238 THE BURIED HAT. 



shoulder of the warrior, which was also thrown 

 into the fire. A piece of bitter root, with a piece 

 of meat, were next thrown into the fire, all these 

 being intended as offerings to the Sun, the deity 

 of the Flatheads. The war pipe was then 

 smoked by the assembled multitude, and thus the 

 ceremony ended, except in cases where horses 

 were killed. The burying of the hat was 

 a great affair, there having been attached 

 to it a piece of red cloth, six inches wide and 

 six yards long, adorned with ermine skin, 

 fringed with the wing feathers of the rocky 

 mountain eagle, and having the tail as its ap- 

 pendage. When scouting in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the enemy, a Blackfoot or 

 Flathead chief would ride at full gallop so near 

 the foe as to flap in their faces the eagle's tail 

 streaming behind, yet no one dared seize the tail 

 or streamer, it being considered sacrilegious and 

 fraught with misfortune to touch it. The chief 

 was often shot during these Balaklava gallops, 

 when a contest would ensue for the body and 

 gaudy gear, such as, if all tales be true, once oc- 

 curred on the plain of Troy for the body of 

 Patroclus. At Nesqually I have known the re- 

 mains of several bodies of relatives disinterred 

 at different places, washed and re-enveloped in 



