THE INDIANS OF THE NOETHWEST COAST. 353 



mation, the custom very generally obtained of depositing the ashes in 

 boxes mounted on columns or on shelves or compartments in the col- 

 umns themselves. 



DEPOSITORY OF ASHES. 



Vancouver describes a method which he saw at Cross Sound, in 1793, 

 as follows : 



Here were erected two pillars, 15 feet high and 4 feet in circumference, painted 

 white ; on tlie top of each was placed a large square box ; on examining one of them 

 it was fovind to contain many ashes and pieces of burnt bones, which were considered to 

 be human. These relics were carefully wrapped up in skins and old mats, and at the 

 base of the pillars was placed an old canoe in which were some paddles.* 



Plate LXiv., Figs. 340 and 343, show two types of primitive Haida 

 sepulture of cremated ashes, on the site of the ancient and abandoned 

 Kaigani village of Chasina, at the entrance of theCholraondeley Sound, 

 Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The boxes containing the ashes have 

 somewhat fallen into decay, but are seen on the shelves. This is the 

 most primitive form of the sepulture of ashes. Fig. 341 is the sketch 

 of a column at Kasa-an, Prince of Wales Island (Kaigani) in which 

 the shelf and compartment containing the ashes are boarded up. This 

 was generally the custom, and a curious survival of it is shown in Fig. 

 344, from Masset (Queen Charlotte Islands), in which the boards are 

 simply nailed across the top of the post or column in the semblance 

 of a box, while the body itself is deposited elsewhere in some other 

 form of sepulture. In this we have both a commemorative column and 

 an imitation of the ancient or former method of depositing the ashes, 

 very much as to-day the funeral urn in marble marks with us, in some 

 instances, the site of a grave in which the body is inhumed. The form 

 given to the cross boards is that of an end or one side of a funeral box 

 carved with the totem of the deceased. Fig. 342 of the same plate 

 represents another form of depositing, in which the compartment con- 

 taining the body of the dead or the boxes of ashes is borne between tw^o 

 plain columns or posts from about 6 to 10 feet apart, there being 

 room for the body or two or more boxes on the shelf. This is also 

 boarded up. The sketch is from one by the writer, made at the village 

 of Kaigani, near Cape Muzon (latitude 54°, 38' N.), the southernmost 

 village of Alaska. There is every reason to believe that at this now 

 almost abandoned village we tind the most primitive form in which 

 these depositories existed. Marchand, who visited the Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands in 1791, says: 



These monuments are of two kinds; the first and most simple are composed only 

 of a wooden column about 10 feet high and 1 foot in diameter, on the summit of 

 which planks are secured, forming a platform. In some this platform is supported by 

 two columns. The corpse, deposited on this platform, is covered with moss and large 

 stones. The graves of the second kind are more elaborate ; four posts planted in the 

 ground, and supporting, only 2 feet above the ground, a sarcophagus artistically or- 

 namented and hermetically sealed. t 



"Vancouver, Voyage, Vol. iii, p. 242. t Marchand, Voyage, Tome n, pp. 135, 136. 

 H.Mis. 142,pt. 2 23 



