10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.73 



charred, while sections of logs, together with burial offerings of wood 

 and objects shaped from bone, are often intact. No indication of 

 burial houses such as were erected by tribes on the lower river were 

 found at Wahluke or elsewhere on the middle Columbia. 



Several other forms of burial were practiced both at Wahluke and 

 elsewhere along the middle and upper Columbia River. Harlan I. 

 Smith describes burials in domes of volcanic ash in the arid region 

 locally known as scab land. Low knolls of but a few feet elevation 

 composed of fine volcanic ash have been protected from the erosive 

 action of the wind by grass clumps and sagebrush. Such domes may 

 be the remnants of what was formerly a continuous layer of top soU, 

 or they may have been formed as wind-blown deposits. Scab land 

 or scab rock obtains its name from the flat fragments of basaltic rock 

 embedded in the loess but exposed between the volcanic knolls or 

 domes. Burials in such locations were of individuals and were 

 accompanied with offerings of shell ornaments and of weapons. A 

 protective circle of stones surmounts the dome burial similar to that 

 placed on the cremation burials at Wahluke. This form of burial 

 and other burials which were located in the talus or slide rock were 

 observed by the writer at various locations on the sloping river cliffs 

 but not at Wahluke. A child's grave, located on the rim elevation of 

 a pit-house ruin, and several uncremated burials were found in the 

 cemetery outside of the cremation row. The significance of these 

 uncremated burials is not clear. 



In some of the graves at Wahluke, skeletons were oriented in such 

 positions as to suggest secondary burial; parts of several skeletons 

 were jumbled in a heap and were accompanied by veritable store- 

 houses of burial offerings. Bodies thus buried had apparently been 

 collected from the mamalose or burial islands where they had been 

 exposed before the ceremonial cremation burial in the village ceme- 

 tery. Individual cremation burials at Wahluke usually were primary 

 burials. Skeletal remains from such burials were found to be intact 

 in situ except for the several parts consumed in the cremation. Such 

 individual cremation burials were effected with knees flexed and with 

 skull facing downward or on the side. Incineration was so complete 

 as to prevent recovery of any one entire skeleton. Skeletal fragments, 

 including eight skulls, were recovered from the burn, providing suf- 

 ficient material for reconstruction later at the Museum. In every 

 case the skull showed a degree of frontal-occipital deformation, which 

 was effected by pressure from a wooden cradle-board flap placed over 

 the forehead in infancy, a practice continued by Indian tribes of the 

 lower Columbia Valley within historic times. 



The cradle-board used by the modern Wanaplim, or Columbia 

 River Indians does not have this wooden flap or hinged flange pass- 

 ing over the forehead. There is, however, among these Indians a 



