Burial Grounds
Due to the impossibility of digging sufficiently deep into the frozen ground the western Eskimo buried their dead near or on the surface or among rocks. Occasionally they utilized also, it seems, old dwellings for this purpose, and in more recent times at least the surface burials, wherever there was driftwood, would be protected by heavy rough-hewn planks put together in the form of boxes or by driftwood. They bear close fundamental resemblance to those of the Yukon. On the Nunivak Island occur graves made of rough stone slabs piled up without much order. (Pl. 31, a, b.)
Throughout the region the burials were located near the village, but the distance varied according to local conditions and habits. In some of the Eskimo villages of the lower Yukon, as at Old Hamilton, some burials were close to the houses of the living. In the Bering and Arctic regions the burial grounds, though sometimes of necessity not far from the houses, as at the Little Diomede, in other places, as at Point Hope and Barrow, were at a distance extending to beyond a mile and a half from the village.
As a rule the wood of burials older than about 80 years was found fully decayed with the bones secondarily buried. Of earlier burials there is generally no trace on the surface, but on excavation skeletal remains are found at various depths below the surface. These characteristic self-burials, or rather tundra burials, may prove of much importance to anthropology in the future. As outlined before (see Narrative, pp. [77], [79]) the process is a decay of the wood; the sagging down of the bones, covered more or less by the decayed material; an encroachment of moss or other vegetation on the little mound thus produced; and gradual accumulation through wind or water carried materials of more covering over the bones, until the mound disappears and the remains, generally still in good condition, are buried as if intentionally inhumed.
The Eskimo everywhere were found to be exceedingly sensible about the older, and even recent, skeletal remains, and assisted readily in their collection, as well as in excavation, offering thus the best possible conditions for anthropological and archeological work in these regions.
The notes, charts, and a detailed list of the sites and villages follow. In numerous cases it was found impossible to say whether a site was completely "dead" or still occasionally partly occupied, so that distinctive markings had to be abandoned.