ly heaping over them piles of
stones, either to mark the spot or to prevent the bodies from being
exhumed by the prairie wolf. Among the Yakamas we saw many of their
graves placed in conspicuous points of the basaltic walls which line
the lower valleys, and designated by a clump of poles planted over
them, from which fluttered various articles of dress. Formerly these
prairie tribes killed horses over the graves--a custom now falling
into disuse in consequence of the teachings of the whites.

Upon Puget Sound all the forms obtain in different localities. Among
the Makah of Cape Flattery the graves are covered with a sort of
box, rudely constructed of boards, and elsewhere on the Sound the
same method is adopted in some cases, while in others the bodies are
placed on elevated scaffolds. As a general thing, however, the
Indians upon the water placed the dead in canoes, while those at a
distance from it buried them. Most of the graves are surrounded with
strips of cloth, blankets, and other articles of property. Mr.
Cameron, an English gentleman residing at Esquimalt Harbor,
Vancouver Island, informed me that on his place there were graves
having at each corner a large stone, the interior space filled with
rubbish. The origin of these was unknown to the present Indians.

The distinctions of rank or wealth in all cases were very marked;
persons of no consideration and slaves being buried with very little
care or respect. Vancouver, whose attention was particularly
attracted to their methods of disposing of the dead, mentions that
at Port Discovery he saw baskets suspended to the trees containing
the skeletons of young children, and, what is not easily explained,
small square boxes, containing, apparently, food. I do not think
that any of these tribes place articles of food with the dead, nor
have I been able to learn from living Indians that they formerly
followed that practice. What he took for such I do not understand.
He also mentions seeing in the same place a cleared space recently
burned over, in which the skulls and bones of a number lay among the
ashes. The practice of burning the dead exists in parts of
California and among the Tshimsyan of Fort Simpson. It is also
pursued by the "Carriers" of New California, but no intermediate
tribes, to my knowledge, follow it. Certainly those of the Sound do
not at present.

It is clear from Vancouver'