YARROW. ] BURIAL SACRIFICE—WASCOPUMS. 189 
of the pan; the hut was full of Suns, Nobles,and Honorables,* who were all trembling, 
but the French raised their spirits again, by hiding all the arms belonging to the sov- 
ereign, and filling the barrel of his gun with water, that it might be unfit for use for 
some time. 
As soon as the Suns saw their sovereign’s life in safety, they thanked the French, by 
squeezing their hands, but without speaking; a most profound silence reigned through- 
out, for grief and awe kept in bounds the multitude that were present. 
The wife of the Great Sun was seized with fear during this transaction. She was 
asked whether she was ill, and she answered aloud, ‘‘ Yes, lam”; and added with a 
lower voice, ‘If the Frenchmen go out of this hut, my husband dies and all the Natches 
will die with him; stay, then, brave Frenchmen, because your words are as powerful as 
arrows; besides, who could have ventured to do what you have done? But you are 
his true friends and those of his brother.” Their laws obliged the Great Sun’s wife to 
follow her husband in the grave; this was doubtless the cause of her fears; and 
likewise the gratitude towards the French, who interested themselves in behalf of his 
life, prompted her to speak in the above-mentioned manner. 
The Great Sun gave his hand to the officers, and said to them: ‘‘My friends, my 
heart is so overpowered with grief that, though my eyes were open, I have not taken 
notice that you have been standing all this while, nor have I asked you to sit down; 
but pardon the excess of my affliction.” 
The Frenchmen told him that he had no need of excuses; that they were going to leave 
him alone, but that they would cease to be his friends unless he gave orders to light 
the fires again,t lighting his own before them; and that they should not leave him 
till his brother was buried. 
He took all the Frenchmen by the hands, and said: “Since all the chiefs and noble 
officers will have me stay on earth, I will do it; I will not kill myself; let the fires be 
lighted again immediately, and I’ll wait till death joins me to my brother; I am 
already old, and till I die I shall walk with the French; had it not been for them I 
should have gone with my brother, and all the roads would have been covered with 
dead bodies. 
Improbable as this account may appear, it has nevertheless been 
credited by some of the wisest and most careful of ethnological writers, 
and its seeming appearance of romance disappears when the remem- 
brance of similar ceremonies among Old World peoples comes to our 
minds. 
An apparently well-authenticated case of attempted burial sacrifice 
is described by Miss A. J. Allen,t and refers to the Wascopums, of Oregon. 
At length, by meaning looks and gestures rather than words, it was found that the 
chiet had determined that the deceased boy’s friend, who had been his companion in 
hunting the rabbit, snaring the pheasant, and fishing in the streams, was to be his 
companion to the spirit land; his son should not be deprived of his associate in the 
strange world to which he had gone; that associate should perish by the hand of his 
father, and be conveyed with him to the dead-house. This receptacle was built on a 
long, black rock in the center of the Columbia River, around which, being so near 
the falls, the current was amazingly rapid. It was thirty feet in length, and perhaps 
half that in breadth, completely enclosed and sodded except at one end, where was a 
*The established distinctions among these Indians were as follows: The Suns, rela- 
tives of the Great Sun, held the highest rank; next came the Nobles; after them the 
Honorables; and last of all the common people, who were very much despised. As the 
nobility was propagated by the women, this contributed much to multiply it. 
+The Great Sun had given orders to put out ali the fires, which is only done at the 
death of the sovereign. 
¢Ten Years in Oregon, 1850, p. 261. 
