NELSON] METHODS OF BURIAL 321 
feet wide. In these places the bodies were laid at full length upon 
their backs, with deerskin beds below, and over the top was a covering 
of rude planks or drift logs, or sometimes a 
small cairn. Upon and about the graves lay 
various implements of the deceased. 
Graves of men in this spot were marked with 
spearheads; those of the women with pot- o 
sherds and stone lamps; at one of these graves 
was the skull of a polar bear, and at another 
a few reindeer horns. ‘The inclosures were so 
roughly and lightly made that the village 
dogs had robbed many of them of their con- we 
tents. The graveyard extended along the 
hillside for nearly a mile just above and in 
sight of the village, and as I reached one of 
the graves quite near the houses I found a dog 
devouring the remains of a boy 10 or 12 years 
of age. Some village children who had fol- 
lowed me did not pay the slightest attention 
to this, although but a few days before the 
dead boy must have been their playmate. 
On the southern point of St Lawrence island 
I found the graveyard located about a mile 
back of the village. Sotne bodies had been 
placed under acairn and others were laid at full 
length on the ground, with a ring of stones 
ranged around them and a stick of driftwood 
six or eight feet long either on the ground at 
the foot of the grave or planted so as to pro- 
ject at an angle like the bowsprit of a ship 
(figure 107). No implements were seen here. 
From the lack of graves near other villages 
visited on this island, it is probable that the 
villagers place their dead at a distance from 
their houses, as is the custom at Plover bay, 
Siberia. This may possibly account for the 
absence of children’s bodies among the scores 
of victims of famine and disease which were 
found in two or three villages visited on this 
island. At Plover bay, Siberia, the burial 
place was located at the base of the low spot 
on which the village stands, and about a mile 
from the houses. Some graves were on the 
flat at the foot of a rocky slope, and others 
on the rocky bench, about’ a hundred feet ie eae 
above. Many of the bodies were laid at full , i. 
18 ETH 21 
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