BURIAL CUSTOMS:
WHY THE DEAD ARE NEVER TAKEN
THROUGH THE DOOR.
Many generations ago, there was a woman born and reared at a village
called Os-sa-gon and which is located some six or seven miles south of
the mouth of the Klamath river, on the ocean shore. Some years ago this
place was a very large village of the Klamath Indians.
When this woman had grown into beautiful womanhood she was wooed and
won by a young man of the Wah-teck village, which is located near the
old Klamath Bluffs store and near the White Deer-skin dancing grounds.
They were both of wealthy families, and celebrated their nuptials of
good ceremony of the middle class. During their wedded life they were
very happy together, three little ones came to bless this happy union,
one boy and two girls. After the third child was born the husband
became very ill and entered into the shadowy valley of death, leaving
his young widow and children to mourn his untimely departure.
Up until his death, it had always been the custom of the Indians to
take the dead body out of the house through the door, and as they
carried it through they would take the ashes from the fire-place in the
house and throw them through the door as the body was carried out. The
ash dust was allowed to remain until the wind had swept it away. This
had been their custom from generation to generation. They had performed
the same rite with him but in this a strange coincidence happened which
changed their custom in removing the dead from the house.
After his burial was over and his wife had once more become reconciled
to her daily routine of work, she would sit and weave baskets with her
face toward the door, which was contrary to the Indian teachings, as
one should never sit facing the door but must always sit with their
backs turned upon it. She did not think this teaching of any importance
and always sat with her face toward the door while at work on her
baskets, and at short intervals she would look up from her basket and
glance at the door.
Nearly a year had elapsed, when one day while she was sitting weaving
her basket, thinking intently of her husband, how happy their wedded
life had been, how devotedly she had loved him in life and how deeply
she mourned his loss, seemingly his departed spirit answered her from
the unknown world. Glancing up at the door she beheld his spirit, and
dropped her basket with a sudden cry of joy and sprang to the door that
she might take him in her arms, that he might never more leave her in
her loneliness. Instead of her husband, the loved one, she caught in
her arms the post which stands as a supporting column on the outside
of the inner door, or between the inner and outer door of the Indian
house. Her conscious self left her as she thought he was trying to get
away from her, and, thinking that she had fastened her hold upon his
leg, instead she was clinging to the post. Her once supple body and
limbs became as rigid as iron when her children and folks gathered
around her and tried to make her let go of the post, but their efforts
were of no avail for she only clung the tighter. At last they were
compelled to cut away the post before they were able to move her to a
bed, where they did everything possible to restore her. She remained
in this state of unconsciousness for several days, when they decided
to take her down to the river and put her into a canoe. They took her
down as far as Blue Creek (Ur-ner), some eight miles, and then turning
back and coming up the river to Notch-co, some eight miles above the
Wah-teck village, making sixteen miles in all. In these sixteen miles
the river changes its course from due north swinging around in the
different bends, west to nearly south. They kept taking the woman up
and down the river the whole summer, until late in the Autumn, and
kept her alive during this period by nourishing her with the marrow
fat from the leg bones of the deer, of which they applied to her lips
and breasts by rubbing. When she had fully regained her consciousness
she would, during all her spare time, weave baskets. The main frame or
rib work of the basket are hazel switches which is called ho-lealth.
In drawing or weaving the work in and out over the switches they
turn to the left hand side and the basket-maker always keeps a basket
of water within her reach, and at short intervals dips her hand into
the water, moistens the switches and straightens them back into their
proper places, thus building the basket up straight. This woman never
straightened back the switches of her basket, therefore, they were made
into a round twist. The children would say to their mother, (Calk) “Why
don’t you straighten the switches on your basket?” She would always
reply, “Never mind, that is alright”, and tell them to stop talking
so much about her basket weaving. She kept on weaving baskets in this
manner until all of her children had grown up into man and womanhood.
One evening as the twilight was fast gathering into darkness, she was
sitting working on her baskets as usual, with her basket material
around her, she simply said, “My time has come, my husband is waiting
for me.” She picked up her basket she was weaving and placed it on the
fire, saying her spirit, O’quirlth, would have it to use while she was
leaving for the world beyond the grave, and died. Her children and her
husband’s folks had gathered around in her last dying moments.
The Indians now keep the dead body for one whole day, (twenty-four
hours) to satisfy themselves that life has actually departed. They bury
the body and after it is laid in the grave, they say that the spirit,
O’quirlth, remains hovering around the living and near the newly made
grave for five days. When five days have elapsed the spirit departs,
and if the individual has lived a good moral life, his spirit goes
to Cheek-cheek-alth, there finds the ladder and climbs to God, where
he dwells forever in eternal happiness. If he is a mean and degraded
wretch his spirit goes the broad road to the old woman and the dog,
where she hands him over to the man in the dead boat and he takes the
wicked spirit across the river and leaves him to wail in the wilderness
of anguish until the judgement day.
When that woman died they did not take her through the door, but made
an opening in the wall on the left hand side of the door as one stands
on the inside of the house facing the door. From this time on they have
never taken a dead body through the door, but always make an opening
in the side of the house on the left hand side, through which they
take the body. The Indians teach their children never to stop or stand
in the door-way, in going or coming in. One will never see any one,
old or young, stop, stand or sit in the door of an Indian house. Since
the death of this woman they always burn the basket material of the
deceased, or any unfinished work that belongs to the one that has just
died.
There is a coarse grass, a sort of saw grass, that grows on the ridges
and under the tan-oaks and fir timber which they use in nearly all
their baskets, and this grass we call ham-mo. When one dies and the
body is taken out of the house, they place some of this woven grass
over the door on the inside, in a manner that one would not notice
it, unless it was shown to them. The family will wear strands around
their necks, and this is done to prevent them from seeing or meeting
the spirit which hovers around and near the body for five days before
departing for the unknown realms beyond.
The custom of cutting the hair on the death of a near kindred extends
back to the time when they were in the old land, Cheek-cheek-alth.