Through Shamanistic communication according to some traditions the dead live in an underworld, which is not too happy, resembling this word, but darker. There is much hunger because descendants failed to give offering from their good hunting.
The life of the Inuits was like that, and they expected it to continue in similar manner after death.
In Native American creation myths the underworld is occasionally associated with the womb, a place in Mother Earth where humans, plants, and animals are conceived and gradually mature from a seed-like state in darkness until they are ready to be born.
Such myths are especially important within agricultural tribes such as the Hopi (see Spider), although other tribes of the Apache and Navajo have similar myths, who have ceremonies celebrating curing being significant of new beginnings. A.G.H.
Sources:
Burland, Cottie. North American Indian Mythology. «Library of the World’s Myths and Legends.» {Revised by Marion Wood) New York. Peter Bedrick Books. 1965. p. 20
Leeming, David, Jake Page. The Mythology of Native North America. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 1998. p. 89