Now, moreover, again, another thing, indeed, our voices come forth to utter; and is it not that that we say, that far yonder the Hoyaner [chief of highest grade] who labored for us so well is falling away as falls a tree? So, moreover, it is these things that he bears away with him—this file of mat-carriers, warriors all, visible and present here; also this file of those who customarily dance the corn-dances [the women]—they go prosperously. And alas! How utterly calamitous is that thing that occurs when the body of this woman falls! For, verily, far yonder in the length of the file will the file of our grandchildren be removed! These our grandchildren who run hither and thither in sport, these our grandchildren who by creeping drag themselves about in the dust, these our grandchildren whose bodies are slung to cradle-boards, and even those of them whose faces are looking hitherward as they come under the ground.[328]
The identifiable cemeteries of Seriland are few and small—much less populous than might be expected of a tribe numbering several hundreds for centuries, and able to maintain well-worn trails threading all parts of their rugged domain. Three graves were noted near the abandoned rancheria at Pozo Escalante; one was observed near a jacal skeleton at Barranca Salina; five or six were made out doubtfully on a low spur adjacent to Punta Antigualla; another was found near the rancheria midway thence to Punta Ygnacio; still another was doubtfully identified hard by a ruinous jacal just where the foothills of Sierra Seri descend to the plain stretching toward Punta Miguel; and this distribution may be deemed representative. A scant half-dozen perceptible graves were observed near the considerable rancheria of Punta Narragansett, which was numerously inhabited during the Dewey surveys of 1873; one was found adjoining the old jacal near Campo Navidad; but none were discovered in connection with the extensive rancheria on Rada Ballena. The largest known cemetery occupies the triangular point of shrub-dotted plain pushing out toward the site of the old rancheria at the base of Punta Tormenta; it comprises perhaps a score of evidently ancient graves, while two newer ones were found on the pebble bar beyond the jacales. When near the pebbly beaches the graves are marked by heaps of pebbles and small cobbles, commonly about the size of those used as hupfs, these cairns being 3 or 4 feet long, two-thirds as wide, and seldom over 12 or 15 inches in height; and most of the cairns are accompanied and enlarged by piles (ranging from a peck to a bushel) of the scatophagic shells already noted. The graves remote from pebbly beaches are marked by heaps of cholla stems and branches, rudely thatched with miscellaneous brambles roughly pinned together by okatilla stems, the shocks being sometimes nearly as high and broad as the jacales. A few of the scatophagic shells were found about the bramble-marked graves at Pozo Escalante, and a single one at Barranca Salina. In general the association of cemeteries and rancherias, or of graves and jacales, indicates that habitations are usually abandoned for a time when a death occurs within or near them.
Fig. 39—Mortuary olla.
The most conspicuous cairn seen in Seriland was well within Tiburon. It stands on the southern side of a little rock-butte about a mile and a half east-southeast of Tinaja Anita, south of the main arroyo, and near where the trail from the tinaja bifurcates toward Arroyo Carrizal and Punta Narragansett, respectively. It is shadowed by a notably large and widespreading paloverde, and is in the form of a cone estimated at 7 feet in height and 18 or 20 feet across the base. The materials, at least on the surface, are rounded pebbles and cobbles, possibly from the adjacent arroyos, though more probably from the beaches, of which the nearest is miles away. It was not determined to be mortuary.[329]
On the death of the matron, a grave is scooped out by means of shells a few yards from her jacal, preference being given to relatively elevated or commanding points. The excavation is about 30 inches (90 cm.) in depth; within it is placed first the pelican-skin robe of the deceased, so arranged as to fold over the body; then the corpse, dressed in the ordinary costume of life, is compressed into small compass by closely flexing the knees and bringing them against the thorax, extending the arms around and along the lower limbs so that hands and feet are together, and bending the head forward on the chest; when it is deposited in the receptacle in such manner as to lie on the left side, facing northward. Near the face is laid a dish of baked clay or a large shell filled with food, and beside it a small olla of water (an actual example is shown in figure 39), while the hupf, awls, hairbrush, olla-ring, and other domestic paraphernalia are placed near the hands. Next the personal fetishes and votive symbols (in the form of puppets or dolls such as those shown in figure 40 a and b) of the dead mother are slipped beneath the face, and her paint-cup, with a plentiful supply of paint, is added; the poor personal possessions, in the form of shell-beads and miscellaneous trinketry, are then heaped over the face and shoulders, and these are covered with the superfluous garments and miscellaneous property of the deceased. Finally the pelican-pelt bedding is folded over the body, and two turtle-shells are laid over all as a kind of coffin, when the grave is carefully filled, and the ground so smoothed as to leave no mark of the burial. During subsequent hours the stones for the cairn or the cholla-joints and other brambles for the brush-heap are piled over the spot, while the scatophagic shells are added at intervals apparently for weeks or months and perhaps for years after the burial.
Fig. 40—Woman’s fetishes.
Fig. 41—Food for the long journey.