442 IMMSHIAX MYTHOLOGY [ETH. ASS. 31 



behind the house, while the body was kept in the house. Incidentally, 

 on 337, where a burial is described, Mr. Tate says that in olden times 

 it was the custom when a prince or rich man, or a chieftainess or a 

 princess, or somebody dear to them, died, for the bowels, stomach, 

 heart, Ever, and lungs to be taken out and burned immediately. 

 When the body was empty, it was filled with red-cedar bark and 

 kept for a long time. 1 At the same place it is told that the 

 body was deposited in the burial-place after four days. On 214 

 a woman asks that her body shall not bo burned, but that it 

 be put into a large box, which shall then be placed on a tree. The 

 funeral pyre on which a body has been burned is mentioned (2 GO). 

 In the description of the funeral of a shaman (329) it is stated that 

 he is placed on a branch of a large tree behind the house. At another 

 place (203) we learn of the burial of a prince, who is placed in a 

 grave-box, which is erected on four strong poles in order to protect 

 it against wolves. Burial of bodies of people who died through magical 

 influences is mentioned on 264. A woman who has been killed is buried 

 in the house (1.163), and the body of a murdered man is treated in 

 the same way (1.197). The boxes in which bodies are deposited are 

 tied up (73). In this case, where a man pretends to be dead and asks 

 to be put into a box, there can obviously be no cremation of the body 

 or of part of the body. 



After the body had been placed on the burial-ground, generally 

 on a tree or on posts, the people would watch under it. Thus we are 

 told that a chief watches for two days under the body (215); in 

 another place, that the people watch a shaman's body a whole year 

 (329). The mourners singe their hair and blacken their faces with 

 charcoal (313). They do not eat (218). Blackening the face with 

 charcoal during the mourning-period is mentioned also on -261. 

 When a chief died, the whole tribe had to go into mourning in this 

 manner. In one case the chief orders that as a sign of mourning 

 all the fires in the house be extinguished (1.19F). The mourners 

 would go out wailing early in the morning. Generally women are 

 described as going through a formal wailing. A mother wails for her 

 children (233); a girl, for her brothers who had disappeared a year 

 before (289); a chief and a chieftainess wail every morning under the 

 body of their son in the house (58); the chief weeps for two nights 

 under the coffin of his wife, (215) which has been put up in the 

 branches of a tree. Generally the waller would go to the beach (233) 

 or into the woods. In the first outburst of weeping, after a death 

 had occurred, the people would try to go into solitude. Thus, after 

 a dead man has been brought to the village, his widow goes into the 

 woods weeping (305); after the destruction of a whole village, the 



i The opening of the stomach and taking out of the intestines is also referred to on N 232. 



