INDIAN GRAVES 



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some of the dead. Common people are usually burned 

 and their ashes put away, either in a hole bored in one 

 of the totem poles, which is afterwards plugged up, or 

 in a little box on a pole in the common burial ground, or 

 in a dead house as shown in the sketch on p. 152, but the 

 shamans, or mystery men, are not burned. They are buried 

 with ceremony, on or under the ground, and over them is 

 often erected a platform which supports one or more im- 

 ages, sometimes of colossal size. On such a grave in the 

 village above referred to were the carved wooden figures 

 of two bears, perhaps six or seven feet tall, sitting on 

 their haunches. Over another was a more ancient im- 

 age, a huge bird built of wood, with outstretched wings 



GRAVES OF SHAMANS, CAPE FOX, ALASKA. 



and a long beak. In a general way it resembled a heron 

 flying, and reminds one strongly of the mythical bird 



