356 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



water, the roof sloping back in the other direction. The body is borne 

 to the grave in the canoe he used in life; is lowered into the sepulchre 

 through an opening in the roof, and deposited on its side on the floor. 

 With it are placed the talisman, charms, and paraphernalia which served 

 in life to give the power of evil to their possessor. The canoe is hauled 

 up on the beach near the grave with the paddles in it, in j) reparation 

 for launching, and sometimes placed on rollers or skids. * These 

 graves are usually along some frequented water-course, and are very 

 conspicuous. Whenever an Indian jjasses one of them in his canoe he 

 drops an offering of some value (usually a piece of tobacco) into the 

 water to propitiate the yake of the deceased and bring fair winds and 

 good luck to the superstitious donor. 



Amongst the Haida and Tsimshian, the shaman graves are usually 

 small and made of split boards instead of logs, but are substantially 

 the same in form as the Tlingit ones here described. The body is, how- 

 ever, more usually deposited in a sitting posture. The only ones who 

 have the privilege of looking into these graves are the other shaman, 

 who sometimes, under the inspiration of a dream, can go to them and 

 remove certain charms of the deceased for their own use. The ordinary 

 Indian, however, has a most wholesome dread of these graves, and be- 

 lieves that if in passing one he sees any part of the bones protruding 

 through the flesh either himself or some member of his family will soon 

 die. 



SLAVES. 



The custom with regard to slaves that died a natural death was to 

 throw the bodies into the sea or otherwise cast them aside. Certain 

 slaves, however, were selected by a master to be killed or sacrificed at 

 his funeral ceremonies, in order that their spirits might accompany his 

 in the next world and minister to it as they did to him in life. Those 

 so selected esteemed it a. great honor, as their bodies were accorded the 

 same sepulture as their master's. In case of cremation the bodies of 

 the slaves were cremated with that of their master, or in case of inter- 

 ment were buried with it, thus securing to their spirits a comfortable 

 time in the next world. Slaves killed on the occasion of a person of 

 consequence building a house or giving a great feast were accorded also 

 the right of burial of a freeman. There is, therefore, no special form 

 of sepulture for slaves. 



CHRISTIAN BURIAL. 



Under the religious influence of missionaries the Indians have been 

 led to give up many of their former customs, and inhumation or inter- 

 ment is gradually supplanting all other forms of sepulture. Fig. 350, 

 Plate Lxvi, is a characteristic group of modern Tlingit graves at Na- 



" This is the case at a grave, near Point Nesbifct, Zarembo Island, described for the 

 writer by Lieut. D. W. Coffman, U. S. Navy. 



