165 
burial and its equivalent, burial under overhanging cliffs, were prac- 
tised in Newfoundland and in British Columbia. In the latter 
region the dry air of certain caves brought about natural mummifi- 
cation, which the Tsimshian sometimes effected artificially for per- 
sons of rank.^ Cremation occurred among the Assiniboine, and their 
Cree neighbours around Nelson river,-' and was the usual custom 
west of the Kockies from the Yukon to the northern end of Van- 
couver island, where it gave place to inhumation or burial in cairns 
or trees. The interior Salish, who lived in the arid portion of the 
Traser valley, adopted a novel method of interment. They laid their 
dead at the bases of steep slopes and covered them effectively with 
rock-slides. 
Familiar with the sight of death from their earliest years, the 
Indians viewed its approach with stoical equanimity. It was not 
tliat they expected rare joys in a life to come, a Valhalla of feasting 
and revelry or a Paradise where beautiful houris administered to 
every want. Some tribes located the land of spirits in the sky, others 
in a world beneath this earth, still others somewhere in the west along 
the path of the setting s*un. Wherever it lay, the soul that reached 
it enjoyed happiness indeed, but only a shaclowy happiness com- 
pared with the joys of earth. And since the journey to it was long 
and dangerous, so that many perisherl along the path, the Indians 
placed food and other objects in the graves of their loved ones to 
help tliem on their way, and some of the Ojibwa kindled a fire on 
every fresh tomb four nights in succession to illumine the “ solitary 
and obscure passage to the country of souls. Many tribes held 
that them were two separate spirit-lands, one for shamans and great 
warriors, the other for common people; or one for those who had 
lived uprightly according to tribal law, the other for sorcerers and 
the evil-minded. The doctrine of reincarnation found general 
acceptance, but in too vague a form to produce much influence. For 
although the beliefs concerning the afterlife, which were almost as 
numerous as the tribes, sufficed to rob death of its terrors, few of them 
held out such promise of happiness, or carried such faith, as to offer 
much cheer to the dying or comfort to those who were left behind. 
1 Perhaps, also, the !Miemae of Nova Sc(h,ia. I.e Ciercq ‘ Op, cit,, p, 302. 
- C/. Tlie Kelsey Papers, p. 12. Docuirients relating fo the Early History of Ilaclsoii Bay; edited 
by J. B, Tyrrell, Toronto, Tlie Chaiiiiilain Soeiefy, 1031, p. 231. 
3 De Sraet; Op. cit., vol, ui, p. 1047. The Ojibwa on the north shore of lake Huron placed tobacco 
in the liand of the corpse to pay for its pjassage across the river of death. 
