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convenient rock-slielter. These lay on straw and moss covered Toy matting', 

 and rarely having either implements, weapons or carvings associated with 

 them. We found only three or fom- specimens in all, in these places, of 

 Avhich we examined a large number. This was apparently the more ancient 

 form of disposing of the dead, and one which more recently was still pur- 

 sued in the case of poor or unpopular individuals. Lastly, in comparatively 

 modern times, probably within a few centuries and up to the historic period 

 (1740), another mode was adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more dis- 

 tinguished class. The bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters 

 in running water, dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings 

 of fur and fine grass matting. The body was usually doubled up into the 

 smallest compass ; and the mummy-case, especially in the case of children, 

 was usually suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in some convenient 

 rock-shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepai-ed body was placed in a life- 

 like posture, dressed, and armed. They were placed as if engaged in some 

 congenial occupation, such as hunting, fishing, sewing, &c. "With them 

 were also placed effigies of the animals they were pursuing, while the hunter 

 was dressed in his wooden armor, and provided with an enormous mask, all 

 ornamented with feathers and a countless variety of wooden pendants col- 

 ored in gay patterns. All the carvings were of wood, the weapons even 

 were only facsimiles in wood of the original articles. Among the articles 

 represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men, birds, fish, 

 and animals, wooden araior of rods or scales of wood, and remarkable masks 

 so arranged that the wearer when erect could only see the ground at his feet. 

 These were worn at their religious dances, from an idea that a spirit, which 

 was supposed to animate a temporary idol, was fatal to whoever might look 

 upon it while so occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the mask- 

 ing of those who had gone into the land of spirits. The practice of preserv- 

 ing the bodies of those belonging to the whaling- caste, a custom peculiar 

 to the Kadiak Innuit, has erroneously been confounded with the one now 

 described. The latter included women as well as men, and all those whom 

 the living desired particularly to honor. The whalers, however, only pre- 

 served the bodies of males, and they were not associated with the parapher- 

 nalia of those I have described. Indeed, the observations I have been able 



