178 MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Another depository of this kind upon an island in the river a few miles above gave 
it the name of Sepulcher Island. The Watlala, a tribe of the Upper Tsinik, whose 
burial place is here described, are now nearly extinct; but a number of the sepulchers 
still remain in different states of preservation. The position of the body, as noticed 
by Clarke, is, I believe, of universal observance, the head being always placed to the 
west. The reason assigned to me is that the road to the mé-mel-is-illa-hee, the country 
of the dead, is toward the west, and if they place them otherwise they would be con- 
fused. East of the Cascade Mountains the tribes whose habits are equestrian, and 
who use canoes only for ferriage or transportation purposes, bury their dead, usually 
heaping over them piles of stones, either to mark the spot or to prevent the bodies 
from being exhumed by the prairie wolf. Among the Yakamas we saw many of their 
graves placed in conspicuous points of the basaltic walls which line the lower valleys, 
and designated by a clump of poles planted over them, from which fluttered various 
articles of dress. Formerly these prairie tribes killed horses over the graves—a cus 
tom now falling into disuse in consequence of the teachings of the whites. 
Upon Puget Sound all the forms obtain in different localities. Among the Makah 
of Cape Flattery the graves are covered with a sort of box, rudely constructed of 
boards, and elsewhere on the Sound the same method is adopted in some cases, while 
in others the bodies are placed on elevated scaffolds. Asa general thing, however, 
the Indians upon the water placed the dead in canoes, while those at a distance from 
it buried them. Most of thé graves are surrounded with strips of cloth, blankets, and 
other articles of property. Mr. Cameron, an English gentleman residing at Esquimalt 
Harbor, Vancouver Island, informed me that on his place there were graves having at 
each corner a large stone, the interior space filled with rubbish. The origin of these 
was unknown to the present Indians. 
The distinctions of rank or wealth in all cases were very marked; persons of no 
consideration and slaves being buried with very little care or respect. Vancouver, 
whose attention was particularly attracted to their methods of disposing of the dead, 
mentions that at Port Discovery he saw baskets suspended to the trees containing the 
skeletons of young children, and, what is not easily explained, small square boxes, 
containing, apparently, food. I do not think that any of these tribes place articles of 
food with the dead, nor have I been able to learn from living Indians that they formerly 
followed that practice. What he took for such I do not understand. He also men- 
tions seeing in the same place a cleared space recently burned over, in which the 
skulls and bones of a number lay among the ashes. The practice of burning the dead 
exists in parts of California and among the Tshimsyan of Fort Simpson. It is also 
pursued by the “Carriers” of New California, but no intermediate tribes, to my knowl- 
edge, follow it. Certainly those of the Sound do not at present. 
It is clear from*Vancouver’s narrative that some great epidemic had recently passed 
through the country, as manifested by the quantity of human remains uncared for and 
exposed at the time of his visit, and very probably the Indians, being afraid, had 
burned a house, in which the inhabitants had perished with'the dead in it. This is 
frequently done. They almost invariably remove from any place where sickness has 
prevailed, generally destroying the house also. 
At Penn Cove Mr. Whidbey, one of Vancouver’s officers, noticed several sepulchers 
formed exactly like a sentry-box. Some of them were open, and contained the skele- 
tons of many young children tied up in baskets. The smaller bones of adults were 
likewise noticed, but not one of the limb bones was found, which gave rise to an opin- 
ion that these, by the living inhabitants of the neighborhood, were appropriated to 
useful purposes, such as pointing their arrows, spears, or other weapons. 
It is hardly necessary to say that such a practice is altogether foreign to Indian 
character. The bones of the adults had probably been removed and buried elsewhere. 
The corpses of children are variously disposed of; sometimes by suspending them, at 
others by placing in the hollows of trees. A cemetery devoted to infants is, however, 
an unusual occurrence. In eases of chiefs or men of note much pomp was used in the 
