Native Americans and the Hope of Resurrection of the Soul
Native American funerary ritual and practice throughout the northern sub-continent plainly indicates a strong and vivid belief in the resurrection of the soul after death. Among many tribes the practice prevailed of interring with the deceased such objects as he might be supposed to require in the other world. These included weapons of war and of the chase for men, and household implements and feminine finery in the case of women.
Among primitive peoples the belief is prevalent that inanimate objects possess doubles, or, as spiritualists would say, 'astral bodies,' or souls, and some Indian tribes supposed that unless such objects were broken or mutilated—that is to say, 'killed'—their doubles would not accompany the spirit of the deceased on its journey.
