QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 133 B 



This tomb is also made by the combined labour of the men of the 

 village and paid for in the same way as in the case of the coffin-box. 

 In it may be placed but a single body, or two or more — those of rela- 

 tives. Should the dead have been a man of great importance, or a Burial customs 

 chief, the box containing the body is placed in the house inhabited 

 during life, the other occupants finding quarters elsewhere as best 

 they can. The clothes and other articles of property of the dead man 

 are arranged about him, and he sits in state thus for perhaps a year, 

 no one removing any of the things. Indians from another village, 

 however, may come to see the body, and do so. The body once 

 consigned to the tomb-house is now left there, but it was formerly the 

 custom in the case of chiefs to open the tomb from time to time and 

 provide the body with fresh blankets or robes. This is said never to 

 have been done to the bodies of the less important members of the 

 tribe, and to have been long in disuse ; it is a common practice among 

 the Salish Indians of the interior of British Columbia. Both among 

 the Haidas and Tshimsians the dead were also formerly burnt as an 

 occasional or not unfrequent practice. In this case the ashes were 

 collected and put in a box. This is never now done, but numerous 

 instances occurred in the last generation. 



After the body has been entombed it becomes necessary sooner or Monumental 

 later, if the deceased has been a person of any importance in the tribe, p0s 

 to erect a carved post. The Indians again collect for this purpose, 

 and are repaid by a distribution of property, made by the brother of 

 the deceased or other relative to whom his estate has come down as 

 next in order of descent. The post erected, though sometimes equally 

 ponderous with the carved posts of the houses, is not generally 

 so elaborate. In many cases it consists of a plain upright, tapering 

 slightly towards the lower end, or that inserted in the ground, 

 while the upper bears a broad board, on which some design is carved 

 or painted, or any ' coppers ' formerly belonging to the dead man 

 are attached. 



The custom of placing the bodies of the dead in canoes, which may 

 either rest on the ground or be fixed in a tree, does not obtain among 

 the Haidas, nor did I see any instance of the use of trees as receptacles 

 of coffin-boxes, as practised among several other tribes of the coast. 



The brother of the deceased inherits his property, or should there inheritance. 

 be no brother, a nephew, or the sister, or, failing all these, the mother. 

 Occasionally some distant male relative may be adopted as a new son 

 by the mother, and be made heir to the property. The wife may in 

 some cases get a small share. As soon as the body has been enclosed 

 in the coffin-box, and not before, the brother or other heir takes 

 possession. When it can be amicably arranged, he also inherits the 



