HRDurKA] WRITER'S TRIP ON YUKON 77 



tolik," as they wrote it then, used to be a place of some importance 

 in the Russian times, and even later. 



We settle in an empty native house, and I start investigation. 

 The older graves are found widely spread in several clusters, but a 

 few are isolated at a distance. 



The graves are all aboveground and resemble in substance those 

 along the lower Yukon (Bonasila and downward). They consist 

 of a base of small logs or splits; a rude box about 3 feet long by 

 about 2 feet wide, of heavy, unpainted, unnailed, split boards; four 

 posts near the four corners: a cover, unjoined, of two to three heavy 

 split boards; two crosspieces over this, at head and base, perforated 

 and sliding over the upright posts, and a few half splits (smaller 

 drift logs split in two) laid over the top of the crosspieces. 



On the first cover lies as a rule a stone — generally a piece of a 

 slab or a good-sized pebble — unworked, though now and then show- 

 ing some trace of use. The pebble is generally broken. 



When the grave is opened there is usually over the body, as a 

 canopy on a light frame, a large (probably caribou) skin — rarely 

 birch bark. Neither covers or envelops the body but simply forms 

 a covering over it, with some space between it and the body. The 

 body lies flexed, on left or (rarely) right side, with the head toward 

 (or near) the east (same as at Bonasila). It is often covered with 

 or enveloped in a native matting. There are but few traces of 

 clothing on women ; none on men. And very seldom is there any- 

 thing else in the coffin. 



Some of the oldest graves were found tumbled down and could 

 not be examined. The moss and roots envelop the bones, and it is a 

 tough job to get them out ; also they eat the bones and destroy them. 

 Even in the older boxes, however, the downward part of the skele- 

 ton — generally the left — is, due to moisture, usually in much worse 

 state of preservation than the upper. 



Children have been buried in large native wooden dishes and 

 these were in some cases placed on the top of adult graves, but more 

 generally about these, or even apart. 



Many household articles, from matches and pails to dishes, alarm 

 clocks, lamps, etc., are placed upon the ground near the more recent 

 dead. Excavation would probably recover here many older objects, 

 though wood decays. 



The wind has died down and the flat is as full of mosquitoes as a 

 Jersey salt meadow, and there is an occasional gnat. They bite, and. 

 having been almost free of the pest at Kotlik, I failed to take my 

 "juice " along, so just have to do the best possible. The gnats enter 

 even the eyes, however. 



