was then produced by rapidly revolving another piece of wood upon it; a spark was carried to a funeral pile, whose rising flame proclaimed to the anxious people the promise of the god not to destroy the world for another fifty-two years.  Precisely the same custom obtained among the nations of Asia Minor and other parts of the continent of Asia, wherever sun-worship prevailed, at the periodical reproduction of the sacred fire, but not with the same bloody rites as in Mexico.  (Valentini, “Maya Archaeology,” p. 21.)

To this day the Brahman of India “churns” his sacred fire out of a board by boring into it with a stick; the Romans renewed their sacred fire in the same way; and in Sweden even now a “need-fire is kindled in this manner when cholera or other pestilence is about.” (Tylor’s “Anthropology,” p. 262.)

A belief in ghosts is found on both continents.  The American Indians think that the spirits of the dead retain the form and features which they wore while living; that there is a hell and a heaven; that hell is below the earth, and heaven above the clouds; that the souls of the wicked sometimes wander the face of the earth, appearing occasionally to mortals.  The story of Tantalus is found among the Chippewayans, who believed that bad souls stand up to their chins in water in sight of the spirit-land, which they can never enter.  The dead passed to heaven across a stream of water by means of a narrow and slippery bridge, from which many were lost.  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.  The ancient Irish killed all the hares they found on May-day among their cattle, believing them to be witches.  Caesar gives an account of the horror in which this animal was held by the Britons.  The Calmucks regarded the rabbit with fear and reverence.  Divine honors were paid to the hare in Mexico.  Wabasso was changed into a white rabbit, and canonized in that form.