200 



bridegroom. He receives her as his wife; and the elders, after wisliiiiy 

 them plenty of fish, fruit, roots, and children, retire from the house, accom- 

 panied by all the strangers." 



SEPULTURE. 



The common mode of disposing of the dead among the fishing tribes was 

 in canoes. These are generally drawn into the woods at some prominent 

 point a short distance from the village, and sometimes placed between the 

 forks of trees or raised from the ground on posts. Upon the Columbia River, 

 the Tsinfik had in particular two very noted cemeteries, a high, isolated 

 bluff, about three miles beloAv the mouth of the Kowlitz, called Mt. Coffin, and 

 one some distance above, called Coffin Rock. The foi-mer would appear 

 not to have been very ancient. Mi\ Broughton, one of Vancouver's lieu- 

 tenants, who explored the river, makes mention only of several canoes at 

 this place. And Lewis and Clarke, who noticed the mount, do not speak 

 of them at all ; but at the time of Captain Wilkes's exjiedition, it is con- 

 jectured that there were at least 3,000. A fire, caused by the carelessness of 

 some of his party, destroyed the whole, to the great indignation of the 

 Indians. Captain Belcher, of the Bi-itish ship Sulphur, who visited the river 

 in 1839, remarks, "In the year 1836 [1^26], the small-pox made great rav- 

 ages, and it was followed a few years since by the ague ; consequently 

 Corpse Island and Coffin Mount, as well as the adjacent shores, were stud- 

 ded not only with canoes, but, at the period of our visit, the skulls and 

 skeletons were strewed about in all directions." This method generally 

 prevailed on the neighboring coasts, as at Shoalwater Bay, &c. Fartlier 

 up the Columbia, as at the Cascades, a different form was adopted, which is 

 thus described by Captain Clarke : "About half a mile below this house, in 

 a very thick part of the woods, is an ancient Indian burial-place ; it consists 

 of eight vaults, made of pine or cedar boards, closely connected, about 

 eight feet square and six in height ; the top securely covered with wide 

 boards, sloping a little so as to convey off the rain. The direction of 

 all these is east and west, the door being on the eastern side, and parti.ally 

 stopped with wide boards decorated with rude pictures of men and other 

 animals. On entering, we found in some of them four dead bodies eare- 



