i 
YARROW. ] BURIAL SUPERSTITIONS. 201 
ness. Outside the tent stood Bogus Charley, Huka Jim, Shacknasty Jim, Steamboat 
Frank, Curly-headed Doctor, and others who had been the dying man’s companions 
from childhood, all affected to tears. When he was lowered into the grave, before the 
soldiers began to cover the body, Huka Jim was seen running eagerly about the camp 
trying to exchange a two-dollar bill of currency for silver. He owed the dead war- 
rior that amount of money, and he had grave doubts whether the currency would be 
of any use to him in the other world—sad commentary on our national currency !— 
and desired to have the coin instead. Procuring it from one of the soldiers he cast it 
in and seemed greatly relieved. All the dead man’s other effects, consisting of cloth- 
ing, trinkets, and a half dollar, were interred with him, together with some root-flour 
as victual for the journey to the spirit land. 
The superstitious fear Indians have of the dead or spirit of the dead 
may be observed from the following narrative by Swan.* It regards 
the natives of Washington Territory : 
My opinion about the cause of these deserted villages is this: It is the universal 
custom with these Indians never to live in a lodge where a person has died. If a 
person of importance dies, the lodge is usually burned down, or taken down and re- 
moved to some other part of the bay; and it can be readily seen that in the case of 
the Palux Indians, who had been attacked by the Chehalis people, as before stated, 
their relatives chose at once to leave for some other place. This objection to living 
in a lodge where a person has died is the reason why their sick slaves are invariably 
carried out into the woods, where they remain either to recover or die. There is, how- 
ever, no disputing the fact that an immense mortality has occurred among these people, 
and they are now reduced to a mere handfal. 
The great superstitious dread these Indians have for a dead person, and their horror 
of touching a corpse, oftentimes give rise to a difficulty as to who shall perform the 
funeral ceremonies; for any person who handles a dead body must not eat of salmon 
or sturgeon for thirty days. Sometimes, in cases of small-pox, I have known them 
leave the corpse in the lodge, and all remove elsewhere; and in two instances that 
came to my knowledge, the whites had to burn the lodges, with the bodies in them, 
to prevent infection. 
So, in the instances I have before mentioned, where we had buried Indians, not one 
of their friends or relatives could be seen. All kept in their lodges, singing and 
drumming to keep away the spirits of the dead. 
According to Bancroft {j— 
The Tlascaltecs supposed that the common people were after death transformed into 
beetles and disgusting objects, while the nobler became stars and beautiful birds. 
The Mosquito Indians of Central America studiously and supersti- 
tiously avoid mentioning the name of the dead, in this regard resem- 
bling those of our own country. 
Enough of illustrative examples have now been given, it is thought, 
to enable observers to thoroughly comprehend the scope of the proposed 
final volume on the mortuary customs of North American Indians, and 
while much more might have been added from the stored-up material on 
hand, it has not been deemed advisable at this time to yield to a desire 
for amplification. The reader will notice, as in the previous paper, that 
discussion has been avoided as foreign to the present purpose of the 
volume, which is intended, as has been already stated, simply to induce 
further investigation and contribution from careful and conscientious 
* Northwest Coast, 1857, p. 212. 
t Nat. Races Pacif. States, 1875, vol. iii, p. 512. 
