ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 447 



the next in the series is a class of mounds formed in part like the clay 

 ones, but differing from them in having a pile of bouldeis heaped up over 

 and around the spot where the body lay. These boulders were afterward 

 covered with the neighbouring soil, the pile when finished being from 

 4 to 8 or 10 feet high, according to the depth at which the corpse was 

 placed. This was evidently at times laid upon the undistui'bed earth ; 

 at others a basin-shaped hole was first excavated in the soil, and the body 

 placed at the bottom of this. Another significant feature of these tumuli 

 is the presence of charcoal in some of them. In several I found a distinct 

 stratum, in places 1 inch thick, extending over the whole area of the 

 structure some feet above where the body lay. This charcoal was 

 evidently the remains of a sepulchral fire. In this connection I may here 

 state that, as far as my investigations go, they show that the mound 

 builders of the Halkome'lEm district did not, at times at least, practise 

 quite the same mortuary customs as did those of Vancouver Island. For 

 while it is clear that both made use of the sepulchral fire, those of the 

 island seem to have frequently cremated the corpse and afterwards 

 deposited the ashes and unburnt bones in a kind of pit or rough cist at 

 the bottom of the mound. The evidence, however, on this head is not 

 always as clear as one would desire. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that 

 cremation was practised by the island mound builders, while this custom 

 seems to have been unknown on the mainland. What was consumed in 

 these sepulchral fires it is impossible now to say, though, judging from 

 more recent practices of the kind, it may well have been merely food for 

 the shade of the departed or his clothes or other personal belongings 

 Mortuary fires for this purpose are not unusual among primitive races, 

 and were, we know, commonly lighted among the tribes of this region 

 until quite recently. 



Next in the series we find a class of mounds which may be said to be 

 typical of the greater number of these structures wherever found. These 

 differ from the last described in having a rectangular periphery of stones. 

 Elsewhere on the Fraser, on the mountain slopes overlooking Sumas Lake, 

 at Point Roberts on the Sound and almost everywhere on Vancouver 

 Island, we find mounds of this class. These inclosures vary in dia- 

 meter from about 10 to 50 feet. Sometimes they are proximately true 

 squares, at others they are decidedly oblong in shape. The greater 

 portion of the space contained by these boundaries is covered with the 

 central pile of boulders or rocks, and over all is thrown the soil or clay of 

 the neighbourhood, which is not infrequently interstratified with different 

 coloured sands. Sometimes we find this type considerably elaborated, 

 and instead of one boundary of stones we have three, one inclosing the 

 other, with an interval of a few feet between them, with the outermost 

 doubled and capped by an additional row. The stones of which these 

 tombs are constructed vary in character with the locality in which they 

 are found. All those at Hatzic were formed of water-worn boulders, and 

 had to be conveyed to the spot from the mountain streams, a mile or 

 so away from the site. They weighed from 25 pounds to 200 pounds 

 each, and the total weight of them in one of the more elaborate mounds 

 could not have been less than 25 tons or 30 tons. It will be seen that 

 the building of some of these tombs was no light task. Those found 

 on the mountain slopes overlooking Sumas Lake are in every case with 

 which I am familiar built of jagged blocks of stone, of varying weight and 

 size, taken from the mountain side. In other respects they do not differ 



