Chapter IX

I have described the peculiar ceremony attending the burial of youth in Mizora. Old age, in some respects, had a similar ceremony, but the funeral of an aged person differed greatly from what I had witnessed at the grave of youth. Wauna and I attended the funeral of a very aged lady. Death in Mizora was the gradual failing of mental and physical vigor. It came slowly, and unaccompanied with pain. It was received without regret, and witnessed without tears.

The daughters performed the last labor that the mother required. They arrayed her body for burial and bore it to the grave. If in that season of the year, autumn leaves hid the bier, and formed the covering and pillow of her narrow bed. If not in the fall, full-blown roses and matured flowers were substituted.

The ceremony was conducted by the eldest daughter, assisted by the others. No tears were shed; no mourning worn; no sorrowful chanting. A solemn dirge was sung indicative of decay. A dignified solemnity befitting the farewell to a useful life was manifest in all the proceedings; but no demonstrations of sorrow were visible. The mourners were unveiled, and performed the last services for their mother with calmness. I was so astonished at the absence of mourning that I asked an explanation of Wauna.

“Why should we mourn,” was the surprising answer, “for what is inevitable? Death must come, and, in this instance, it came in its natural way. There is nothing to be regretted or mourned over, as there was in the drowning of my young friend. Her life was suddenly arrested while yet in the promise of its fruitfulness. There was cause for grief, and the expressions and emblems of mourning were proper and appropriate. But here, mourning would be out of place, for life has fulfilled its promises. Its work is done, and nature has given the worn-out body rest. That is all.”

That sympathy and regret which the city had expressed for the young dead was manifested only in decorum and respectful attendance at the funeral. No one appeared to feel that it was an occasion for mourning. How strange it all seemed to me, and yet there was a philosophy about it that I could not help but admire. Only I wished that they believed as I did, that all of those tender associations would be resumed beyond the grave. If only they could be convinced. I again broached the subject to Wauna. I could not relinquish the hope of converting her to my belief. She was so beautiful, so pure, and I loved her so dearly. I could not give up my hope of an eternal reunion. I appealed to her sympathy.

“What hope,” I asked, “can you offer those whose lives have been only successive phases of unhappiness? Why should beings be created only to live a life of suffering, and then die, as many, very many, of my people do? If they had no hope of a spiritual life, where pain and sorrow are to be unknown, the burdens of this life could not be borne.”

“You have the same consolation,” replied Wauna, “as the Preceptress had in losing her daughter. That daring spirit that cost her her life, was the pride of her mother. She possessed a promising intellect, yet her mother accepts her death as one of the sorrowful phases of life, and bravely tries to subdue its pain. Long ages behind us, as my mother has told you, the history of all human life was but a succession of woes. Our own happy state has been evolved by slow degrees out of that sorrowful past. Human progress is marked by blood and tears, and the heart’s bitterest anguish. We, as a people, have progressed almost beyond the reach of sorrow, but you are in the midst of it. You must work for the future, though you cannot be of it.”

“I cannot,” I declared, “reconcile myself to your belief. I am separated from my child. To think I am never to see it in this world, nor through endless ages, would drive me insane with despair. What consolation can your belief offer me?”