296 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BnU. 179 



2. Garth (pp. 46-47) has interpreted the Townsend reference mcor- 

 rectly (Townsend, 1905, vol. 21, p. 282). The conical stacks of wood 

 that Townsend saw were described by travelers from the Fraser River 

 to the Columbia. They appear to have been, thus, a widespread but 

 late burial manifestation. Townsend, therefore, did not mean shed- 

 like structures, as Garth (p. 47) would have it. Osborne (in 1950, 

 published 1957) listed references for this burial type and has specu- 

 lated that it might be an aspect of the widespread truncated conical 

 wood cist burial (ibid., p. 52) which are often burned off above the 

 burial. Were the sides of these cists extended above ground a small 

 conical structure would result. 



It is unfortunate that Garth has not made his data on Wallula 

 burial practices available (see his p. 47) . They might be of assistance 

 to other workers. 



3. On page 47 he makes the statement that the Nez Perce "seem 

 to have been gradually adopting the Salish type of hollow burial as 

 found among the Flathead." Preceding sentences do not clarify the 

 statement; both the terms used and the suggestion of diffusion need 

 much more full discussion although a reference to the Flathead 

 source (Turney-High, 1937) might have helped the reader puzzle 

 out some of the meaning. 



4. Pages 47 and 48 contain a series of traits which supposedly 

 connect the handling of the dead in the burial shed of just precontact 

 time with more recent Wallula and Yakima practices. Wrapping of 

 the dead (widespread in North America, found with the flexed 

 burials of a number of excavated sites in the Plateau), "extended 

 position on the back" (data on this must be presented or developed 

 before it can be accepted), "readjustment of the bones" (largely a 

 speculative development) are listed as traits which were presumably 

 old and have persisted. That the latter trait led to cremation or 

 secondary burial is partly contradicted by Garth's quotation from 

 Lewis and Clark (pp. 45-i6). In this the explorers mention a "pile 

 of bones" near the center of the depository shed. The reasoning 

 which connects "exposure in canoes" (really canoe burial; Ray, 1938, 

 pp. 48, 74-76), the above-listed traits, and a recent Wallula burial 

 method felicitously called "exposure" underground (p. 48), in order 

 to prove that the Wallula and Yakima once exposed, carries no con- 

 viction. The data as used are open to question, as has been seen. 



6. On page 50, next to last paragraph, there is given a short list of 

 traits that suggest cultural stability for a period in the Sheep Island 

 to Wallula area. There can be no disagreement as to the stability. 

 It went, however, much farther north. With the possible exception 

 of the peculiar two-piece pipes, Garth's short list would have been at 

 home, at least as far up river as the Wenatchee area, just short of 

 150 miles north and deep into the area of Salish speakers. 



