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The idea that the soul leaves the physical body at death and journeys to the land of dead is found in Native American cultures throughout North America. In some instances, the soul may remain in the land of the living and become a ghost.

Belief in ghosts is common in many American Indian cultures. In their book The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin report: “The conviction among many Native Americans is that there is a malignant influence associated with a dead person released at death and capable of return to earth as an apparition. Many groups believe that ghosts haunt burial grounds or return to earth to plague the living.”

Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin also report: “Despite the overall fear of ghosts, some tribes feel ghosts are harmless and some even seek their protection.”

Briefly described below are some Plains Indian beliefs about ghosts.

Ghosts are not always associated with a particular dead person. With regard to the Cheyennes on the Great Plains, Peter J. Powell, in his book Sweet Medicine: The Continuing Role of the Sacred Arrows, the Sun Dance, and the Sacred Buffalo Hat in Northern Cheyenne History, writes: “Ghosts cause the Cheyennes some uneasiness. Ghosts, or Mistai, are rarely seen, but are often felt or heard. They are spirits derived from the dead, but they are not the ghosts of particular people. When a Cheyenne hears weird or whistling noises outside his lodge, he knows the Mistai are abroad.”

In his book The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Lifeways, George Bird Grinnell describes the Cheyenne concept of ghosts this way: “Mitsai is always alarming, but never, so far as known, does any actual harm. It seems to take pleasure in frightening people, and to be somewhat like the white man’s idea of a hobgoblin, or malicious elf.”

Another Great Plains tribe, the Blackfeet, felt that the dead could not be seen by the living, but could communicate with the living. In his book The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, John Ewers writes: “The Blackfeet claimed that the ghosts of the dead sometimes returned to communicate with the living in weird, whistling sounds.”

Among the Cree on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana, a ghost is a soul that remains on earth. In his book The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence, Verne Dusenberry reports: “Some of the informants maintain that they can see ghosts, while others say that they can merely feel their presence. All agree, however, that ghosts frighten people.”

For the Montana Cree, ghosts are similar to other people and they wear the same clothes they were wearing when they died. Verne Dusenberry also writes: “In other ways, ghosts are different from the living. For example, they cannot touch the earth when they are walking or dancing because they are dead, so they stay about twelve inches above ground. Since they are capable of walking through the logs or walls of a house, they do not need to use a door. Sometimes, but not always, a person can hear a ghost but cannot see it.”

Among the Canadian Cree, David Mandelbaum, in his book The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study, reports: “The failure to provide a suitable funeral feast might cause a soul to linger until the feast was finally given. Such souls made their presence known by weird noises and were called tcipayak, ghosts.”

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