LANGUAGE—BURIAL—HONORING THE DEAD. aye 
removed from the odious gutturalness of the Yurok. In such words as 
“Kareya” and “Karok” they trill the “r” in a manner which is quite 
Spanish, and which an American can scarcely imitate. They are ready 
and fertile in invention; no new object can be presented to them but they 
will presently name it in their own language, either by coining a word or 
by applying the name of some ‘similar object with which they are familiar. 
They bury the dead in the posture observed by ourselves, and profess 
abhorrence for incremation. Neither do they disfigure their countenances 
with blotches of pitch, as do the Scott River Indians. A widow cuts off 
her hair close to the head, and so wears it with commendable fidelity to the 
memory of her dead husband until she remarries, though this latter event 
may be hastened quite as unseemly as it was by Hamlet’s mother. The 
person’s ordinary apparel is buried with him in the grave, but all his gala- 
robes, his bandoleer, his deer-skins, and his strings of polished bits of 
abalones, are swung over poles laid across the picket-fence. It is seldom 
that a grave is seen nowadays which is not inclosed by a neat, white picket 
fence, copied after the American, for they are very imitative. If it is a 
squaw, all her large conical baskets are set in a row around the grave, 
turned bottom side up. 
They inter the dead close beside their cabins in order that they may 
religiously watch and protect them from peering intrusion, and insure them 
tranquil rest in the grave. Near Orleans Bar I passed a village wherein 
the graves were numerous; every one with its tasty picket-fence and its 
barbaric treasure of apparel hanging over it. As the long strings of polished 
shells swayed gently to and fro in the evening breeze, with the purple, and 
pink, and green brightly glinting to the setting sun, while the streets of the 
village were silent and peaceful in their Sabbath evening repose, the faint 
clicking of the shells seemed to me one of the most sad and mournful sounds 
I ever heard. Each little conical barrow was freshly rounded up with clean 
earth or sand, on which were strewn snow-white pebbles from the river-bed. 
How well and truly the Karok reverence the memory of the dead is 
shown by the fact that the highest crime one can commit is the pet-chi-é-ri, 
the mere mention of the dead relative’s name. It is a deadly insult to the 
survivors, and can be atoned for only by the same amount of blood-money 
paid for willful murder. In default of that they will have the villain’s blood. 
on GC 
