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placed in couspicnous points of the basaltic walls whicli line the lower 

 valleys, and designated by a clump of poles planted over them, from whicli 

 fluttered various articles of dress. Formerly these prairie tribes killed 

 horses over the graves, a custom now falling into disuse in consequence of 

 the teaching of the whites. 



Upon Puget Island, all tlie forms obtain in different localities. Among 

 the Makah of Cape Flattery, the graves are covered with a sort of box 

 rudely constructed of boards, and elsewhere on the Sound the same method 

 is adopted in some cases, while in others the bodies are placed on elevated 

 scaffolds. As a general thing, however, the Indians upon the water placed 

 the dead in canoes, while those at a distance from it buried them. Most of 

 the graves are surrounded with strips of cloth, blankets, and other articles 

 of property. Mr. Cameron, an English gentleman residing at Esquimalt 

 Harbor, Vancouver Island, informed me that on his jilace there were graves 

 having at each corner a large stone, the interior space filled with rubbish. 

 The origin of these was unknown to the present Indians. 



The distinctions of rank or wealth in all cases were very marked; per- 

 sons of no consideration, and slaves, being buried with very little care or 

 respect. Vancouver, whose attention was particularly attracted to their 

 methods of disposing of the dead, mentions that at Port Discovery he saw 

 baskets suspended to the trees containing the skeletons of young childi-en, 

 and, what is not easily explained, small square boxes containing apparently 

 food. I do not think that any of these tribes place articles of food with the 

 dead, nor have I been able to learn from living Indians that they formerly 

 followed that practice. What he took for such I do not understand. He 

 also mentions seeing in the same place a cleared space recently burned over, 

 in which the skulls and bones of a number of persons lay among the ashes. 

 The practice of burning the dead exists in parts of California and among 

 the Tshimsyan of Fort Simpson. It is also pursued by the Carriers of 

 New California, but no intermediate tribes, to my knoAvledge, follow it. 

 Certainly those of the Sound do not at present. It is clear, from Vancou- 

 ver's narrative, that some great epidemic had recently passed through the 

 country, as manifested by the quantity of human remains uncared for ond 

 exposed at the time of his visit, and very probably the Indians, being afraid 



