50 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



village, upon the narrow border of land running between the houses 

 and the beach, but in no determinate relation to the building^. 

 When a man falls before prostrating illness, his relatives call in the 

 medicine man, or " shaman," and also invite the friends of the fam- 

 ily to the house of sickness, usually providing them with tobacco ; 

 soon the rancherie is full of curious friends, of smoke, and of the 

 abominable noise of the shaman. If the patient dies, the body is 

 not burned now, as it used to be prior to the advent of the whites, 

 but is bent double into a sitting posture, and enclosed in a square 

 cedar box, which has been made for this purpose by the joint labor 

 of the assembled Indians, or else they have subscribed and pur- 

 chased it from some one of their number. This coffin is exactly 

 the same in shape and size as the box commonly used by every 

 Siwash family here for the reception of spare food, oil, etc., so that 

 there never is any delay or difficulty in getting one. 



If the dead Koloshian is a man of only ordinary calibre, his 

 body is put, while still warm, into the wooden crib, and this is at 

 once carried out and stored away in a little tomb-house, which is 

 generally a small covered shed right behind the rancherie, or in the 

 immediate vicinity. This vault is also made by the united labor of 

 the men of the village, and paid for in the same manner as that indi- 

 cated for the purchase of the coffin-box. In it may be placed but 

 a single body, then again it will contain several all relatives, .how- 

 ever. But should the deceased savage have been one of great im- 

 portance, then the whole rancherie itself is given up to the reception 

 of the body, which is boxed and placed therein, sitting thus, in state, 

 perhaps for a year or more, no one removing any of the things, the 

 members of the family all vacating the premises, and seeking quar- 

 ters elsewhere in the village. Now it becomes necessary, sooner or 

 later, to erect a carved post to the memory of this man. Again the 

 Indians collect for the purpose, and are repaid by a distribution of 

 property made by the deceased man's brother, or that relative to 

 whom the estate has come down, in order of descent. This 

 inheriting relative takes possession the moment the body of the 

 dead has been enclosed in its cedar casket, and not before.* 



The doorway to the Alaskan house is usually a circular hole 



* Whole volumes have been written upon this subject of the totem and 

 consanguinity among these savages of the northwest coast. Further descrip- 

 tion or discussion, in this instance, is superfluous. 



