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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1890)
WEST SHORE. INDIAN BURIAL PLACES. pVERY traveler through the region lying Mween r the Columbia and Alaska has peon one or more places of Bepulture used by the native tribes for the interment of their dead, and every collection of photographs contains a variety of pictures of such unique and curious cemeteries. The tribes formerly living within those limits were numerous and the eth- . -r irvgl'ft i ii SIIKLL IHLAJtD CIMETKBY, tOHT kll'KHT BAV, B. C. nologist finds great difliculty in dividing them into families. Bancroft clarifies them into f ix great families, as follows : The Haidahs, occupying Queen Charlotte's inlands and other adjacent islands and the mainland ; the Nootkas, embracing all the tribes on Vancouver inland and the mainland opposite for some distance inland ; the Shushwaps, occupying the great interior plateau of Hritish Columbia to the Kocky mountains ; the Pugct sound family inhabiting the region about that great inland sea; the Chinooks, occupying both hanks of the Columbia as far as the dalles, and the great Willamette valley and adjacent ocean wast ; and the Sahaptins, extending through Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Northeastern Oregon. These are, of course, simply names applied to combinations of trilxn occupying extended areas, and were in most rases liornc by the leading tribo of the region credited to it. The Ilaidah tribe, whoso name was thus given U designate all the coast trills of Southern Alaska and Northern Ilritish Columbia, lived on Queen Charlotte inlands, where still live the few remaining representa tive of what was the most civilized and intelligent tril of natives encountered on the Pacific coast north "f Mexico. Indeed, so light of odor and so different are they from other tribes, that the theory has Urn advanced that they ire a more recent importation from Asia than their neighbors, and are of more mod. rn Mongolian origin. The Haidahi and other InUt of that region practice cremation to a certain extent ad in a crude way. The disposition of the mortal remains of defunct persons depends considerably upon the sta tion occupied by the deceased in his life time. Slaves are disposed of by throwing their Isslics into a river or the sea, but free crsons are cremated, though often the lxsly is buried for a time. Hut little ceremony is ob served in disusing of uninrtant individuals, hut a chief or the head of a family is burned with quite a demonstration. A funeral pyre of logs is made, not high and elaborate like those of India, but enough to make a good fire. l'on this the !xdy is laid, and, not infrequently, articles of value formerly jnssesscd by the deceased, and alwut this the members of the tribe gather while tho Itody is being consumed by the llames. The ashes and unburncd lones are variously disced of. They arc placed in boxes, basket or ratiom, or wrapped in mats or bark, and are buried or tledtnl on the ground, placed in a tree, or on a platform or suspended from poles. With them are frequently placed spears, paddles, ls)ws, etc., presumably for the use of tint departed in the spirit land, and care is always taken to break or otherwise destroy their usefulness in this world, for the ghoulish greed that would rob the dead is not a characteristic of tho Caucasian only. Hy the side of these platform or burial rks is often planted a memorial polo upm which is carved the pedigree of the deceased, eonisting of the various " crests " representing the families to which he Mongol. These crests are the figures of various animals, birds and fishes, such as tho bear, raven, eagle, whale, etc. This totem stick is generally of cedar, and is a dupli cate of tho huge carved cedar pt, possibly thirty feet high, that stand In-sido tho entrain to tho house- of the deceased. This custom of carving tho family K'H'" ab'gy is jreuliar to tho natives of that region, the u of it and th" skill to do the work decreasing a proves is made to the southward. The genuine Ilaidili trilw are tho most skillful and in addition to woodaNo carve totem sticks in stono in a most neat and artistic man-