Note 365 — Chapter III · COLUMBIANS. (continued 2)
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A chief on the death of his daughter 'had an Indian slave bound hand and foot, and fastened to the body of the deceased, and enclosed the two in another mat, leaving out the head of the living one. The Indian then took the canoe and carried it to a high rock and left it there. Their custom is to let the slave live for three days; then another slave is compelled to strangle the victim by a cord.' Letter, in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. ii., p. 71. See also vol. iii., pp. 217-18; vol. vi., pp. 616-23, with plate; vol. v., p. 655. 'The emblem of a squaw's grave is generally a camass-root digger, made of a deer's horns, and fastened on the end of a stick.' Wilkes' Nar., in U. S. Ex. Ex., vol. v., pp. 233-4, vol. iv., p. 394. 'I believe I saw as many as an hundred canoes at one burying place of the Chinooks.' Gass' Jour., p. 274. 'Four stakes, interlaced with twigs and covered with brush,' filled with dead bodies. Abbott, in Pac. R. R. Rept., vol. vi., p. 88. At Coos Bay, 'formerly the body was burned, and the wife of the corpse killed and interred.' Now the body is sprinkled with sand and ashes, the ankles are bent up and fastened to the neck; relatives shave their heads and put the hair on the body with shells and roots, and the corpse is then buried and trampled on by the whole tribe. Wells, in Harper's Mag., vol. xiii., p. 602. 'The canoe-coffins were decorated with rude carved work.' Vancouver's Voy., vol. ii., p. 54. Strangers are paid to join in the lamentations. Ross' Adven., p. 97. Children who die during the head-flattening process are set afloat in their cradles upon the surface of some sacred pool, where the bodies of the old are also placed in their canoes. Catlin's N. Am. Ind., vol. ii., p. 111. On burial and mourning see also, Swan's N. W. Coast, pp. 72-3, 13, 186-9, with cut of canoe on platform. Mofras' Explor., vol. ii., p. 355, and pl. 18 of Atlas; Lewis and Clarke's Trav., pp. 423, 429, 509; Kane's Wand., pp. 176-8, 181, 202-5; Cox's Adven., vol. i., pp. 124-5, 335-6, vol. ii., p. 157; Parker's Explor. Tour, pp. 144, 151-2; Thornton's Ogn. and Cal., vol. i., pp. 281-2, vol. ii., p. 53; Belcher's Voy., vol. i., p. 292; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., p. 255; Dunn's Oregon, pp. 119-20, 131-2; Nicolay's Ogn. Ter., pp. 149-50; Fremont's Ogn. and Cal., p. 186; Irving's Astoria, p. 99; Franchère's Nar., p. 106; Palmer's Jour., p. 87; Ind. Life, p. 210; Townsend's Nar., p. 180.