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Show CREMATION- CALIFORNIA. 55 Lake, California, " the body is consumed upon a scaffold built over a hole, into which the ashes are thrown and covered." According to Stephen Powers,* cremation was common among the Se- ndl of California. He thus relates it: " The dead are mostly burned. Mr. Willard described to me a scene of incremation that he once witnessed which was frightful for its exhibitions of fanatic frenzy and infatuation. The corpse was that of a wealthy chieftain, and as he lay upon the funeral pyre they placed in his mouth two gold twenties, and other smaller coins in his ears and hands, on his breast, & c, besides all his finery, his feather mantles, plumes, clothing, shell money, his fancy bows, painted arrows, & c. When the torch was applied they set up a mournful ululation, chanting and dancing about him, gradually working themselves into a wild and ecstatic raving, which seemed almost a demoniacal possession, leaping, howling, lacerating their flesh. Many seemed to lose all self- control. The younger English- speaking Indians generally lend themselves charily to such superstitious work, especially if American spectators are present, but even they were carried away by the old contagious frenzy of their race. One stripped off a broadcloth coat, quite new and fine, and ran frantically yelling and cast it upon the blazing pile. Another rushed up and was about to throw on a pile of California blankets, when a white man, to test his sincerity, offered him $ 16 for them, jingling the bright coins before his eyes, but the savage ( for such he had become again for the moment), otherwise so avaricious, hurled him away with a yell of execration and ran and threw his offering into the flames. Squaws, even more frenzied, wildly flung upon the pyre all they had in the world- their dearest ornaments, their gaudiest dresses, their strings of glittering shells. Screaming, wailing, tearing their hair, beating their breasts in their mad and insensate infatuation, some of them would have cast themselves bodily into the flaming ruins and perished with the chief had they not been restrained by their companions. Then the bright, swift flames with their hot tongues licked this ' cold obstruction' into chemic change, and the once ' delighted spirit' of the savage was borne up. * * * " It seems as if the savage shared in Shakspeare's shudder at the " Contrib. to N. A. Etlinol., 1877, vol. iii, p. 169. |
