The walls and the floor of the room which the person used is scrubbed every day with the ho-mon-nah solution, also whatever furniture there is in the room is gone over very carefully with the disinfecting process and is kept up for five days until the spirit departs. The family lives in the same room as usual, but Cah-ma-tow, the grave digger has his own separate bed in the room. He fixes a small board for himself on which his meals are served separate from the family and dines by himself. The morning of the fifth day he arises earlier than usual, making a broom of the boughs of the Douglas spruce and sweeps the floor of the house nice and clean. He burns the roots of the ho-mon-nah which fumigates the house and with solution made of the same plant he scrubs the floor and goes over all the wood-work in the house for the last time. After this is finished he gathers up all the things he has used during the five days, the baskets of solution, his small board table, etc., and takes them all to the sweat-house. Here he takes the solution and washes his hands and entire body and after he has finished bathing he takes the baskets and clothes he has worn up the hill away from the river to a thicket and hangs them all up in a small tree, where he leaves them to the elements to decay. He then comes back and sweats himself thoroughly, afterwards plunging into the river and comes out cleansed of any foul disease he may have contracted in handling the dead body.
The Indians get or hire any one who is willing to do the burial as it is not necessary to be a relative or even a well known friend of the family.
During the five days the opening in the house where the dead body was taken out is left open as the family and friends never use or go near the regular door of the house during this period. After five days have elapsed the opening in the wall is sealed up tightly leaving no trace that an opening was ever made in the wall. They never leave the gap for another case as the Indian never wants to be reminded that another death may occur in his household.
It has often been expressed by the white man that when a funeral is held every man, woman and child in the village attends the funeral, this is far from being true, not any more than the funeral of a white man. Near friends and relatives of the deceased may attend while a great many others in the village will go about as usual, not even pretending to know that a funeral is being held. Of recent years the white man is allowed to help with the burial if he chooses. Valuable articles of the dead are not buried with them as is generally believed by the white theologist, instead only mere trifles of either little or no value placed in and upon the grave.
When an Indian is very wealthy or rich, and has a family of several children he sometimes divides his fortune equally among them, of course always making provision for his wife as long she lives and remains single. Sometimes he has a favorite son or daughter to whom he leaves his entire fortune, disinheriting his other children. The Indian legacy is bequeathed to whom he chooses and his will cannot be broken. In some cases the wife’s wealth is just as great or even greater than her husband’s. She divides her wealth among her children as she chooses, the same as her husband.
When husband and wife have been wedded a number of years and have reared a large family, upon the death of the husband the wife cuts her hair close to her head and burns it. She keeps her hair cut close to her head and is called Ca-win until some one proposes marriage to her when she lets it grow out to its natural length again. If she refuses the offer of marriage, after her hair has grown over two inches in length, she is addressed as Care-rep. This name explains itself, that she is a widow and has had an offer of marriage but has refused it. The sisters and daughters of a deceased man sometimes cut off a part of their hair during their period of mourning for him.
CHAPTER VII.
THROUGH THE PEARLY GATES OF HEAVEN.