MUMMIES— NORTHWEST COAST. 43 



the observations I have been able to make show the bodies of the whalers 

 to have been preserved with stone weapons and actual utensils instead of 

 effigies, and with the meanest apparel, and no carvings of consequence. 

 These details, and those of many other customs and usages of which the 

 shell heaps bear no testimony * * * do not come within my line." 



Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings' Expedition* in 1802, speaks of the 

 Aleutian Islanders embalming their dead, as follows : 



" They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead, for they 

 embalm the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass ; bury them in 

 their best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with their darts and 

 instruments; and decorate the tomb with various coloured mats, embroidery, 

 and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less ceremony. A mother 

 will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut for some months, con- 

 stantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it begins to smell, or when 

 they get reconciled to parting with it." 



Eegarding these same people, a writer in the San Francisco Bulletin 

 gives this account: 



" The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska Commercial 

 Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company with the mum- 

 mified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of Ounalaska one 

 hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to science was secured by 

 Captain Henning, au agent of the company, who has long resided at Ouna- 

 laska. In his transactions with the Indians he learned that tradition among 

 the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the island in question, as the last resting- 

 place of a great chief, known as Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain 

 was in the neighborhood of Kagamale, in quest of sea-otter and other furs 

 and he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth of the 

 tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering the cave than 

 in finding it, his schooner having to beat on and off shore for three days. 

 Finally, he succeeded in effecting a landing, and clambering up the rocks 

 he found himself in the presence of the dead chief, his family and relatives. 



"The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With great care 



» Billings' Exped., 1802, p. 161. 



