Fig. 23.—Canoe 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 3½ feet long, 1½ wide, and 1½ 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 blanket to each of two or three others, and a dollar and a half to each of the rest, including myself, there being about fifteen persons present. Three or four of them then made short speeches, and we came home.
Fig. 24.—Twana Canoe-Burial.
The reason why she was buried thus is said to be because she is a prominent woman in the tribe. In about nine months it is expected that there will be a “pot-latch” or distribution of money near this place, and as each tribe shall come they will send a delegation of two or three men, who will carry a present and leave it at the grave; soon after that shall be done she will be buried in the ground. Shortly after her death both her father and mother cut off their hair as a sign of their grief.
Figure 24 is from a sketch kindly furnished by Mr. Eells, and represents the burial mentioned in his narrative.
The Clallams and Twanas, an allied tribe, have not always followed canoe-burial, as may be seen from the following account, also written by Mr. Eells, who gives the reasons why the original mode of disposing of the dead was abandoned. It is extremely interesting, and characterized by painstaking attention to detail:
I divide this subject into five periods, varying according to time, though they are somewhat intermingled.