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The Shoshoni people saw the Wolf as a creator God and they respected him greatly. Long ago, Wolf, and many other animals, walked and talked like man.

Coyote could talk, too, but the Shoshoni people kept far away from him because he was a Trickster, somebody who is always up to no good and out to double-cross you.

Coyote resented Wolf because he was respected by the Shoshoni. Being a devious Trickster, Coyote decided it was time to teach Wolf a lesson. He would make the Shoshoni people dislike Wolf, and he had the perfect plan. Or so he thought.

One day, Wolf and Coyote were discussing the people of the land. Wolf claimed that if somebody were to die, he could bring them back to life by shooting an arrow under them. Coyote had heard this boast before and decided to put his plan into action.

Wearing his most innocent smile he told Wolf that if he brought everyone back to life, there would soon be no room left on Earth. Once people die, said Coyote, they should remain dead.

If Wolf takes my advice, thought Coyote, then the Shoshoni people would hate Wolf, once and for all.

Wolf was getting tired of Coyote constantly questioning his wisdom and knew he was up to no good, but he didn't say anything. He just nodded wisely and decided it was time to teach Coyote a lesson.

A few days after their conversation, Coyote came running to Wolf. Coyote's fur was ruffled and his eyes were wide with panic.

Wolf already knew what was wrong: Coyote's son had been bitten by Rattlesnake and no animal can survive the snake's powerful venom.

Coyote pleaded with Wolf to bring his son back to life by shooting an arrow under him, as he claimed he could do.

Wolf reminded Coyote of his own remark that people should remain dead. He was no longer going to bring people back to life, as Coyote had suggested.

The Shoshoni people say that was the day Death came to the land and that, as a punishment for his mischievous ways, Coyote's son was the first to die.

No one else was ever raised from the dead by Wolf again, and the people came to know sadness when someone dies. Despite Coyote's efforts, however, the Shoshoni didn't hate Wolf. Instead, they admired his strength, wisdom and power, and they still do today.

There were two insects, Shoyo and Kokwiteit. The latter was a chief. He, did not want many people to live. He gathered the people and said: "We will go. I do not know where. We must go somewhere. It will fill up. It is best if we make it that medicine-men will kill people. Then there will be a great ceremony for the dead."

Coyote liked that. The others did not like it. Coyote said: "When a chief or one of his family dies we will go to his village. We will have a great gathering. We will dance and enjoy ourselves." Then the people liked the idea.

But it was Kokwiteit who was the cause. So now, here in this world, if one meets a kokwiteit in the road, people say: "There will be too many; let us kill him." So they kill him. Shoyo did not want people to die, but Kokwiteit made it that they do.

The impetuous fathers of the Bear and Crane did not deliberate for long. No! Straightway they strode into the stream and feeling with their feet that it even might be forded - for so red were its waters that no footing could be seen through them - they led the way across; yet their fear was great, for, very soon, as they watched the water moving under their very eyes, strange chills overcame them, as though they were themselves changing in being to creatures moving and having being in the waters; even as still may be felt in the giddiness which besets those who, in the midst of troubled or passing waters, gaze long into them.

Nonetheless, they won their way steadfastly to the farther shore. But the poor women who, following closely with the little children on their backs, were more áyauwe (tender, susceptible), became witlessly crazed with these dread fear-feelings of the waters, wherefore, the little ones to whom they clung but the more closely, being k'yaíyuna and all unripe, were instantly changed by the terror. They turned cold, then colder; they grew scaly, webbed and sharp clawed of hands and feet, longer of tail too, as if for swimming and guidance in unquiet waters. See! They suddenly felt to the mothers that bore them as the feel of dead things; and, wriggling, scratched their bare shoulders until, shrieking wildly, these mothers let go all hold on them and were even wanted to shake them off - fleeing from them in terror.

Thus, multitudes of them fell into the swift waters, wailing shrilly and plaintively, as even still it may be said they are heard to cry at night time in those lonely waters. For no sooner did they fall below the surges than they floated and swam away, still crying - changed now even in bodily form; for, according to their several totems, some became like to the lizard (mík'yaiya'hli), chameleon (sémaiyak'ya), and newt (téwashi); others like to the frog (ták'aiyuna), toad (ták'ya), and turtle (étâwa). But their souls (top'hâ'ina: "other-being" or "in-being"), what with the sense of falling, still falling, sank down through the waters, as water itself, being started, sinks down through the sands into the depths below.

There, under the lagoon of the hollow mountain where it was earlier cleft in two by the angry maiden-sister Síwiluhsitsa as before told, lived, in their seasons, the soul-beings of ancient men of war and violent death. There were the towns for the 'finished' or dead, Hápanawan or the Abode of Ghosts; there also, the great pueblo (city) of the Kâ'kâ, Kâ'hluëlawan, the town of many towns wherein stood forever the great assembly house of ghosts, Áhapaáwa Kíwitsinan'hlana, the kiva which contains the six great chambers in the middle of which sit, at times of gathering in council, the god-priests of all the Kâ'kâ exercising the newly dead in the Kâ'kokshi or dance of good, and receiving from them the offerings and messages of mortal men to the immortal ones.

Now, when the little ones sank, still sank, seeing nothing, the lights of the spirit dancers began to break upon them, and they became, as be the ancients, 'hlímna , and were numbered with them. And so, being received into the midst of the undying ancients, see! these little ones thus made the way of dying and the path of the dead; for where they led, in that ancient time, others, wanting to seek them (in-so-much that they died), followed; and yet others followed these; and so it has continued to be even unto this day.

But the mothers, still crying, did not know this - did not know that their children had returned unharmed into the world from where even themselves had come and to where they must eventually go, constrained there by the yearnings of their own hearts which were ill with mourning. Loudly, still, they wailed, on the farther shore of the river.

Afterlife

The Egyptians had elaborate beliefs about death and the afterlife. They believed that humans possessed a ka, or life-force, which left the body at the point of death. In life, the ka received its sustenance from food and drink, so it was believed that, to endure after death, the ka must continue to receive offerings of food, whose spiritual essence it could still consume. Each person also had a ba, the set of characteristics distinguishing one individual from another, similar to the concept of a personality.[49] Unlike the ka, the ba remained attached to the body after death. Egyptian funeral rituals were intended to release the ba from the body so that it could move freely, and to rejoin it with the ka so that it could live on as an akh. However, it was also important that the body of the deceased be preserved, as the Egyptians believed that the ba returned to its body each night to receive new life, before emerging in the morning as an akh.[50]

Originally, however, the Egyptians believed that only the pharaoh had a ba,[51] and only he could become one with the gods; dead commoners remained dead.[52] The nobles received tombs and the resources for their upkeep as gifts from the king, and their ability to enter the afterlife was believed to be dependent on these royal favors.[53] In early times the deceased pharaoh was believed to dwell among the circumpolar stars, which never set in the Egyptian sky and were therefore regarded as eternal.[54] Over the course of the Old Kingdom, he came to be more closely associated with the daily rebirth of the sun god Ra and with the cyclical death and resurrection of the fertility god Osiris as those deities grew more important.[55]

During the late Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period, the possession of a ba and the possibility of a paradisiacal afterlife gradually extended to all Egyptians.[51][52] To reach this pleasant afterlife, the soul had to avoid a variety of supernatural dangers, before undergoing a final judgment known as the "Weighing of the Heart". In this judgment, the gods compared the actions of the deceased while alive (symbolized by the heart, the center of reason and emotion in Egyptian belief) to ma'at (symbolized by a feather), to determine whether he or she had behaved in accordance with ma'at. If the deceased had not done so in life, then he or she could not be expected to do so in the afterlife, and was thus destroyed by the demon Ammut. If the deceased was judged worthy, his or her ka and ba were united into an akh.[56][50] Specific beliefs about the destination of the akh varied. The vindicated dead were often said to dwell in Osiris' kingdom, a lush and pleasant land believed to exist somewhere beyond the western horizon, but kings, and sometimes commoners as well, were often said to travel with Ra across the sky.[57][58] Over the course of the Middle and New Kingdoms, the notion that the akh could also travel in the world of the living, and to some degree magically affect events there, became increasingly prevalent.[59]

Interesting. Although with the Egyptians, wasn't there a story with Osiris and Isis that concerns the origins of death? I can't remember exactly.

I will say that the Egyptian view on death reminds me a lot of the native American concept of having multiple souls, each one serving a specific function. (And of course, go figure I can't find anything on the internet on the subject.)

Sounds about right. I couldn't remember if Osiris's death lead to death in humans or not, been so long since I brushed up on my Egyptian mythology.

Yeah I'm used to seeing in more native or aboriginal religions multiple souls, each being assigned to the aforementioned layers. For some, there was no singular concept of 'self'. The 'self' was actually different parts interacting with one another in one body.

In a way, the whole concept matches some of the eastern philosophical traditions of all things being inter-connected and part of a larger, overall system.

It's one thing I've always found odd though, the similarities between folk or aboriginal religions. I've always wondered how people could still inherently look at everything similarly when over the course of probably hundreds of thousands of years humans essentially split and went two different ways.

Sometimes it makes me wonder about the concept of 'collective human consciousness', specifically, whether or not the theory is actually true and at one point we all had the ability to tap into it, an ability we lost as our idea of logic and structuring of society developed.

Materialism seems to be, to me anyways, more of a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. I think even modern religions have idealism at their core. The materialistic point of view of many seems to come from the everyday life we immerse ourselves in and not necessarily the spiritual life.

Probably you'd have to embrace a more totemistic point of view to get in synch with the religions that spawned these early myths. Most early religions are almost always the next step up from totemism.

True enough on materialism.

A basic definition of totemism would be:



The totems almost always evolve into more personable and powerful deities. Hence saying early religions are a step-up from totemism.