1 66 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x 



foregoing and the following series of data, though they are not entirely 

 devoid of all connection with the peculiar working of the mind. 



We read that, among the Yakuts, "some put the corpse upon a 

 Board, which they fix upon four Posts, in the Wood, cover the dead 

 Body with an Ox's or Horse's Hide, and so leave it . . . But the greater 

 Part of them, when they die, are left in their Huts, whence the Relations 

 take the most valuable Things, make the Huts close, and then leave 

 them".i 



Both kinds of "funerals" apply to the Sekanais and most of the 

 many eastern tribes of Den6s. Of the former I wrote, over twenty-five 

 years ago, that, on the occasion of the demise of a fellow man, "they 

 would lower his hut down upon him and thus cover his remains, and 

 start at once for another locality ",2 or then suspend them "on the 

 forks formed by the branches of two contiguous trees", when they have 

 not recourse to four independent posts in exactly the same way as the 

 natives of Siberia. 



Of the Eastern D6n6s, the Anglican Bishop W. C. Bompas states 

 that, instead of burying their dead, they were formerly accustomed to 

 "place them on high scaffolds above ground".^ 



Again, all American sociologists are familiar with the particular 

 aerial "burial" formerly in vogue among the Chinooks and other North 

 Pacific coast Indian tribes. These were wont to enclose the dead in 

 one of their wooden canoes, and lay them up in the branches of a tall 

 tree. Now here is what we read in a book by an English officer, who 

 wrote de visu of the Gilacks, or Ghiliacks, as he calls them: 



"Their mode of burial is unlike any other that I am acquainted 

 with; the body is placed in a rude coffin made from a log of wood, in a 

 manner similar to that adopted in making their canoes, and covered 

 over with bark, bound round with osiers; it is then placed between the 

 forked branches of a tree, out of the reach of any animal that might be 

 attracted to the spot".^ 



We have already seen that all of the modes of self-adornment in 

 use among the American aborigines have their exact counterparts in 

 the wilds of Siberia. Now as to the personal appearance of the people 

 that roam through them. 



In 1826, two young chiefs of the Tungus were taken to Rome by 

 two Jesuits who had converted them to the Christian faith in their 



1 S. Muller, "Voyages from Asia to America", p. III. 



2 "The Western D^nes; their Manners and Customs", p. 146 (Proceedings of the 

 Canadian Institute, 3rd Series, Vol. VII; Toronto, 1890). 



*" Diocese of Mackenzie River", p. 91; London, 1888. 



^ J. M. Tronson, "A Voyage to Japan, Kzimtschatka, Siberia, Tartary", p. 324. 



