It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
"The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux". Book by Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown, 1953.
