Yuri E.Berezkin
AMERINDIAN MYTHOLOGY with parallels in the Old World
Classification and Areal Distribution of Motifs. The Analytical Catalogue
65. Milky Way of the Dead. .41.44.-.49.52.53.55.57.59.62.68.72.
The Milky Way is the path over which travel the souls to the beyond.
Middle Europe.
Germans (Westfalia) [Milky Way is "road of the troops", souls of those who have been killed in battle walk along it to paradise]: Gladyszowa 1960: 77-78.
Subarctic.
Tahtlan [Milky Way represents many people who are travelling on snowshoes, attempting to reach the sky and the country of the dead; someone transformed them and the snowshoe tracks into stars]: Teit 1919-1921, no.6: 229.
Midwest.
Ojibwa [Milky Way is path of the souls; Orion - Nanabush; Leo - Mishi Peshu, the lynx, guardin of Lake Superior]: Coles 1991: 158; Winnebago, Menomini, Timiskaming Ojibwa, Chippewa: Gibbon 1971: 237.
The Northeast.
Montagnais, Naskapi [Milky Way is called ghost road, dead persons path]: Speck 1935a: 65; Penobscot [The Milky Way, spirit path, is the trail over which ghosts of the dead travel on their way to the realm of spirits]: Speck 1935b: 19; Micmac [(or Passamaquoddy?); stars (of the Milky Way?) make a road for spirits; three hunters among them chase a bear]: Leland 1968: 379; Micmac, Passamaquoddy: Gibbon 1971: 237; Abenaki ("Wabanski" - a misprint from Wabanaki?) [chief M'Sartto follows his son who has gone away along the road of souls, the Milky Way, gets into country of Aurora Borealis people; they have rainbow belts, play ball; their chief sends two birds to carry
M. and his son back to their home]: Judson 1997: 143-145; Huron: Father Sagart-Theodat in Schwartz 1997 [souls walk along Milky Way; the souls of dogs go there also by way of certain stars which are near neighbours to the soul's path and which they call "the path of the dogs"]: 93; Iroquois [Milky Way is the way of the dead; it is forked, more souls walked where more stars are seen]: Parker 1913: 63f, Fenton 1962: 295, Wrong 1939: 172 in Mathews 1982: 49; Delaware [dogs must be treated with respect because they guard the bridge to the afterworld, the bridge that lies at the folk in the Milky Way]: Bierhorst 1995, no.151: 65.
Plains.
Qwapaw [the Milky Way is called the Road of the Ghosts]: Dorsey 1895: 130; Skiri Pawnee [the dead go to a star in the north, at the end of the Milky Way, and thence to another star at the southern end there they make their home]: Dorsey 1904b, no.14: 57; Cheyenne [the souls of the dead follow the Milky Way to reach the land of the departed; about mid-heaven, where the Milky Way branches, the good separate from the bad; the good souls keep on the bright and shining pathway to the left whereas the bad ones are stranded on the path to the right which sort or dissolves into nothing]: Dusenberry 1998: 100.
The Southeast.
Chickasaw, Cherokee: Gibbon 1971: 237; Seminole [Breathmaker blows towards the sky making the Milky Way; good people walk over the Milky Way to a city in western sky; dogs and other animals take another path when they die; the two paths converge till they meet in the sky city]: Greenlee 1945: 138-139; Creek [Milky Way is the spirit road]: Greenlee 1945: 139; Natchez, Chickasaw [Milky Way is the dog trail]: Greenlee 1945: 139.
California.
Shasta [Milky Way stretches east and west in the morning; dead people are in the West]: Dixon 1910a, no.9: 21; Voegelin 1947: 53; Pomo: Gibbon 1971: 237; Achomawi [Milky Way is the Pathway of the Shadows of the Dead]: Merriam 1992: xxiii; Maidu [it is by the Milky Way that the soul passes to heaven; where that divides, where the souls separate themselves from each other: to the left is an easy and good way]: Schmidt 1933: 34 in Dusenberry 1998: 100; Wintu [soul rises to the Milky Way, called spirit trail, and thence to a plain covered with grass and flowers where Indians live "who are always having a big time"]: Goldschmidt 1951: 352; Nomlaki [souls rise to the Milky Way (called spirit trail) and thence to a plain covered with grass and flowers]: Goldschmidt 1951: 352; Chumash [Milky Way is the pathway of the spirits of the dead]: Monroe, Williamson 1987: 93; Luiseno [Milky Way is the road of spirits]: DuBois 1908: 162.
Great Basin.
Northern Paiute [the Milky Way is the road of the dead to the spirit world]: Kelly 1932: 198; Mooney 1896: 1053; Northern Shoshoni [Milky Way is symbolized by the forked pole above the central post of the Sun Dance Lodge]: Clark 1966: 186.
Mesoamerica.
Yucatec [the dead travel along the Milky Way]: Sosa 1985: 432 in Milbrath 1999: 41; Lacandon [the Milky Way the "white way of our true lord" Hachakyum, who is the lord of the heaven where the Lacandon go when they die]: Duby, Blom 1969: 295, Ratsch 1985: 37 on Milbrath 1999: 41; Quiche [the section of Milky Way is xibalba be, an underworld road]: Milbrath 1999: 41.
Lower Central America.
Sumu, Misquito [between the Rio Butuk and the Rio Seco is a mountain named Kaun'apa, where there are the signs of human navel cords. There the Indians were born, there is the origin of the nation. There was a great father, named (in the Sumo) Maisa hana (in the Misquito Uan baikan, "man, who has cleft us") and a great mother named Itiana. They say the latter was the same as Itoki, in the Misquito yapti misri ("mother scorpion"; in Misquito she is called also "the great mother"; she lives at the end of the Milky Way; the last abode of the spirits of the dead is with her; from her come the small children (the new born); she is represented as a woman or mother with many breasts at which men are sucking like infants)]: Lehmann 1910 in Bowditch 1940: 43-44.
Northern Andes.
Bari [souls of the dead rise to the sky along whitish path (Milky Way); there is pillar of water at the door; souls wash with it, become young and healthy]: Villamanan 1975: 9.
Southern Venezuela.
Panare [Milky Way is the souls of the dead]: Dumont 1979: 248.
Guiana.
Taulipang: Koch-Grunberg 1924, no.14 [Moon steals the soul of a child; boy's father discovers who is the wizard; Moon ponders on what object he sould transform himself; rejects transformation into aguri, tapir, other animals because they are food for people; decides to ascend to heaven; a bird fixed a vine for him to climb up; he shines the path of the dead, i.e. the Milky Way; house of the dead is at its western end; there are other ten skies above the ours; Moon has sent there his daughters]: 53-54; Lowie 1948 [souls go along the Milky Way towards their sky abode]: 47-48.
NW Amazonia.
Secoya [in the sky person lies in a hammock across the road of the dead; does not permit them to return]: Cipolletti 1988, footnote 21: 255; Yagua [Milky Way is the road of souls; they live on the sky above Milky Way]: Chaumeil 1982: 53.
Southern Amazonia.
Trumai [souls of the dead go to the Beyond along the Milky Way; the road is lined with jaguars which inflict wounds at the wayfarers; the dead enter the Wammini village in the heaven]: Murphy, Quain 1955: 75.
(Araguaia.
Caraja [Milky Way is the road of shamans]: Lipkind 1940: 248).
Chaco.
Vilela [Milky Way is the path of the souls]: Lehmann-Nitsche 1935: 550.
(Patagonia - Chile.
Puelche?: Gibbon 1971: 237).