[HILL-TOUT] PREHISTORIC MAN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 115 
then heaping over it the neighbouring soil ; for there are hollows around 
these mounds showing that the soil of which they are formed was taken 
from the spot. In all these mounds throughout the whole series, whether 
simple or otherwise, it should be stated, one body only was ever interred. 
About this there is no doubt; and this fact of separate, individual in- 
terment is the more striking in the more elaborate tombs, which must 
have occupied many days, if not weeks, in their construction. Many of 
these simpler and less conspicuous mounds have doubtless been levelled by 
the ranchers of that neighbourhood without attracting attention ; as the 
bones of the body in these are always found wholly decomposed, with the 
single exception at times, of a bit of the lower jaw; and their matter has 
been so closely integrated with the soil that the fact that a body once lay 
there is only to be discovered by the presence of a darker shade or streak 
init; though the enamel casings of the teeth themselves may generally, 
I think, be recovered if the mounds are opened carefully. Absolutely 
nothing but the teeth, or their remains, or, as stated before, tiny frag- 
ments of the lower jaw, which crumble away in the hand, has been 
found in these clay mounds ; not a vestige of tools, weapons or belong- 
ings of any kind. And I may here add that it is one of the singularities 
of these sepulchres that not a single relic of stone, not so much as a single 
flake of any kind, has been taken from the whole series, though I have used 
the greatest care in seeking forthem. In this respect the interments in these 
mounds present a strong contrast to those of the Shuswaps of the sand- 
hills round Lytton, in which arrow- and spear-heads, flakes and other 
stone relics are found in great numbers! These clay or earth mounds 
are of varying dimensions, some of them evidently children’s graves, 
being only a few feet high and a yard or two in diameter; but like the 
more elaborate ones are always circular in form, and sometimes have a 
diameter of 20 to 25 feet. Next in the series is a class of mounds formed 
in part like the last but differing from them in having a pile of bould- 
ers heaped up over and around the spot where the body originally lay. 
The plan of interment in this second class of mounds seems to have 
been to place the body in the centre of the spot chosen for the grave — 
whether sitting or prostrate I have not been able to decide, but am in- 
clined to think it was probably doubled: up in some way — and then to 
surround and heap over it a large pile of boulders; and over these again 
to heap up earth to a height of from 6 to 9 feet. The third class differs 
from these only in having a stratum of charcoal, extending over the 
whole area of the mounds between the boulders and the outer covering 
of clay, evidently the remains of a large fire. Whether these fires were 
kindled for sacrificial or for some simpler ceremonial purpose it is impos- 
sible from the evidence now to say. The slaughter and cremation of 


1 Vide Dr. G. M. Dawson’s Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia.— 
Trans. Roy. Soc., Canada, 1891. 
