"But," I replied, "why should you disturb the bones of those whom you
have already buried, and expose them on the outskirts of the town?"
"It was the custom of our forefathers," he answered, "therefore we
continue to observe it."
"Have you no belief in a future existence after death? Is not some idea
expressed in the act of exhuming the bones after the flesh is decayed ?"
Commoro (loq.). - "Existence AFTER death! How can that be? Can a dead
man get out of his grave, unless we dig him out?"
"Do you think man is like a beast, that dies and is ended?"
Commoro. - "Certainly. An ox is stronger than a man, but he dies, and
his bones last longer; they are bigger. A man's bones break quickly; he
is weak."
"Is not a man superior in sense to an ox? Has he not a mind to direct
his actions?"
Commoro - "Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to
obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing."
"Do you not know that there is a spirit within you different from flesh?
Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep?
Nevertheless your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"
Commoro (laughing) - "Well, how do YOU account for it? It is a thing I
cannot understand; it occurs to me every night."
"The mind is independent of the body. The actual body can be fettered,
but the mind is uncontrollable. The body will die and will become dust
or be eaten by vultures; but the spirit will exist forever."
Commoro - "Where will the spirit live ?"
"Where does fire live? Cannot you produce a fire* (* The natives always
produce fire by rubbing two sticks together.) by rubbing two sticks
together? Yet you SEE not the fire in the wood. Has not that fire, that
lies harmless and unseen in the sticks, the power to consume the whole
country? Which is the stronger, the small stick that first PRODUCES the
fire, or the fire itself? So is the spirit the element within the body,
as the element of fire exists in the stick, the element being superior
to the substance."
Commoro - "Ha! Can you explain what we frequently see at night when lost
in the wilderness? I have myself been lost, and wandering in the dark I
have seen a distant fire; upon approaching the fire has vanished, and I
have been unable to trace the cause, nor could I find the spot."
"Have you no idea of the existence of spirits superior to either man or
beast?
