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an instance where the hushand abandoned several children by the side of 

 his dead wife, all of whom are reported to have starved to death. It might 

 be added that among the Navajo if the mother dies the children are virtually 

 orphans, though the father survives. They are not considered his children 

 but the children of the clan to which his wife belonged. In addition, he 

 inherits none of his wife's or of his children's property in case of their 

 death, same di\erting to the clan of the wife. Hence the children from the 

 Navajo standpoint are not his in the same sense that a white man's chil- 

 dren are his. 



The disease was astouudingly fatal. Whole families were wiped out, 

 leaving their flocks wandering over the hills at the mercy of the wolves. 

 Several related families living together all died but one small boy who 

 was found herding the combined flocks of sheep ; and, it is now reported 

 that the agent of the San Juan reservation, under whose jurisdiction he 

 belonged, has recommended that this boy inherit the combined sheep 

 droves he saved from the coyotes. At another place, a family of eight were 

 picking pinyon nuts when the disease reached them. Later their dead bodies 

 were found around their wagon. A Piute woman died on their reservation 

 north of the San Juan river. Fleeing from the place of the dead, the hus- 

 band and five children crossed the river into the Navajo country with their 

 sheep where they died one by one along the trail. Only one little boy sur- 

 vived and he is so small that he is unable to give his parents' name. 



No people have a greater dread of ghosts and mortuary remains. Conse- 

 quently, to prevent a stampede, the two pupils who died at the boarding- 

 school, both dying at night, were carried out of the dormitory as soon as 

 dead, with lights darkened so that the pupils could not see what was being 

 done. The dead pupils were also buried- in the early hours of the morning 

 for the same reason. At the hospital at the Marsh Pass school — which 

 was filled with sick adults — a patient died near sunrise one morning. Im- 

 mediately, the death-wail was struck up and pandemonium took possession 

 of the sick. With eyes wide and staring, they strove to leave the place. 

 Even a sick man. who cduld hardly hold his head up the evening before, 

 sprang from his bed as he trembled from head to foot and started to run 

 out of the room. Luckily there was another hospital room to which they 

 were all speedily moved. To prevent a like occurrence, the deathly sick 

 were put in a building by themselves, and when one died he was buried at 

 night so as not to arouse the superstition of the Indians any more than 

 possible. 



The Indians were so terribly afraid of the dead or so weakened by the 

 disease themselves that they fled from the "chindi Hogan" (devil's house), 

 as they termed a place where a Navajo died. Many were left where they 

 died in the hogan and were simply covered over with a few shovels full of 

 dirt right where they expired. In one case, that of the only Indian stone 

 house in 60 miles of Kayenta post office, the relatives of the deceased (wife) 

 threw some dirt over the corpse near the fire-place where she died ; then in 

 panic they fled, leaving the door open. Later, they begged a party of gov- 

 ernment oflieials to close the door, which they did. Many other dead were 



