Part 10 (1/2)
The Eskimos do not as a rule bury their dead, but double the body up and place it on the side in a plank box which is elevated three or four feet from the ground and supported by four posts. The grave-box is often covered with painted figures of birds, fishes and animals.
Sometimes it is wrapped in skins placed upon an elevated frame and covered with planks or trunks of trees so as to protect it from wild beasts. Upon the frame, or in the grave box are deposited the arms, clothing, and sometimes the domestic utensils of the deceased.
Frequent mention is made by travelers of burial places where the bodies lie exposed with their heads placed towards the north.
Frederic Whymper[64] describes the burial boxes of the Kalosh of that Territory.
Their grave boxes or tombs are interesting. They contain only the ashes of the dead. These people invariably burn the deceased. On one of the boxes I saw a number of faces painted, long tresses of human hair depending therefrom. Each head represented a victim of the (happily) deceased one's ferocity. In his day he was doubtless more esteemed than if he had never harmed a fly. All their graves are much ornamented with carved and painted faces and other devices.
W. H. Dall,[65] well known as one of the most experienced and careful of American Ethnologic observers, describes the burial boxes of the Innuits of Unalaklik, Innuits of Yuka, and Ingaliks of Ulukuk as follows: Figs.
13 and 14 are after his ill.u.s.trations in the volume noted.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--Innuit Grave.]
INNUIT OF UNALAKLIK.
The usual fas.h.i.+on is to place the body doubled up on its side in a box of plank hewed out of spruce logs and about four feet long. This is elevated several feet above the ground on four posts which project above the coffin or box. The sides are often painted with red chalk in figures of fur animals, birds, and fishes. According to the wealth of the dead man, a number of articles which belonged to him are attached to the coffin or strewed around it; some of them have kyaks, bows and arrows, hunting implements, snow-shoes, or even kettles, around the grave or fastened to it; and almost invariably the wooden dish, or ”kantag,” from which the deceased was accustomed to eat, is hung on one of the posts.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--Ingalik grave.]
INNUIT OF YUKON.
The dead are enclosed above ground in a box in the manner previously described. The annexed sketch shows the form of the sarcophagus, which, in this case, is ornamented with snow-shoes, a reel for seal-lines, a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and a wooden dish or kantag. The latter is found with every grave, and usually one is placed in the box with the body. Sometimes a part of the property of the dead person is placed in the coffin or about it; occasionally the whole is thus disposed of. Generally the furs, possessions, and clothing (except such as has been worn) are divided among the nearer relatives of the dead, or remain in possession of his family if he has one; such clothing, household utensils, and weapons as the deceased had in daily use are almost invariably enclosed in his coffin. If there are many deaths about the same time, or an epidemic occurs, everything belonging to the dead is destroyed. The house in which a death occurs is always deserted and usually destroyed. In order to avoid this, it is not uncommon to take the sick person out of the house and put him in a tent to die. A woman's coffin may be known by the kettles and other feminine utensils about it. There is no distinction between the s.e.xes in method of burial. On the outside of the coffin, figures are usually drawn in red ochre. Figures of fur animals usually indicate that the dead person was a good trapper; if seal or deer skin, his proficiency as a hunter; representation of parkies that he was wealthy; the manner of his death is also occasionally indicated. For four days after a death the women in the village do no sewing; for five days the men do not cut wood with an axe. The relatives of the dead must not seek birds' eggs on the overhanging cliffs for a year, or their feet will slip from under them and they will be dashed to pieces. No mourning is worn or indicated, except by cutting the hair. Women sit and watch the body, chanting a mournful refrain until he is interred. They seldom suspect that others have brought the death about by shamanism, as the Indians almost invariably do.
At the end of a year from the death, a festival is given, presents are made to those who a.s.sisted in making the coffin, and the period of mourning is over. Their grief seldom seems deep but they indulge for a long time in wailing for the dead at intervals. I have seen several women who refused to take a second husband, and had remained single in spite of repeated offers for many years.
INGALIKS OF ULUKUK.
As we drew near, we heard a low, wailing chant, and Mikala, one of my men, informed me that it was women lamenting for the dead. On landing, I saw several Indians hewing out the box in which the dead are placed. * * * The body lay on its side on a deer skin, the heels were lashed to the small of the back, and the head bent forward on the chest so that his coffin needed to be only about four feet long.
_TREE AND SCAFFOLD BURIAL._
We may now pa.s.s to what may be called aerial sepulture proper, the most common examples of which are tree and scaffold burial, quite extensively practiced even at the present time. From what can be learned the choice of this mode depends greatly on the facilities present, where timber abounds, trees being used, if absent, scaffolds being employed.
From William J. Cleveland, of the Spotted Tail Agency, Nebraska, has been received a most interesting account of the mortuary customs of the Brule or Teton Sioux, who belong to the Lakotah alliance. They are called _Sicaugu_, in the Indian tongue _Seechaugas_, or the ”burned thigh” people. The narrative is given in its entirety, not only on account of its careful attention to details, but from its known truthfulness of description. It relates to tree and scaffold burial.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES AND MOURNING OBSERVANCES.
Though some few of this tribe now lay their dead in rude boxes, either burying them when implements for digging can be had, or, when they have no means of making a grave, placing them on top of the ground on some hill or other slight elevation, yet this is done in imitation of the whites, and their general custom, as a people, probably does not differ in any essential way from that of their forefathers for many generations in the past. In disposing of the dead, they wrap the body tightly in blankets or robes (sometimes both) wind it all over with thongs made of the hide of some animal and place it reclining on the back at full length, either in the branches of some tree or on a scaffold made for the purpose. These scaffolds are about eight feet high and made by planting four forked sticks firmly in the ground, one at each corner and then placing others across on top, so as to form a floor on which the body is securely fastened. Sometimes more than one body is placed on the same scaffold, though generally a separate one is made for each occasion. These Indians being in all things most superst.i.tious, attach a kind of sacredness to these scaffolds and all the materials used or about the dead. This superst.i.tion is in itself sufficient to prevent any of their own people from disturbing the dead, and for one of another nation to in any wise meddle with them is considered an offense not too severely punished by death. The same feeling also prevents them from ever using old scaffolds or any of the wood which has been used about them, even for firewood, though the necessity may be very great, for fear some evil consequences will follow. It is also the custom, though not universally followed, when bodies have been for two years on the scaffolds to take them down and bury them under ground.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--Dakota Scaffold Burial.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--Offering Food to the Dead.]
All the work about winding up the dead, building the scaffold, and placing the dead upon it is done by women only, who, after having finished their labor, return and bring the men, to show them where the body is placed, that they may be able to find it in future.
Valuables of all kinds, such as weapons, ornaments, pipes, &c.--in short, whatever the deceased valued most highly while living, and locks of hair cut from the heads of the mourners at his death, are always bound up with the body. In case the dead was a man of importance, or if the family could afford it, even though he were not, one or several horses (generally, in the former case, those which the departed thought most of) are shot and placed under the scaffold. The idea in this is that the spirit of the horse will accompany and be of use to his spirit in the ”happy hunting grounds,” or, as these people express it, ”the spirit land.”
When an Indian dies, and in some cases even before death occurs, the friends and relatives a.s.semble at the lodge and begin crying over the departed or departing one. This consists in uttering the most heartrending, almost hideous wails and lamentations, in which all join until exhausted. Then the mourning ceases for a time until some one starts it again, when all join in as before and keep it up until unable to cry longer. This is kept up until the body is removed.
This crying is done almost wholly by women, who gather in large numbers on such occasions, and among them a few who are professional mourners. These are generally old women and go whenever a person is expected to die, to take the leading part in the lamentations, knowing that they will be well paid at the distribution of goods which follows. As soon as death takes place, the body is dressed by the women in the best garments and blankets obtainable, new ones if they can be afforded. The crowd gathered near continue wailing piteously, and from time to time cut locks of hair from their own heads with knives, and throw them on the dead body. Those who wish to show their grief most strongly, cut themselves in various places, generally in the legs and arms, with their knives or pieces of flint, more commonly the latter, causing the blood to flow freely over their persons. This custom is followed to a less degree by the men.
A body is seldom kept longer than one day as, besides the desire to get the dead out of sight, the fear that the disease which caused the death will communicate itself to others of the family causes them to hasten the disposition of it as soon as they are certain that death has actually taken place.