CRUISE AMONG HAIDA AND T LIN GIT VILLAGES. 169 



deserted. We found much to interest us. The totem pole with the 

 moon symbol was the first we had seen, nor is it reproduced else- 

 where on the island; but what proved of special interest were sev- 

 eral very old graves which faced the beach on the east side of the 

 village. These were the burial places of medicine men or Shamans, 

 and quite different from the ordinary grave. Instead of a single 

 pole in which the body is placed through a hole in the top or at the 

 side, or from the double-pole platform grave which we saw at Kung, 

 we found a little house built of short cedar logs. Inside was placed 

 the Shaman in a long coffin-box, reclining at full length with his 



Egg-shaped Rock containing Burial House of a IIaida Shaman. 



--C^ 



rattles and other ceremonial paraphernalia about him. With one 

 had been placed several very fine masks, but they had almost entirely 

 crumbled into dust. The grave of the old chief at Kung was the 

 best I had seen. Four short, stout posts had been firmly planted 

 in the ground, and on the inner corners of each grooves had been cut 

 out to receive the beams that supported the little house, in which lay 

 the chief in state. The structure was nearly buried in a thick growth 

 of vegetation, and much work with the axe was needed before the 

 beautifully carved posts could be rendered visible to the camera. 



Leaving Kung at ten o'clock in the morning, we set out for the 

 extreme northwestern shore of the island, and that night anchored 

 in a little cove on ISTorth Island. We were now on deserted but 



