536 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [bth. ann. 31 



I was given the following information regarding burial customs 

 of the Nass tribe : ' 



The burial is attended to by members of the exogamic group of the father of the 

 deceased, who are paid for their services. Four or five men bend the head of the body 

 down and his knees up. Thus he is placed in a box. Chiefs lie in state for some 

 days, while others are buried without delay. The people burn food and clothing for 

 the deceased, saying that it is intended for him; else the ghost would trouble them. 

 Then they cut wood for a pyre; the box is put on top of it and it is burnt. The body 

 is poked with long poles in order to facilitate combustion. When it bursts and gas 

 escapes, they believe they hear the voice of the ghost. Men and women sit around 

 the pyre and sing all the cradle-songs of the clan which are contained in their legends. 

 The remains are put into a small box and placed on a tree. Cottonwood trees are 

 often selected for this purpose. The body of the shaman is also burnt. 



Some time after the burial the son or nephew of the deceased erects a column in 

 his memory (pts&n). 



War 



War customs of the Tsimshian are well illustrated by the war 

 stories given on pp. 355 et seq. Attention may be called particularly 

 to the building of stockades (p. 371), the treatment of prisoners 

 (p. 364), to the position of the chief who owned weapons for all his 

 warriors (p. 365), and to the methods of making peace (pp. 377 et 

 seq.), which are evidently the same as those of the Tlingit. 2 



I will append here a few notes on war customs recorded by Mr. Tate: 



When the enemies saw among those killed in battle people of their 

 own clan, who were recognized by the crests they used, they would take 

 off helmet and armor and put the body in good order; or if a woman 

 or children were taken captive, those who took them would know that 

 they were the relatives by the crests tattooed on their chests or on 

 their hands, and they bought them from those who had taken them 

 captive and sent them back by canoe with some slave to their own 

 native home. 



If in battle one side won a victory over their foes, they cut off all 

 the heads of those killed and took them away and left the bodies 

 where they were; and when they camped at some place, they took 

 off the scalps from the heads and left the skulls on a fallen tree. 

 When their own people came and saw all those killed lying on the 

 ground, they gathered the bodies, and every man knew Ms own 

 relative's body by the crest on the tattooed hands; and each exogamic 

 group piled up its own relatives' bodies and burned them all; and 

 when they returned to their own home, each group assembled in their 

 own house, and they sang their mourning-songs on the same evening 

 when they returned from burning the bodies. 



Another custom is this: If a man wanted his son to be a powerful 

 warrior, as soon as the child was born, the father took it, and skinned 



' Boas 1, 1S95, p. 573. ^See Swanton 4, p. 451; 5, p. 128. 



