i68 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The totem pole stands immediately in front of the dwelling, and in 

 its more ancient form was even an intrinsic part of the house, for an 

 oval opening at the base of the pole served as the entrance. 



In addition to the totem poles there was erected in former times 

 an additional pole at one side, near the front of the house, which 

 answered the purpose of a mortuary or memorial column. This 

 pole is usually quite plain, and is surmounted by the crest of the man 

 in whose honor it was erected. Several of these are still standing at 

 Masset, one of the best preserved being the bear column in front 

 of old Chief Edenshaw's house. Farther down the beach we came 

 to another ]3ole which was surmounted by a conical structure which 

 bears a close resemblance to a Haida hat, and, in fact, they relate in 

 Masset that it actually is intended to represent a hat. This pole is 

 not duplicated elsewhere on the Queen Charlotte Islands. 



Of the ancient burial columns but two remain standing, the 

 others having been pulled down and the dead buried in the little 

 modern cemetery. The first column is single and stands near the 

 water's edge. On the side facing the village and near to the toj) 

 a rectangular cavity had been chiseled out within which was placed 

 the box containing the body. The other burial structure is in the 

 form of a double column or two posts, whose tops are united by a 

 hollow, boxlike crossbar. In such burial columns as this were usu- 

 ally placed two or more bodies, and in some even entire families. 



More photographs, purchases of relics, and measurements of 

 heads, and we were ready to leave this half-modern, half -barbarian, 

 half-dead, half-alive village, for others which knew neither teacher 

 nor preacher, but which were long since abandoned and given over 

 to solitude, to moss, and cedar trees, to snails and hoarse-throated 

 ravens. 



vSkirting along the western half of the northern shore of Graham 

 Island, we made our first stop at Yan, about three miles from Masset. 

 Here, as elsewhere, we encountered a luxuriant vegetation which 

 covers every inch of the soil, and even mounts to the top of the 

 burial columns and to the decaying rafters and beams of the great 

 old houses. Probably the most interesting object we saw at Yan 

 was a mortuary column, the crossbar or the coffin-box support of 

 which was of a single board, and most handsomely carved in to- 

 temic designs. After pushing and crawling for an hour through 

 wet underbrush, made up largely of salmon and rose bushes 

 over three inches in diameter and from fifteen to twenty feet high, 

 we were off again, and that night, with the friendly assistance of a 

 favorable tide, we dropped down into Virago Sound and anchored 

 in front of the old moss-covered village of Kung. This was one of 

 the best of the old villages along this coast, but is now completely 



