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 1/2 feet
long, 1 3/4 wide, and 1 1/2 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, there being about fifteen
persons present. Three or four of them then made short speeches, and
we came home.
"The reason why she was buried thus is said to be because she is a
prominent woman in the tribe. In about nine months it is expected that
there will be a '_pot-latch_' or distribution of money near this
place, and as each tribe shall come they will send a delegation of two
or three men, who will carry a present and leave it at the grave; soon
after that shall be done she will be buried in the ground. Shortly
after her death both her father and mother cut off their hair as a
sign of their grief."
George Gibbs [Footnote: Cont. N. A. Ethnol. 1877, I, p. 200.] gives a
most interesting account of the burial ceremonies of the Indians of
Oregon and Washington Territory, which is here reproduced in its
entirety, although it contains examples of other modes of burial
besides that in canoes; but to separate the narrative would destroy
the thread of the story:
"The common mode of disposing of the dead among the fishing tribes was
in canoes. These were generally drawn into the woods at some prominent
point a short distance from the village, and sometimes placed between
the forks of trees or raised from the ground on posts. Upon the
Columbia River the Tsinuk had in particular two very noted cemeteries,
a high isolated bluff about three miles below the mouth of the
Cowlitz, called Mount Coffin, and one some distance above, called
Coffin Rock. The former would appear not to have been very ancient.
Mr. Broughton, one of Vancouver's lieutenants, who explored the river,
makes mention only of _several_ canoes at this place; and Lewis
and Clarke, who noticed the mount, do not speak of them at all, but at
the time of Captain Wilkes's expedition it is conjectured that there
were at least 3,000. A fire caused by the carelessness of one of his
party destroyed the whole, to the great indignation of the Indians.
"Captain Belcher, of the British ship Sulphur, who visited the river
in 1839, remarks: 'In the year 1836 [1826] the small-pox made great
ravages, and it was followed a few years since by the ague.
Consequently Corpse Island and Coffin Mount, as well as the adjacent
shores, were studded not only with canoes, but at the period of our
visit the skulls and skeletons were strewed about in all directions.'
This method generally prevailed on the neighboring coasts, as at Shoal
Water Bay, etc. Farther up the Columbia, as at the Cascades, a
different form was adopted, which is thus described by Captain Clarke:
"About half a mile below this house, in a very thick part of the
woods, is an ancient Indian burial-place; it consists of eight vaults,
made of pine or cedar boards, closely connected, about eight feet
square and six in height, the top securely covered with wide boards,
sloping a little, so as to convey off the rain. The direction of all
these is east and west, the door being on the eastern side, and
partially stopped with wide boards, decorated with rude pictures of
men and other animals. On entering we found in some of them four dead
bodies, carefully wrapped in skins, tied with cords of grass and bark,
lying on a mat in a direction east and west, the other vaults
contained only bones, which in some of them were piled to a height of
four feet; on the tops of the vaults and on poles attached to them
hung brass kettles and frying-pans with holes in their bottoms,
baskets, bowls, sea-shells, skins, pieces of cloth, hair bags of
trinkets, and small bones, the offerings of friendship or affection,
which have been saved by a pious veneration from the ferocity of war
or the more dangerous temptation of individual gain. The whole of the
walls as well as the door were decorated with strange figures cut and
painted on them, and besides these were several wooden images of men,
some of them so old and decayed as to have almost lost their shape,
which were all placed against the sides of the vault. These images, as
well as those in the houses we have lately seen, do not appear to be
at all the objects of adoration in this place; they were most probably
intended as resemblances of those whose decease they indicate; and
when we observe them in houses they occupy the most conspicuous part,
but are treated more like ornaments than objects of worship. Near the
vaults which are still standing are the remains of others on the
ground, completely rotted and covered with moss; and as they are
formed of the most durable pine and cedar timber, there is every
appearance that for a very long series of years this retired spot has
been the depository for the Indians near this place."
"Another depository of this kind upon an island in the river a few
miles above gave it the name of Sepulcher Island. The _Watlala_,
a tribe of the Upper Tsinuk, whose burial place is here described, are
now nearly extinct; but a number of the sepulchers still remain in
different states of preservation. The position of the body, as noticed
by Clarke, is, I believe, of universal observance, the head being
always placed to the west. The reason assigned to me is that the road
to the _me-mel-us-illa-hee_, the country of the dead, is toward
the west, and if they place them otherwise they would be confused.
East of the Cascade Mountains the tribes whose habits are equestrian,
and who use canoes only for ferriage or transportation purposes, bury
their dead, usually heaping over them piles of stones, either to mark
the spot or to prevent the bodies from being exhumed by the prairie
wolf. Among the Yakamas we saw many of their graves placed in
conspicuous points of the basaltic walls which line the lower valleys,
and designated by a clump of poles planted over them, from which
fluttered various articles of dress. Formerly these prairie tribes
killed horses over the graves--a custom now falling into disuse in
consequence of the teachings of the whites.
"Upon Puget Sound all the forms obtain in different localities. Among
the Makah of Cape Flattery the graves are covered with a sort of box,
rudely constructed of boards, and else where on the Sound the same
method is adopted in some cases, while in others the bodies are placed
on elevated scaffolds. As a general thing, however, the Indians upon
the water placed the dead in canoes, while those at a distance from it
buried them. Most of the graves are surrounded with strips of cloth,
blankets, and other articles of property. Mr. Cameron, an English
gentleman residing at Esquimalt Harbor, Vancouver Island, informed me
that on his place there were graves having at each corner a large
stone, the interior space filled with rubbish. The origin of these was
unknown to the present Indians.
"The distinctions of rank or wealth in all cases were very marked;
persons of no consideration and slaves being buried with very little
care or respect. Vancouver, whose attention was particularly attracted
to their methods of disposing of the dead, mentions that at Port
Discovery he saw baskets suspended to the trees containing the
skeletons of young children, and, what is not easily explained, small
square boxes, containing, apparently, food. I do not think that any of
these tribes place articles of food with the dead, nor have I been
able to learn from living Indians that they formerly followed that
practice. What he took for such I do not understand. He also mentions
seeing in the same place a cleared space recently burned over, in
which the skulls and bones of a number lay among the ashes. The
practice of burning the dead exists in parts of California and among
the Tshimsyan of Fort Simpson. It is also pursued by the "Carriers" of
New California, but no intermediate tribes, to my knowledge, follow
it. Certainly those of the Sound do not at present.
"It is clear from Vancouver's narrative that some great epidemic had
recently passed through the country, as manifested by the quantity of
human remains uncared for and exposed at the time of his visit, and
very probably the Indians, being afraid, had burned a house, in which
the inhabitants had perished with the dead in it. This is frequently
done. They almost invariably remove from an place where sickness has
prevailed, generally destroying the house also.
"At Penn Cove Mr. Whidbey, one of Vancouver's officers, noticed
several sepulchers formed exactly like a sentry-box. Some of them were
open, and contained the skeletons, of many young children tied up in
baskets. The smaller bones of adults were likewise noticed, but not
one of the limb bones was found; which gave rise to an opinion that
these, by the living inhabitants of the neighborhood, were
appropriated to useful purposes, such as pointing their arrows,
spears, or other weapons.
"It is hardly necessary to say that such a practice is altogether
foreign to Indian character. The bones of the adults had probably been
removed and buried elsewhere. The corpses of children are variously
disposed of; sometimes by suspending them, at others by placing in the
hollows of trees, A cemetery devoted to infants is, however, an
unusual occurrence. In cases of chiefs or men of note much pomp was
used in the accompaniments of the rite. The canoes were of great size
and value--the war or state canoes of the deceased. Frequently one was
inverted over that holding the body, and in one instance, near
Shoalwater Bay, the corpse was deposited in a small canoe, which again
was placed in a larger one and covered with a third. Among the
_Tsinuk_ and _Tsihalis_ the _tamahno-us_ board of the owner was
placed near him. The Puget Sound Indians do not make these
_tamahno-us_ hoards, but they sometimes constructed effigies of
their chiefs, resembling the person as nearly as possible, dressed in
his usual costume, and wearing the articles of which he was fond. One
of these, representing the Skagit chief Sneestum, stood very
conspicuously upon a high bank on the eastern side of Whidbey Island
The figures observed by Captain Clarke at the Cascades were either of
this description or else the carved, posts which had ornamented the
interior of the houses of the deceased, and were connected with the
superstition of the _tamahno-us_. The most valuable articles of
property were put into or hung up around the grave, being first
carefully rendered unserviceable, and the living family were literally
stripped to do honor to the dead. No little self-denial must have been
practiced in parting with articles so precious, but those interested
frequently had the least to say on the subject. The graves of women
were distinguished by a cup, a Kamas stick, or other implement of
their occupation, and by articles of dress.
"Slaves were killed in proportion to the rank and wealth of the
deceased. In some instances they were starved to death, or even tied
to the dead body and left to perish thus horribly. At present this
practice has been almost entirely given up, but till within a very few
years it was not uncommon. A case which occurred in 1850 has been
already mentioned. Still later, in 1853, Toke, a Tsinuk chief living
at Shoalwater Bay, undertook to kill a slave girl belonging to his
daughter, who, in dying, had requested that this might be done. The
woman fled, and was found by some citizens in the woods half starved.
Her master attempted to reclaim her, but was soundly thrashed and
warned against another attempt.
"It was usual in the case of chiefs to renew or repair for a
considerable length of time the materials and ornaments of the burial-
place. With the common class of persons family pride or domestic
affection was satisfied with the gathering together of the bones after
the flesh had decayed and wrapping them in a new mat. The violation of
the grave was always regarded as an offense of the first magnitude and
provoked severe revenge. Captain Belcher remarks, 'Great secrecy is
observed in all their burial ceremonies, partly from fear of
Europeans, and as among themselves they will instantly punish by death
any violation of the tomb or wage war if perpetrated by another tribe,
so they are inveterate and tenaceously bent on revenge should they
discover that any act of the kind has been perpetrated by a white man.
It is on record that part of the crew of a vessel on her return to
this port (the Columbia) suffered because a person who belonged to her
(but not then in her) was known to have taken a skull, which, from the
process of flattening, had become an object of curiosity.' He adds,
however, that at the period of his visit to the river 'the skulls and
skeletons were scattered about in all directions; and as I was on most
of their positions unnoticed by the natives, I suspect the feeling
does not extend much beyond their relatives, and then only till decay
has destroyed body, goods, and chattels. The chiefs, no doubt, are
watched, as their canoes are repainted, decorated, and greater care
taken by placing them in sequestered spots.'
"The motive for sacrificing or destroying property on occasion of
death will be referred to in treating of their religious ideas.
Wailing for the dead is continued for a long time, and seems to be
rather a ceremonial performance than an act of spontaneous grief. The
duty, of course, belongs to the woman, and the early morning is
usually chosen for the purpose. They go out alone to some place a
little distant from the lodge or camp, and in a loud, sobbing voice
repeat a sort of stereotyped formula, as, for instance, a mother, on
the loss of her child, _'Ah seahb shed-da bud-dah ah ta bud! ad-de-
dah,_ Ah chief!' 'My child dead, alas!' When in dreams they see any
of their deceased friends this lamentation is renewed."
With most of the Northwest Indians it was quite common, as mentioned
by Mr. Gibbs, to kill or bury with the dead a living slave, who,
failing to die within three days was strangled by another slave, but
the custom has also prevailed among other tribes and peoples, in many
cases the individuals offering themselves as voluntary sacrifices.
Bancroft states "that in Panama, Nata, and some other districts, when
a cacique died those of his concubines that loved him enough, those
that he loved ardently and so appointed, as well as certain servants,
killed themselves and were interred with him. This they did in order
that they might wait upon him in the land of spirits." It is well
known to all readers of history to what an extreme this revolting
practice has prevailed in Mexico, South America, and Africa.