BURIAL GROUND. 



55 



commanded to be observed towards Jewish 

 females. These strongly corroborate the idea, 

 that they are of Asiatic origin ; descended from 

 some of the scattered tribes of the children of 

 Israel : and through some ancient transmigra- 

 tion, came over by Kamtchatka into these wild 

 and extensive territories. When they name 

 their children, it is common for them to make 

 a feast, smoke the calumet, and address the 

 Master of life, asking him to protect the child, 

 whom they call after some animal, place, or 

 object in nature, and make him a good hunter. 

 The Stone Indians add to the request, a good 

 horse-stealer. The women suckle their children 

 generally, till the one supplants the other, 

 and it is not an uncommon circumstance to 

 see them of three or four years old running to 

 take the breast. They have a burial ground at 

 the Settlement, and usually put the property 

 of the deceased into the grave with the corpse. 

 If any remains, it is given away from an 

 aversion they have to use any thing that be- 

 longed to their relations who have died. Some 

 of the graves are very neatly covered over with 

 short sticks and bark as a kind of canopy, and 

 a few scalps are affixed to poles that are stuck 

 in the ground at the head of several of them. 

 You sec also occasionally at the grave, a piece 



