It would appear, from recent researches on the Northwest coast, that the
natives of that region embalmed their dead with much care, as may be
seen from the work recently published by W. H. Dall,[35] the description
of the mummies being as follows:
We found the dead disposed of in various ways; first, by interment
in their compartments of the communal dwelling, as already
described; second, by being laid on a rude platform of drift-wood or
stones in some convenient rock shelter. These lay on straw and moss,
covered by matting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or
carvings associated with them. We found only three or four specimens
in all in these places, of which we examined a great number. This
was apparently the more ancient form of disposing of the dead, and
one which more recently was still pursued in the case of poor or
unpopular individuals.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Alaskan Mummies.]
Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within a few
centuries, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was
adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The
bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters in running
water, dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings of
fur and fine grass matting. The body was usually doubled up into the
smallest compass, and the mummy case, especially in the case of
children, was usually suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in
some convenient rock shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepared body
was placed in a lifelike position, dressed and armed. They were
placed as if engaged in some congenial occupation, such as hunting,
fishing, sewing, &c. With them were also placed effigies of the
animals they were pursuing, while the hunter was dressed in his
wooden armor and provided with an enormous mask all ornamented with
feathers, and a countless variety of wooden pendants, colored in gay
patterns. All the carvings were of wood, the weapons even were only
fac-similes in wood of the original articles. Among the articles
represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men,
birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of rods or scales of wood,
and remarkable masks, so arranged that the wearer when erect could
only see the ground at his feet. These were worn at their religious
dances from an idea that a spirit which was supposed to animate a
temporary idol was fatal to whoever might look upon it while so
occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the masking of those
who had gone into the land of spirits.
The practice of preserving the bodies of those belonging to the
whaling class--a custom peculiar to the Kadiak Innuit--has
erroneously been confounded with the one now described. The latter
included women as well as men, and all those whom the living desired
particularly to honor. The whalers, however, only preserved the
bodies of males, and they were not associated with the paraphernalia
of those I have described. Indeed, the observations I have been able
to make show the bodies of the whalers to have been preserved with
stone weapons and actual utensils instead of effigies, and with the
meanest apparel, and no carvings of consequence. These details, and
those of many other customs and usages of which the shell heaps bear
no testimony * * * do not come within my line.
Figure 5, copied from Dall, represents the Alaskan mummies.
Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings’ Expedition,[36] speaks of the
Aleutian Islanders embalming their dead, as follows:
They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead, for they
embalm the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass; bury them in
their best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with their
darts and instruments; and decorate the tomb with various coloured
mats, embroidery, and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less
ceremony. A mother will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut
for some months, constantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it
begins to smell, or when they get reconciled to parting with it.
Regarding these same people, a writer in the San Francisco Bulletin
gives this account:
The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska Commercial
Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company with the
mummified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of
Ounalaska one hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to
science was secured by Captain Henning, an agent of the company who
has long resided at Ounalaska. In his transactions with the Indians
he learned that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the
island in question, as the last resting-place of a great chief,
known as Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the
neighborhood of Kagamale in quest of sea-otter and other furs, and
he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth
of the tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering
the cave than in finding it, his schooner having to beat on and off
shore for three days. Finally he succeeded in affecting a landing,
and clambering up the rocks he found himself in the presence of the
dead chief, his family and relatives.
The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With great care
the mummies were removed, and all the little trinkets and ornaments
scattered around were also taken away.
In all there are eleven packages of bodies. Only two or three have
as yet been opened. The body of the chief is inclosed in a large
basket-like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the
wrappings are finely wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in
texture, and skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of
thinly cut wood, and adjoining the center portions are pieces of
body armor composed of reeds bound together. The body is covered
with the fine skin of the sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in
the interments of the Aleuts, and round the whole package are
stretched the meshes of a fish-net, made of the sinews of the sea
lion; also those of a bird-net. There are evidently some bulky
articles inclosed with the chief’s body, and the whole package
differs very much from the others, which more resemble, in their
brown-grass matting, consignments of crude sugar from the Sandwich
Islands than the remains of human beings. The bodies of a pappoose
and of a very little child, which probably died at birth or soon
after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of the feet of the
latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The remaining mummies are
of adults.
One of the packages has been opened, and it reveals a man’s body in
tolerable preservation, but with a large portion of the face
decomposed. This and the other bodies were doubled up at death by
severing some of the muscles at the hip and knee joints and bending
the limbs downward horizontally upon the trunk. Perhaps the most
peculiar package, next to that of the chief, is one which incloses
in a single matting, with sea-lion skins, the bodies of a man and
woman. The collection also embraces a couple of skulls, male and
female, which have still the hair attached to the scalp. The hair
has changed its color to a brownish red. The relics obtained with
the bodies include a few wooden vessels scooped out smoothly:
a piece of dark, greenish, flat stone, harder than the emerald,
which the Indians use to tan skins; a scalp-lock of jet-black hair;
a small rude figure, which may have been a very ugly doll or an
idol; two or three tiny carvings in ivory of the sea-lion, very
neatly executed; a comb, a necklet made of bird’s claws inserted
into one another, and several specimens of little bags, and a cap
plaited out of sea-grass and almost water-tight.
In Cary’s translation of Herodotus (1853, p. 180) the following passage
occurs which purports to describe the manner in which the Macrobrian
Ethiopians preserved their dead. It is added, simply as a matter of
curious interest, nothing more, for no remains so preserved have ever
been discovered.
After this, they visited last of all their sepulchres, which are
said to be prepared from crystal in the following manner. When they
have dried the body, either as the Egyptians do, or in some other
way, they plaster it all over with gypsum, and paint it, making it
as much as possible resemble real life; they then put round it a
hollow column made of crystal, which they dig up in abundance, and
is easily wrought. The body being in the middle of the column is
plainly seen, nor does it emit an unpleasant smell, nor is it in any
way offensive, and it is all visible as the body itself. The nearest
relations keep the column in their houses for a year, offering to it
the first-fruits of all, and performing sacrifices; after that time
they carry it out and place it somewhere near the city.
NOTE.--The Egyptian mummies could only be seen in front, the back
being covered by a box or coffin; the Ethiopian bodies could be seen
all round, as the column of glass was transparent.
With the foregoing examples as illustration, the matter of embalmment
may be for the present dismissed, with the advice to observers that
particular care should be taken, in case mummies are discovered, to
ascertain whether the bodies have been submitted to a regular
preservative process, or owe their protection to ingredients in the soil
of their graves or to desiccation in arid districts.