CREMATION— CALIFORNIA. 55 



Lake, California, "the body is consumed upon a scaffold built over a hole, 

 into which the ashes are thrown and covered." 



According to Stephen Powers,* cremation was common among the 

 Se-nel of California. Pie thus relates it: 



" The dead are mostly burned. Mr. Willard described to me a scene 

 of incremation that he once witnessed which was frightful for its exhibitions 

 of fanatic frenzy and infatuation. The corpse was that of a wealthy chief- 

 tain, and as he lay upon the funeral pyre they placed in his mouth two gold 

 twenties, and other smaller coins in his ears and hands, on his breast, &c, 

 besides all his finery, his feather mantles, plumes, clothing, shell money, 

 his fancy bows, painted arrows, &c. When the torch was applied they set 

 up a mournful ululation, chanting and dancing about him, gradually work- 

 ing themselves into a wild and ecstatic raving, which seemed almost a 

 demoniacal possession, leaping, howling, lacerating their flesh. Many 

 seemed to lose all self-control. The younger English-speaking Indians 

 generally lend themselves charily to such superstitious work, especially if 

 American spectators are present, but even they were carried away by the 

 old contagious frenzy of their race. One stripped off a broadcloth coat, 

 quite new and fine, and ran frantically yelling and cast it upon the blazing 

 pile. Another rushed up and was about to throw on a pile of California 

 blankets, when a white man, to test his sincerity, offered him $16 for them, 

 jingling the bright coins before his eyes, but the savage (for such he had 

 become again for the moment), otherwise so avaricious, hurled him away 

 with a yell of execration and ran and threw his offering into the flames. 

 Squaws, even more frenzied, wildly flung upon the pyre all they had in 

 the world — their dearest ornaments, their gaudiest dresses, their strings of 

 glittering shells. Screaming, wailing, tearing their hair, beating their 

 breasts in their mad and insensate infatuation, some of them would have 

 cast themselves bodily into the flaming ruins and perished with the chief 

 had they not been restrained by their companions. Then the bright, swift 

 flames with their hot tongues licked this ' cold obstruction' into chemic 

 change, and the once 'delighted spirit' of the savage was borne up. ' 



" It seems as if the savage shared in Shakspeare's shudder at the 



' Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. iii, p. lti'J. 



