I3O SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



much as were those on the Yukon, and many were evidently decorated 

 by paint and even with animal and human figures. The body was 

 covered with caribou skin, or laid in with just what little it had on. In 

 some instances earth was placed about the corpse, but mostly there 

 was no earth in contact with the body. A clay dish (lamp) was 

 placed inverted in one corner, generally at the head but occasionally 

 at the feet, especially with the males ; and there was nothing else of 

 value left or placed with the body. Above Bogus Creek, where the 

 lamps must have been scarce, even they were usually absent in the 

 burials. 



Above the body in the box was a " roof " of supports, in some in- 

 stances thick wooden slabs, and these were covered with birch bark; 

 or there was only a birch bark cover, taken generally from a canoe 

 and showing the sewing of the strips together. Then came 6 to 12 

 inches of earth ; perhaps another birch bark layer and more earth ; 

 and finally slabs or flat rafters, forming the top of the box burial, the 

 whole being supported by two side posts set in the ground and held 

 together by cross-pieces. 



The details of the burials differed at different villages, but in any 

 one burial place there was great similarity, suggesting that all or most 

 of the burials at a given site were made by some one individual, an 

 " undertaker." The nature of the burial in these cases had a great ef- 

 fect on the preservation of the remains, some of these being in excel- 

 lent condition, some crushed more or less and rotted. The burials 

 under Russian influence were all ground burials, with simple, nailed 

 coffins, two to three feet of earth and a sod or plank covering on the 

 top, headed by a Russian cross. 



The skeletal remains from the older box burials have proved to be 

 of much more than usual interest from both the anthropological and 

 the medical points of view. Over one hundred of the older skeletons 

 were collected and more examined. They showed the following prin- 

 cipal features : 



1. The type of the skull and the stature are about the same as 

 those of the people of today on the river. No marked change has 

 taken place in these respects evidently within many generations of 

 these people. The nature of the type, its sameness over a large ter- 

 ritory, and its extension well into the pre-Russian times, are facts of 

 much anthropological importance. 



2. There is a remarkable freedom from fractures. There were 

 found no wounds of the skull or face, no fracture of the ribs, and 

 only two breaks of the long and other bones. These surely were no 

 fighting people or people given to violent exercise or sports. 



