hink of using one than we would of using our own graveyard
relics; and it is, in their view, as much of a desecration for a
white man to meddle or interfere with these, to them, sacred
mementoes, as it would be to us to have an Indian open the graves of
our relatives. Many thoughtless white men have done this, and
animosities have been thus occasioned.

Figure 23 represents this mode of burial.

From a number of other examples, the following, relating to the Twanas,
and furnished by the Rev. M. Eells, missionary to the Skokomish Agency,
Washington Territory, is selected:

The deceased was a woman about thirty or thirty-five years of age,
dead of consumption. She died in the morning, and in the afternoon I
went to the house to attend the funeral. She had then been placed in
a Hudson's Bay Company's box for a coffin, which was about 3-1/2
feet long, 1-1/2 wide, and 1-1/2 high. She was very poor when she died,
owing to her disease, or she could not have been put in this box.
A fire was burning near by, where a large number of her things had
been consumed, and the rest was in three boxes near the coffin. Her
mother sang the mourning song, sometimes with others, and often
saying, "My daughter, my daughter, why did you die?" and similar
words. The burial did not take place until the next day, and I was
invited to go. It was an aerial burial in a canoe. The canoe was
about 25 feet long. The posts, of old Indian layered boards, were
about a foot wide. Holes were cut in those, in which boards were
placed, on which the canoe rested. One thing I noticed while this
was done which was new to me, but the significance of which I did
not learn. As fast as the holes were cut in the posts, green leaves
were gathered and placed over the holes until the posts were put in
the ground. The coffin-box and the three others containing her
things were placed in the canoe and a roof of boards made over the
central part, which was entirely covered with white cloth. The head
part and the foot part of her bedstead were then nailed on to the
posts, which front the water, and a dress nailed on each of these.
After pronouncing the benediction, all left the hull and went to the
beach except her father, mother, and brother, who remained ten or
fifteen minutes, pounding on the canoe and mourning. They then came
down and made a present to those persons who were there--a gun to
one, a blank