CAVE RELICS OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 31 



We were informed that rumors were current among the natives that one or 

 more caves— never, so far, disturbed— existed in the southern part of the island 

 near the site of an old settlement, now abandoned. Our time was too much 

 taken up with other and imperative duties to permit us to attempt a search, 

 which would probably have been fruitless in the lack of a guide. 



There are statements in some of the old voyages to the effect that the Kaniag-'- 

 miits sometimes interred their dead in the ground, covered them with stones, 

 and erected poles in the vicinity. We have seen no traces of such a practice, 

 though it may have been in vogue among them. The custom, common enough 

 among the Innuit, of erecting poles, streamers, &c., about the dead, now grown 

 to be a matter of superstition, I have no doubt originated in a desire to scare 

 away wild animals. The custom of huddling the body up in a squatting posture, 

 had probably its origin in the desire to save space and labor in making the box 

 or case, or in digging the grave. How much these practices depend upon 

 surrounding circumstances may be seen by comparing the modes in ditTerent 



regions. 



In the Chidvchi Peninsula, the Innuit expose their dead where Avild animals, 

 as well as their own dogs, may devour them. There is no soil in which to inter 

 them, no wood with which to burn them, nor poles to use as scarecrows against 

 bears and foxes. 



In the Yukon region where the soil at a certain depth is frozen, but there is 

 plenty of wood, the body is usually placed in a wooden box erected on four short 

 posts. 



In the Aleutian region where the soil offers no obstacle to grave digging, and 

 drift-wood is tolerably abundant, the absence of wild animals, and the readiness 

 with which animal matter dries without putrefying, rendered it an easier task to 

 lay the dead away in the rock-shelters which may be found near almost every 

 camping place. 



All these methods (except the first) Avere originally adopted with a con- 

 scious or unconscious relation first to the convenience of the survivors, and 

 then to the security of the dead. Yet they have been modified, or so loaded 

 with other performances indicative of respect or affection, that the question of 

 convenience no longer arises to conflict with hereditary customs which have 

 grown by slow degrees. In this we may trace somewhat of the growth of senti- 



probable that he would have found sufficient reason for modifying or rejecting his first impressions. The fact 

 that the remains of women and children, some still retaining portions of their original wrajipers, were found in 

 this place by us, is proof that it could not have been one of the caves devoted to the preservation of the remains 

 of whalers or fishermen, from which women and children were, by the nature of the case, excluded. After Mr. 

 Pinart had collected what he chose to talce away, we obtained more than a dozen crania of difl'erent sexes and 

 ages, showing that the number of interments was larger than he had supposed, and it is certain that nearly all 

 those we found which were sufficiently well preserved to show the method of interment, had been preserved in a 

 squatting posture. Of the identity of the cave or shelter with that visited by M. Pinart there can bo no doubt, 

 as we had the same individual, as a guide, who had accompanied him in his examinations. 



