BURIAL CEREMONY.
This, in many respects, was very peculiar, and quite different from the great majority of semi-barbarous or half-civilized tribes and nations. When one dies, a wife, for example,—as this instance did occur in one of the huts,—the following ceremonies were observed to take place:—
Immediately on the death of the person, or just before death took place, the relatives and friends gathered in the hut, and commenced a most bitter and vociferous wailing or mourning.
The usual means to expel the disease, whatever it might be, had been employed in vain. Several skins, stretched over hoops varying in size, had been broken by furious beating, accompanied with fantastic gesticulations and almost unearthly sounds, if possible, to cure the patient. But all to no purpose. They now found that death was approaching; and since every effort of theirs had not benefited her, they pronounced her incurable, and proceeded at once to terminate her existence. She was not permitted to die wholly from the natural effects of the disease; but a small cord was placed round her neck, and gradually drawn closer and closer by those who stood on each side of her, until life became extinct. During the last scene, she gave various presents to her relatives and friends. She died with singular indifference, and without a groan.
Whether all the sick, who, they supposed, would not recover, were thus put to death, as in the foregoing instance, may be a question. Yet, in so far as could be ascertained from observation and from conversation with the natives, it is the opinion of those who lived with them for several months that this was generally the case.
Soon after, all the remaining property which she possessed—her clothing, needles, combs, beads, &c., besides some tobacco—was sewed up with her in the dress she usually wore, or in which she died. A new sled was then made for the deceased, and two of the best dogs in the family were selected to bear away the corpse. Instead of carrying the body out of the ordinary doorway, an opening was made through the side of the hut sufficiently large for the body to pass and those accompanying it. The relatives and friends followed the remains to the place of the dead, two or three miles distant, upon some hill side. There it remained untouched for five days. The face only of the deceased was exposed. On the return of the family connections to the hut, one of the dogs was killed. During the five days which intervened, the husband forsook the hut altogether, and all other huts, and wandered about from place to place, living in temporary exile from all connection with his former home, or family and friends. And during this time, also, food was carried to the dead body, and also placed outside the hut, on the supposition that she would need it.
On the sixth day, the deceased was visited again by the relatives for the purpose of disposing of what was left of her remains. The crows and beasts of prey had nearly or quite completed the work of destroying every vestige of the body. Thus, in a very short time, nothing remained but here and there a bone mingled indiscriminately with others in the place of the dead.
The company then returned to the hut, and another scene of wailing and mourning ensued. During this last act, the hut was surrounded by the relatives of the deceased; and all at once, at a given signal, the whole company rose up, and pulled the hut down, and removed it to another place. Before it was erected again, however, the second dog was killed, and its blood sprinkled over the newly-selected spot.
With the change in the locality of the hut a new order of things took place. The husband assumed his former relations to the family, and ceremonies were at an end respecting the deceased.
From what could be learned from the natives, they supposed that, in leaving the face of the deceased uncovered, the crows would pick out her eyes, and then she would be unable to find her way back to the hut. The opening made in the side of the hut, through which to carry the corpse, was another superstitious idea. They believed she would not enter the hut again, if she was not carried out by the door. The removal of the hut to a new place was in accordance with their notions that she would be unable to find it again.
They have a general belief of an existence after death; yet so crude, ill-defined, and dark was this belief, that it stands allied with the grossest forms of paganism and idolatry. The glorious gospel of Christ, "which brings life and immortality to light," finds no place in their hopes for the future, nor does it afford any consolation to them on their pilgrimage to the tomb. They are living, as the apostle said the heathen did in his day, "having no hope, and without God in the world."