NORTHWESTERN AMERICA. OQ3 



acquire the habits of activity proper to the hunting tribes, they are 

 excessively indolent and filthy, and, as a natural concomitant, base 

 and depraved in character. They are fond of unctuous substances, 

 and drink immense quantities of oil, which they obtain from fish and 

 wild animals. They also besmear their bodies with grease and 

 colored earths. They like their meat putrid, and often leave it until 

 its stench is, to any but themselves, insupportable. Salmon roes are 

 sometimes buried in the earth and left for two or three months to 

 putrefy, in which state they are esteemed a delicacy. 



The natives are prone to sensuality, and chastity among the women 

 is unknown. At the same time, they seem to be almost devoid of 

 natural affection. Children are considered by them a burden, and 

 they often use means to destroy them before birth. Their religious 

 ideas are very gross and confused. It is not known that they have 

 any distinct ideas of a god, or of the existence of the soul. They have 

 priests or "doctors," whose art consists in certain mummeries, in- 

 tended for incantations. When a corpse is burned, which is the 

 ordinary mode of disposing of the dead, the priest, with many gesti- 

 culations and contortions, pretends to receive in his closed hands, 

 something, perhaps the life of the deceased, which he communi- 

 cates to some living person by throwing his hands towards him, and 

 at the same time blowing upon him. This person then takes the 

 rank of the deceased, and assumes his name in addition to his own. 

 Of course, the priest always understands to whom this succession is 

 properly due. 



If the deceased had a wife, she is all but burned alive with the 

 corpse, being compelled to lie upon it while the fire is lighted, and 

 remain thus till the heat becomes beyond endurance. In former 

 times, when she attempted to break away, she was pushed back into 

 the flames by the relations of her husband, and thus often severely 

 injured. When the corpse is consumed, she collects the ashes and 

 deposits them in a little basket, which she always carries about with 

 her. At the same time, she becomes the servant and drudge of the 

 relations of her late husband, who exact of her the severest labor, and 

 treat her with every indignity. This lasts for two or three years, at 

 the end of which time a feast is made by all the kindred, and a broad 

 post, fifteen or twenty feet high, is set up, and covered on the sides 

 with rude daubs, representing figures of men and animals of various 

 kinds. On the top is a box in which the ashes of the dead are placed, 

 and allowed to remain until the post decays. After this ceremony, 



