Note 421 — Chapter III · COLUMBIANS. (continued 2)

The Sokulks wrap the dead in skins, bury them in graves, cover with earth, and mark the grave by little pickets of wood struck over and about it. On the Columbia below the Snake was a shed-tomb sixty by twelve feet, open at the ends, standing east and west. Recently dead bodies wrapped in leather and arranged on boards at the west end. About the centre a promiscuous heap of partially decayed corpses; and at eastern end a mat with twenty-one skulls arranged in a circle. Articles of property suspended on the inside and skeletons of horses scattered outside. About the Dalles eight vaults of boards eight feet square, and six feet high, and all the walls decorated with pictures and carvings. The bodies were laid east and west. Lewis and Clarke's Trav., pp. 344-5, 359-60, 379-80, 557-8. Okanagans observe silence about the death-bed, but the moment the person dies the house is abandoned, and clamorous mourning is joined in by all the camp for some hours; then dead silence while the body is wrapped in a new garment, brought out, and the lodge torn down. Then alternate mourning and silence, and the deceased is buried in a sitting posture in a round hole. Widows must mourn two years, incessantly for some months, then only morning and evening. Ross' Adven., pp. 321-2. Frantic mourning, cutting the flesh, etc., by Nez Percés. Ross' Fur Hunters, vol. i., pp. 234-5, 238-9, vol. ii., p. 139. Destruction of horses and other property by Spokanes. Cox's Adven., vol. i., pp. 200-1. A Shushwap widow instigates the murder of a victim as a sacrifice to her husband. The horses of a Walla Walla chief not used after his death. Kane's Wand., pp. 178-9, 264-5, 277, 289. Hundreds of Wasco bodies piled in a small house on an island, just below the Dalles. A Walla Walla chief caused himself to be buried alive in the grave of his last son. Hines' Voy., pp. 159, 184-8. Among the Yakimas and Kliketats the women do the mourning, living apart for a few days, and then bathing. Okanagan bodies strapped to a tree. Stone mounds over Spokane graves. Gibbs and Stevens, in Pac. R. R. Rept., vol. i., pp. 405, 413, vol. xii., pt. i., p. 150. Pend d'Oreilles buried old and young alive when unable to take care of them. Ind. Aff. Rept., 1854, pp. 211, 238. 'High conical stacks of drift-wood' over Walla Walla graves. Townsend's Nar., p. 157. Shushwaps often deposit dead in trees. If in the ground, always cover grave with stones. Mayne's B. C., p. 304. Killing a slave by Wascos. White's Ogn., pp. 260-3. Dances and prayers for three days at Nez Percé chief's burial. Irving's Bonneville's Adven., p. 283. Burying infant with parents by Flatheads. De Smet, Voy., p. 173. Light wooden pilings about Shushwap graves. Milton and Cheadle's Northw. Pass., p. 242; Alvord, in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. v., p. 655; Parker's Explor. Tour, p. 104; Palmer, in B. C. Papers, pt. iii., p. 85; Gass' Jour., p. 219; Ind. Life, p. 55; Tolmie, in Lord's Nat., vol. ii., pp. 237-8, 260-1.