INDIANS OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 671 



mother, and brother, who remained for ten or fifteen minutes mourning 

 and pounding on the canoe. 



It was now half past 1 P. M., and a little food was given to all, there 

 being twelve men and three women present, after which the father and 

 mother of the departed made presents to all. One man received a gun, 

 two persons a blanket each, and the rest $1.50 each. After this four 

 men made short speeches in their native language which I did not un- 

 derstand. 



They said she was buried in this way because she was a prominent 

 woman, and that in about nine months a potlatch would take place very 

 near where she was buried, and that as each tribe should come, a few of 

 their prominent men would be sent to the grave with presents, after 

 which she would be put under ground. The predicted potlatch took 

 place about thirteen months afterwards, but she still remains in the 

 canoe. 



Scaffold burial in cemeteries. — Unprincipled white men having stolen 

 many of the canoes in which their dead were placed, induced these In- 

 dians to adopt a different mode of burial. Instead of placing them in 

 forks of trees they collected their dead in cemeteries, placing them in 

 boxes or canoes on scaffolds. The ruins of such a grave-yard now re- 

 main about 2 miles from the agency, but nearly all the dead were re- 

 moved some years ago. 



In March, 1878, two Twana children, related to one another, died 

 almost at the same time — one was the child of a medicine man. All of 

 the tribe, it is said, were invited to the funeral; about fifty went, but 

 not a single child among them. They went to the cemetery, 3^ miles 

 distant, in canoes, with much mourning. When they arrived at the 

 cemetery the medicine man tore down an inclosnre where two of his 

 children had been buried with four other children, relations. Another 

 medicine man, belonging to the same elan, also tore down an inclosnre 

 where the bodies of two of his children were pla.ed along with those 

 of two others, their relations. Two of these corpses were above ground 

 and two below. The coffins beneath the ground could not be taken up, 

 but the clothes around the bodies were so well preserved there was no 

 difficulty in removing them. One of the coffins was large enough to 

 hold two children, and other rude boxes ^rere made of such capacity as 

 to admit of twelve children being put into eight of them. In one case 

 it was found impossible to place two of the bundled bodies in the same 

 coffin, whereupon the cloth which was wrapped around one was roughly 

 torn off, a little calico wrapped around the skeleton, and then it was put 

 in with ease. 



A large grave was dug near by, about 12 feet long and 5 feet wide 

 and 4 feet deep, lined with mats, and all the boxes and coffins were 

 placed in it, completely covering the bottom of the grave. Several of 

 these boxes were wrapped with many thicknesses of calico, and quilts, 

 blankets, shawls, calico, and a few fancy articles of bead- work and a few 



