238 THE BURIED HAT. : 
shoulder of the warrior, which was also thrown 
into the fire. A piece of bitter root, with a piece 
of meat, were next thrown into the fire, all these 
being intended as offerings to the Sun, the deity 
of the Flatheads. The war pipe wads ‘then 
smoked by the assembled multitude, and thus the 
ceremony ended, except in cases where horses 
were killed. The burying of the hat was 
a great affair, there having been attached 
to it a piece of red cloth, six inches wide and 
six yards long, adorned with ermine skin, 
fringed with the wing feathers of the rocky 
mountain eagle, and having the tail as its ap- 
pendage. When scouting in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the enemy, a Blackfoot or 
Flathead chief would ride at full gallop so near 
the foe as to flap in their faces the eagle’s tail 
streaming behind, yet no one dared seize the tail 
or streamer, it being considered sacrilegious and 
fraught with misfortune to touch it. The chief 
was often shot during these Balaklava gallops, 
when a contest would ensue for the body and 
gaudy gear, such as, if all tales be true, once oc- 
curred on the plain of Troy for the body of 
Patroclus. At Nesqually I have known the re- 
mains of several bodies of relatives disinterred 
at different places, washed and re-enveloped in 
