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Replagegos Omnifurian Directory 04
Page 09
And, of course, just as we cannot escape the economic and the military reaction of European development, neither can we escape the moral. If European thought and morality did, by some fatality, really develop in the direction of a Nietzschean idealization of military force, we might well get in the coming years a practical submergence of that morality which we believe to be distinctively American, and get throughout the older hemisphere a type of society based upon authority, reproducing it may be some features of past civilizations, Mongol, Asiatic, or Byzantine. If that were to happen, if Europe were really to become a mere glorified form of, say, certain Asiatic conceptions that we all thought had had their day, why, then, of course America could not escape a like transformation of outlook, ideals, and morals.
The dead are buried in secret, only a few of the close relations having knowledge of the place. Immediately after death the body is carried on horseback to a high point, where it is placed on the ground and covered with the personal possessions of the deceased, such as clothing, blankets, saddles, and weapons, and over all are heaped brush and stones. Formerly a man's horse was killed near his grave, and sometimes as many as three or four horses were similarly sacrificed at different places. In former times also the _kozhan_ was burned after the burial, and members of the family cut their hair as a sign of mourning. The souls of the dead are believed to rise skyward. In one portion of the sky, among vast herds of buffalo, all those who have met death in battle assemble, rich and happy; in another part, those who have succumbed to sickness and old age. The evil, or those who have practised witchcraft, have a place apart from the rest. Between the latter and the spirits of the good stands a high rock wall at which the evil ones are condemned to dig for eternity in an effort to reach the happier home. Spirits can work only in darkness, and the work of the night is ever brought to naught by recurring daylight.
ETRURIA, which extended along the coast of the Lower Sea from the River Macra on the north to the Tiber on the south. Inland, the Tiber also formed its eastern boundary, dividing it first from Umbria, afterward from the Sabines, and, lastly, from Latium. Its inhabitants were called Etrusci, or Tusci, the latter form being still preserved in the name of _Tuscany_. Besides the Tiber it possesses only one other river of any importance, the Arnus, or Arno, upon which the city of _Florence_ now stands. Of its lakes the most considerable is the Lacus Trasimenus, about thirty-six miles in circumference, celebrated for the great victory which Hannibal there gained over the Romans.
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