ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS. 49 



entire combination of men, women, and children, as the great 

 beams are placed in position.* 



In the construction of these dwellings the savage uses no iron 

 or wooden spikes, he " mortices " and "tenons " rudely but solidly 

 everything that requires binding firmly ; in the lighter and tempo- 

 rary summer rancheries much use is made of cedar-root and bark- 

 rope lashings to the same end. Within the last fifteen or twenty 

 years the common use of small windows has been employed, the 

 glazed sashes being purchased from the whites either at Victoria or 

 else brought up to order by the traders ; these are inserted in the 

 most irregular manner, usually on the sides under the eaves. 



The oddly-carved totem posts, which appear in every village, 

 sometimes like a forest of dead trees at distant sight, are, broadly 

 speaking, divisible into two classes : that is to say, the clan or 

 family pillars, and those erected as memorials of the dead. There 

 has been too much written in regard to these grotesque features 

 seeking to endow them with idolatry, superstitions, and other 

 fancies of the savage mind. Nothing of the kind, in my opinion, 

 belongs to the subject ; the image posts of the totem order are 

 generally from 30 to 50 feet in height, with a diameter of 3 to 5 

 feet at the base, tapering slightly upward. They are often hol- 

 lowed at the back, after the fashion of a trough, so that they can be 

 the easier handled and put into position. Those grotesque figures 

 which cover these posts from top to bottom, closely grouped to- 

 gether, have little or no serious significance whatever : they always 

 display the totem of the owner, and a very marked similarity runs 

 through the carvings of this character in each village, though they 

 have a wide range of variation when one settlement is contrasted 

 with another. I am unable to give any definite explanation, that is 

 worthy of attention, of the real meaning of all those strange designs 

 perhaps, in truth, there is none; they are simply ornamental 

 doorways. 



The smaller memorial posts are also generally standing in the 



* The exact measurements of such a rancherie, and of which the author 

 submits a careful drawing, were : Breadth in front of house, 54 feet 6 inches ; 

 depth from front to back, "in the clear," 47 feet 8 inches ; height of ridge of 

 roof, 16 feet 6 inches ; height of eaves, 10 feet 8 inches ; girth of main ver- 

 tical posts and horizontal beams, 9 feet 9 inches ; width of outer upright 

 beams, 2 feet 6 inches, thickness, about 6 inches ; width of carved totem post 

 in front of house, 3 feet 10 inches, height, (?) 50 feet. 

 4 



