Identifier: annualreportofbu0v1powe (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ..
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Powell, John Wesley, 1834-1902
Subjects:
Publisher: Washington, D.C., G.P.O.
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University Hawaii, Joseph F. Smith Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Consortium of Church Libraries and Archives

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invariably remove from any place where sickness hasprevailed, generally destroying the house also. At Penn Cove Mr. Whidhey, one of Vancouvers officers, noticed several sepnlchersformed exactly like a sentry-box. Some of them were open, and contained the skele-tons of many young children tied up in baskets. The smaller bones of adults werelikewiso noticed, but not one of the limb bones was found, which gave rise to an opin-ion that these, by the living inhabitants of the neighborhood, were appropriated touseful rmrposcs, such as pointing their arrows, spears, or other weapons. It is hardly necessary to say that such a practice is altogether foreign to Indiancharacter. The bones of the adults had probably been removed and buried elsewhere.The corpses of children are variously disposed of; sometimes by suspending them, atothers by placing in the hollows of trees. A cemetery devoted to infants is, however,an unusual occurrence. In cases of chiefs or men of note much pomp was used in the
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VAiiuow.j BURIAL SACRIFICE TSINUK. 17!» accompaniments of the rite. The canoes were of great size and value—the war orstate canoes of the deceased. Frequently one was inverted over that holding thebody, and in oue instance, near Shoalwater Bay, the corpse was deposited in a smallcanoe, which again was placed in a larger one and covered with a third. Among theTainuk and Tsihaliu the tarn a lino-us hoard of the owner was placed near him. ThePuget Sound Indians do not make these tamahno-us hoards, hut they sometimes con-structed effigies of their chiefs, resembling the person as nearly as possible, dressed inhis usual costume, and wearing the articles of which he was fond. One of these, rep-resenting the Skagit chief Sneesturn, stood very conspicuously upon a high bank onthe eastern side of Whidhey Island. The figures observed by Captain Clarke at theCascades were either of this description or else the carved posts which had ornamentedthe interior of tho houses of the deceased, and we

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