cruel manner until the task is completed or she falls a victim
to their brutality. The wretched widows, to avoid this complicated
cruelty, frequently commit suicide. Should she, however, linger on
for three or four years, the friends of her husband agree to relieve
her from the her painful mourning. This is a ceremony of much
consequence and the preparations for it occupy a considerable time
generally from six to eight months. The hunters proceed to the
various districts in which deer and beaver abound and after
collecting large quantities of meat and fur return to the village.
The skins are immediately bartered for guns, ammunition, clothing,
trinkets, &c. Invitations are then sent to the inhabitants of the
various friendly villages, and when they have all assembled the
feast commences, and presents are distributed to each visitor. The
object of their meeting is then explained, and the woman is brought
forward, still carrying on her back the bones of her late husband,
which are now removed and placed in a covered box, which is nailed
or otherwise fastened to a post twelve feet high. Her conduct as a
faithful widow is next highly eulogized, and the ceremony of her
manumission is completed by one man powdering on her head the down
of birds and another pouring on it the contents of a bladder of oil.
She is then at liberty to marry again or lead a life of single
blessedness, but few of them, I believe, wish to encounter the risk
attending a second widowhood.

The men are condemned to a similar ordeal, but they do not bear it
with equal fortitude, and numbers fly to distant quarters to avoid
the brutal treatment which custom has established as a kind of
religious rite.

Figure 10 is an ideal sketch of the cremation according to the
description given.

Perhaps a short review of some of the peculiar and salient points of
this narrative may be permitted.

It is stated that the corpse is kept nine days after death--certainly a
long period of time, when it is remembered that Indians as a rule
endeavor to dispose of their dead as soon as possible. This may be
accounted for on the supposition that it is to give the friends and
relatives an opportunity of assembling, verifying the death, and of
making proper preparations for the ceremony. With regard to the
verification of the dead person, William Sheldon[51] gives an account of
a similar custom which was common among the Ca