During the mourning time of work, of dancing and feasting, the corpse is placed so that the dead man can see what is going on and absorb it all. He is in a sitting position or, even if he is laid out, as happens nowadays, the body is propped up. The dead man has to report in the village of the dead how his favorite food was placed near him and how he was honored, up to the last. On the sixth day, after waiting for relatives from another village to arrive, after the death stroke,—in this case the white man was not allowed in to pray, for everything was done in the old way,—the dead man was put in the grave-box in a sitting position, his eyes open, frozen open, and his hands placed in a position to show his interest. He is thought to return to his grave-box from time to time, more particularly in summer, and he wants to see what is going on. For this reason, too, the sinew corded grave-box is set on a hillside overlooking the river, the face of the corpse turned towards the river, that the dead may see who are passing and what is going on in the village; likewise that the dead may be near his food supply, i. e. the fish in the river. In the late autumn, after the leaves have fallen, the older women take bits of their most valued food, salmon and, since the coming of the whites, biscuit, to place by the side of the grave-box for the dead to eat, and to bless the givers. At the same time the men, if not the old women, will put the grave place (tudatonte, where the body lies stiff, as we say) in order, removing vegetation and restoring implements to their place. Thus engaged, every one will be continually breathing out to the North. Towards spring these attentions to the dead are repeated, on a smaller scale.
At death, food is put near the head of the corpse in the grave-box and, in the case of Cries-for-salmon’s brother, the bows and arrows of the deceased were tied to a cross piece supported by upright sticks by the grave-box; but, as he was not a shaman or chief, no roof was built over the grave-box nor was the box ornamented. The dead man’s things were given away to relatives; his rifle in particular was given to a member of the family distinguished for his ability and for his songs. After the distribution was complete, they set fire to the man’s house, to drive away the evil spirit.
Cries-for-salmon’s brother, like most men to-day in Anvik, had only one wife—formerly a man might have as many wives as he could support, generally he had two wives, sometimes three. And she had not yet reached middle age, the time when women tattoo lines on their chin—they tattoo according to the songs they have or their husband has, a shaman’s wife will have more lines than a chief’s wife—nevertheless, she decided not to marry again and she bobbed her hair. In this way she showed, even to men from other villages who did not know about her, that she grieved and that she was unwilling to associate with one without her husband’s power. She wanted to prolong his powers, and to keep the atmosphere she was left in by him, from going over to another man. Having his atmosphere and songs, she was strong and she felt spurred to care for herself, to accomplish almost anything.
Sometimes a dying person will send for one to whom he wishes to pass on his powers. Then the dying one looks to the North, breathes on the other and spits on him (spittle is a part of you). Once, Cries-for-salmon said to me, “I think a great deal of you. I would do almost anything for you, and I would like to give you some of my power, but if I did, I would die within the year. I must live for my children—providing the Good One sees fit for me to live.” Cries-for-salmon spoke this way to me because a while before she had said something to me which I did not understand, and it hurt her. An old man present said, “You can’t expect much of him” (as a Mission boy). So Cries-for-salmon said to me, “With all the white man’s knowledge, you have no intelligence whatsoever. Had I completed my duties to my children, I could tell you more.”
Many widows do not bob their hair, but even so, unless a woman were of no account, she would not remarry within the year, she would wait two or three years. A woman is esteemed not only for waiting, she is valued according to the way she cared for her husband before he died, when he was helpless. A man’s feelings are badly hurt if he is neglected in these circumstances.
If a man and his wife died at the same time, let us say, from eating poisonous berries, “devil berries” people call them, the two would be buried in the same grave-box. I had to move such a box once—the Mission wanted to make some use of the place. A string of beads fell out, not the kind we use to-day, these were very old, I think, got from Siberia in trade. They asked me for the beads in the village, but I kept them—until they disappeared. The people wanted them very much.
The deceased is referred to as “the one who has gone from us.” The term for dead is used only of animals. Once I referred to some one as dead. They said, “What! He is not a dog. You are referring to a human being.” Nor is the name of the dead ever mentioned; but people think of them, and whenever they think of them they turn to the North and breathe out. (A prolonged, gentle expiration, as Reed showed me.) So on return from a hunt, passing the cemetery, a man will take a berry, eat half, and throw half in the direction of the cemetery, to some chief dying in a good season, and then look to the North and breathe out.
I recall a visit up river I paid to Shagrūk where lives my mother’s sister. “My grandmother,” I said to her. “Whose blood is this addressing me?” she asked. When she knew me, she began to wail, looking to the North—she was recalling my mother: “My sister, my sister, and here is my blood come again to me!” People think that if ever they said anything disrespectful about the dead, they would be laughing, as we say, at their own corpse. (In thinking of the dead, people appreciate the experience awaiting them.)
About Christmas time there are ceremonials for the dead for three or four days. Persons who have lost their relatives in the past year are called upon by the shaman to contribute the bulk of the feast. “Who will contribute so many bundles of salmon?” asks the shaman, “so many sacks of seal oil, so many sealskins or caribou skins, so many cords of sinew (for sewing), the œsophagus of a white whale (used in trimming)?” People eat to their heart’s content. Sometimes they eat for the dead, sometimes they set aside the food—the best that can be got from the woods and waters. The missionaries are told that these are merely social feasts. Not that many of the old ceremonies have not indeed been cut out at Anvik. If a ceremonial can not be performed fully, in the proper way, people do not want it performed at all. Yet it is much against the wish of the people to go without their ceremonials. The “feasts,” as I have often told the missionary, are the only amusements of the people, and they would like to keep on with them just as they do at the conservative village of Shagrūk.
T. B. Reed and Elsie Clews Parsons