356 THE MIWOK. 
a beaten path for hours, chanting weird death-songs with eldritch and inar- 
ticulate wailings—sad voicings of savage, hopeless sorrow. 
On the Merced the widow does not apply pitch over the whole face, 
but only in a small blotch under the ears, while the younger squaws singe 
off their hair short. When some relative chances to be absent at the time 
of the funeral some article belonging to the deceased (frequently a hat 
nowadays) is preserved from the general sacrifice of his effects and retained 
until the absent member returns, that the sight of it may kindle his sorrow 
and awaken in his bosom fresh and piercing recollections of that being 
whom he will never more behold. 
On the Lower Tuolumne, after dancing the frightful death-dance around 
the fresh-made grave into which the body has just been lowered, they go 
out of mourning by removing the pitch until the annual mourning comes 
round, when they renew it. On the latter occasion they make out of cloth- 
ing and blankets manikins to represent the deceased, which they carry 
around the graves with shrieks of sorrow. 
As soon as the annual mourning is over in autumn all the relatives of 
the departed are at full liberty to engage in their ordinary pursuits, to 
attend dances, ete., which before that were interdicted. That solemn ocea- 
sion itself too frequently winds up with a gross debauch of sensuality. The 
oldest brother is entitled to his brother’s widow, and he may even convey 
her home to his lodge on the return from the funeral, if he is so disposed, 
though that would be accounted a very scandalous proceeding. 
Although cremation very generally prevailed among the Miwok there 
never was a time when it was universal. Captain John states that long be- 
fore they had ever seen any Europeans, the Indians high up in the mountains 
buried their dead, though his people about Chinese Camp always burned. 
As low down on the Stanislaus as Robinson’s Ferry long ranks of skeletons 
have been revealed by the action of the river, three or four feet beneath 
the surface, doubled wp and covered with stones, of which none of the bones 
showed any charring. 
In respect to legends, they relate one which is somewhat remarkable. 
First it is necessary to state that there is a lake-like expansion of the Upper 
Tuolumne some four miles long and from a half mile to a mile wide, directly 
