6 CAVE RELICS OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 



wealthy persons having large families, or distinguished by their ability and suc 

 cess in the chase, were differently disposed of. 



They were said to eviscerate the bodies through the pelvis ; and then, to 

 remove fatty matters, they were placed for some time in running water, and 

 afterward taken out and lashed into as compact a form as possible. The knees 

 were drawn up to the chin, and the bones were sometimes fractured to facilitate 

 the consolidation of the remains, which then were carefully dried. They were 

 placed in a sort of wooden frame, with their best clothing and most valuable furs, 

 and secured with seal skin or other material so that the package should be as 

 nearly water-proof as possible. This frame or coffin was then slung to a hori 

 zontal bar supported by two or more uprights, and left hanging in the open air or 

 in some rock-shelter. Much grief and continued lamentations occurred after a 

 death. These were often evinced by songs composed for the occasion, and the 

 natives usually attended the body to its final resting place, in an irregular pro 

 cession, beating drums or tambourines, and uttering loud cries. It is related that 

 the mothers sometimes placed the body of a deceased infant in a carefully carved 

 wooden box. This was often kept for a long time near them in the yourt, where 

 the mother would watch it with the greatest tenderness, wiping away the mould 

 and adorning it with such ornaments as she could procure. Implements or 

 weapons were rarely or never placed in the case with the body, though occasion 

 ally a wooden dish or kantag 7 containing food, was inserted. But about the 

 bodies, or their envelopes, utensils, and carvings were often deposited in large 

 numbers. The cases containing the remains of infants were suspended from 

 wooden arches, of which the ends were inserted in the ground, and these were 

 usually placed under some rock-shelter. 



It will be observed that in this paper I refer only to the methods in use among 

 these people about the time of their discovery, a century and a quarter ago, and 

 not to the more ancient usages which preceded them, of which we obtained many 

 evidences which may properly find a place with the records of our observations 

 on the shell heaps, in another paper. These included other forms of burial 

 beside those now mentioned, though the caves were frequently used for the pur 

 pose. It is proper to remark also that the civilized form of burial, in the earth, 

 has obtained among them since their conversion to Christianity, a period of some 

 eighty years. 



Still another method of disposing of the dead is noticed by the early voyagers. 



The natives, especially in their winter villages, were used to construct large, 

 half under-ground habitations, often of extraordinary size. These were so 

 arranged by internal partitions as to afford shelter to as even as many as one 

 hundred families. No fires were built in the central undivided portion, which 

 was entered through a hole in the roof, provided with a notched log by way of 

 ladder. In the small compartments each family had its own oil lamp, which, 



