42 MUMMIES— NORTHWEST COAST. 



ting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or carvings associated 

 with them. We found only three or four specimens in all in these places, 

 of which we examined a great number. This was apparently the more 

 ancient form of disposing of the dead, and one which more recently was 

 still pursued in the case of poor or unpopular individuals. 



"Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within a few cen- 

 turies, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was adopted for 

 the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The bodies were evis- 

 cerated, 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, how- 

 ever, the prepared body was placed in a lifelike position, dressed and armed. 

 They Avere placed as if engaged in some congenial occupation, such as 

 hunting, fishing, sewing, etc. 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, colored in gay patterns. All 

 the carvings were of wood, the weapons even were only fac-similes in 

 wood of the original articles. Among the articles represented were drums, 

 rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men, birds, fish, and animals, wooden 

 armor 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 masking of those 

 who had gone into the land of spirits. 



" The practice of preserving the bodies of those belonging to the 

 whaling class — 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 preserved the bodies of males, and they were 

 not associated with the paraphernalia of those I have described. Indeed, 



