MEMORIAL BOARDS SHADES 



319 



the top of two upright posts. To the middle of these were piuned from 

 two to three wooden inaskoids, representing human faces with inlaid 

 ivory eyes and mouths; from holes or pegs at the ears hung small 

 strings of beads, such as the villagers wear, and below the masks were 

 bead necklaces, some of the latter being very valuable from the Eskimo 

 point of view. The accompanying illustration (figure 105), from a sketch 

 made on the spot, shows two of these maskoids. The graveyard at this 

 place was very curious, having a large number of maskoids and images 

 with curious ornamentation, but I was unable to remain long enough 

 to give it a thorough examination. 



I was informed that the graveyards of the villages on the Kuskokwim, 

 below Kolniakof Redoubt, are full of remarkable images of carved 

 wood. One was described 



to me as being roofed 1 1) * LlL 



with wooden slabs, and 

 consisted of a life-size 

 figure, with round face, 

 narrow slits for eyes, and 

 four hands like a Hindoo 

 idol. Two of the hands 

 held a tin plate each for 

 votive offerings, and the 

 body was dressed in a 

 new white shirt and bore 

 elaborate bead orna- 

 ments. The abundance 

 of carved figures in the 

 graveyards of this dis- 

 trict, as was noted also 

 among those of the adja- 

 cent Tinne of the lower 

 Yukon, is very remarka- 

 ble, and their use does 

 not extend northward of thie Yukon in a single instance, so far as could 

 be learned. 



On lower Kuskokwim river the Eskimo believe that the shade of a 

 male stays with the body until the fifth day after his death; the shade 

 of a female remains with the body for four days. On the Y'ukon and 

 among the Eskimo to the north the shades of men and women alike 

 are believed to remain with the body four days after death. Through- 

 out this region the villagers abstain from all work on the day of the 

 death, and in many places the day following is similarly observed. 

 None of the relatives of the deceased must do any work during the 

 entire time in which the shade is believed to remain with the body. 



Along the coast north of St Michael there is much less elaboration in 

 the mode of burial. On the beach near Cape Nome, on the northern 



Fig. 105— Monument board at a Big-lake grave. 



