NELSON] 



METHODS OF BURIAL 



321 



feet wide. In tliese places the bodies were laid at full length upon 

 their backs, with deerskin beds below, and over the top was a covering 

 of rude planks or drift logs, or sometimes a 

 small cairn. Upon and about the graves lay Qy /^ 



various implements of the deceased. CZ/ x^ 



Graves of men in this spot were marked with 

 spearheads 5 those of the women with pot 

 sherds and stone lamps ; at one of these graves 

 was the skull of a polar bear, and at another 

 a few reindeer horns. The. inclosures were so 

 roughly and lightly made that the village 

 dogs had robbed many of them of their con 

 tents. The graveyard extended along the 

 hillside for nearly a mile just above and in 

 sight of the village, and as I reached one of 

 the graves quite near the houses I found a dog 

 devouring the remains of a boy 10 or 12 years 

 of age. Some village children who had fol 

 lowed me did not pay the slightest attention 

 to this, although but a few days before the 

 dead boy must have been their playmate. 



On the southern point of St Lawrence island 

 I found the graveyard located about a mile 

 back of the village. Some bodies had been 

 placed under a cairn and others were laid at full 

 length on the ground, with a ring of stones 

 ranged around them and a stick of driftwood 

 six or eight feet long either on the ground at 

 the foot of the grave or planted so as to pro 

 ject at an angle like the bowsprit of a ship 

 (figure 107). No implements were seen here. 

 From the lack of graves near other villages 

 visited on this island, it is probable that the 

 villagers place their dead at a distance from 

 their houses, as is the custom at Plover bay. 

 Siberia. This may possibly account for the 

 absence of children s bodies among the scores 

 of victims of famine and disease which were 

 found in two or three villages visited on this 

 island. At Plover bay, Siberia, the burial 

 place was located at the base of the low spot 

 on which the village stands, and about a mile 

 from the houses. Some graves were on the 

 flat at the foot of a rocky slope, and others 

 on the rocky bench, about a hundred feet 

 above. Many of the bodies were laid at full 

 18 ETH 21 



FIG. 107 Grave on St Lawrence 

 island. 



