1877.] Anthropology. 373 
In one corner of the room we found the corpse, completely incased in 
blankets, which in turn were enveloped by a large, woven sea-grass mat, 
and tied up in such a manner as to bring the knees nearly to the chin, 
and thus enshrouded it was placed in a sitting posture. The house was 
about half-filled with Indians, — men, women, and children. 
On one side of the room a young brave was busily engaged with a 
pair of scissors in cutting off the long black hair of all the near relatives, 
both male and female. This seems to be one of the usual mourning 
customs among these Indians. After he had completed this tonsorial 
duty, during which he had been frequently interrupted by their sudden 
outbursts of grief, a procession of about twenty Indian warriors, headed 
by old An-a-hoots, the war chief of the tribe, filed slowly through the 
small portal. Each carried in his hand a long slender staff made of 
hard wood and carved all over with fantastic figures, while bright- 
colored Hudson Bay blankets fell in not ungraceful folds from their 
broad, square shoulders. These staves bore evidence of their great age 
by the high polish they possessed, as well as by their smoky color and 
pungent odor. The warriors ranged themselves in line along one side 
of the house, facing the centre, and immediately began a lugubrious 
death chant, keeping time by raising their staves about three inches from 
the floor, and letting them fall together. This doleful air was much more 
monotonous than musical. 
All this time the relatives of the deceased were rending the air with 
their lamentations. Every Indian present had his face thickly smeared 
with a fresh coat of seal oil and black paint, thus rendering himself 
almost inconceivably hideous. 
At the close of the death song two stalwart young braves mounted to 
the roof and lowered bark ropes through the aperture, which were made 
fast to the matting that enveloped the corpse. An-a-hoots made a 
Sign to the young men, and they began raising the body toward the 
Opening in the roof. They always remove their dead from their houses 
insthis manner instead of through the door, on account of a superstition 
they have that the spirit of the defunct made its exit in this way. But 
Just as it arrived at the roof one of the ropes broke, precipitating the 
lifeless bundle upon the fire below, scattering the burning coals in every 
direction. For a moment all was terror, confusion, and dismay. The 
shrieks and yells of superstitious horror that went up from the women 
and children baftle description. The body was hastily spatched from the 
fire and hurriedly carried out through the door to the funeral pile, which 
Was about forty yards in the rear of the house. No second attempt was 
made to take it through the hole in the roof, as they thought the old 
Woman’s spirit was angry and did not desire it. All the coals and ashes 
Upon which the body had fallen were then hastily scraped up with pieces 
of bark by the young squaws, carried out and thrown into the sea, for 
fear they might bring down unheard-of evils upon the heads of the liv- 
ing inmates of the house. 
