Research source

I am still near, Watching the smiles I prized on earth, Your converse mild, your blameless mirth.[64

Date of account: Late nineteenth-century compilation
Source: The Ghost World
Reference: The Ghost World · selected passage 236
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

According to the Guiana Indians, 'every place is haunted where any have died;' and in Madagascar the ghosts of ancestors are said to hover about their tombs

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

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According to the Guiana Indians, 'every place is haunted where any have died;' and in Madagascar the ghosts of ancestors are said to hover about their tombs. The East Africans 'appear to imagine the souls to be always near the place of sepulture,' and on the Gold Coast 'the spirit is supposed to remain near the spot where the body has been buried.' The souls of warriors slain on the field of battle are considered by the Mangaians to wander for a while amongst the rocks and trees of the neighbourhood in which their bodies were thrown. At length 'the first slain on each battlefield would collect his brothers' ghosts, and lead them to the summit of a mountain, whence they leap into the blue expanse, thus becoming the peculiar clouds of the winter.'[290] And the Mayas of Yucatan think the souls of the dead return to the earth if they choose, and, in order that they may not lose the way to the domestic hearth, they mark the path from the hut to the tomb with chalk.[291]

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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