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Show CANOE- BURIAL-- CLALLAMS. 81 SUPERTERRENE AND AERIAL BURIAL IN CANOES. The next mode of burial to be remarked is that of deposit in canoes, either supported on posts, on the ground, or swung from trees, and is common only to the tribes inhabiting the northwest coast. From a number of examples, the following, relating to the Clallams and furnished by the Rev. M. Eells, missionary to the Skokomish Agency, Washington Territory, is selected: " The deceased was a woman about thirty or thirty- five years of age, dead of consumption. She died in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to the house to attend the funeral. She had then been placed in a Hudson's Bay Company's box for a coffin, which was about 3£ feet long, If wide, and 1J high. She was very poor when she died, owing to her disease, or she could not have been put in this box. A fire was burning near by, where a large number of her things had been consumed, and the rest were in three boxes near the coffin. Her mother sang the mourning song, sometimes with others, and often saying: * My daughter, my daughter, why did you die ?' and similar words. The burial did not take place until the next day, and I was invited to go. It was an aerial burial, in a canoe. The canoe was about 25 feet long. The posts, of old Indian hewed boards, were about a foot wide. Holes were cut in these, in which boards were placed, on which the canoe rested. One thing I noticed while this was done which was new to me, but the significance of which I did not learn. As fast as the holes were cut in the posts green leaves were gathered and placed over the holes until the posts were put in the ground. The coffin- box and the three others containing her things were placed in the canoe and a roof of boards made over the central part, which was entirely covered with white cloth. The head part and the foot part of her bedstead were then nailed on to the posts, which front the water, and a dress nailed on each of these. After pronouncing the benediction, all left the hill and went to the beach except her father, mother, and brother, who remained ten or fifteen minutes, pounding on the canoe and mourning. They then came down and made a present to those persons who were there- a gun to me, a blanket to each of two or three others, and a dollar and a half to each of the rest, C Y |
