day, and I was invited to go.  It was an aerial burial in a canoe.  The canoe was about 25 feet long.  The posts, of old Indian layered boards, were about a foot wide.  Holes were cut in those, in which boards were placed, on which the canoe rested.  One thing I noticed while this was done which was new to me, but the significance of which I did not learn.  As fast as the holes were cut in the posts, green leaves were gathered and placed over the holes until the posts were put in the ground.  The coffin-box and the three others containing her things were placed in the canoe and a roof of boards made over the central part, which was entirely covered with white cloth.  The head part and the foot part of her bedstead were then nailed on to the posts, which front the water, and a dress nailed on each of these.  After pronouncing the benediction, all left the hull and went to the beach except her father, mother, and brother, who remained ten or fifteen minutes, pounding on the canoe and mourning.  They then came down and made a present to those persons who were there—­a gun to one, a blanket to each of two or three others, and a dollar and a half to each of the rest, including myself, there being about fifteen persons present.  Three or four of them then made short speeches, and we came home.  The reason why she was buried thus is said to be because she is a prominent woman in the tribe.  In about nine months it is expected that there will be a “pot-latch” or distribution of money near this place, and as each tribe shall come they will send a delegation of two or three men, who will carry a present and leave it at the grave; soon after that shall be done she will be buried in the ground.  Shortly after her death both her father and mother cut off their hair as a sign of their grief.

[Illustration:  FIG. 24—­Twana Canoe Burial.]

Figure 24 is from a sketch kindly furnished by Mr. Eells, and represents the burial mentioned in his narrative.

The Clallams and Twanas, an allied tribe, have not always followed canoe-burial, as may be seen from the following account, also written by Mr. Eells, who gives the reasons why the original mode of disposing of the dead was abandoned.  It is extremely interesting, and characterized by painstaking attention to detail: 

     I divide this subject into five periods, varying according
     to time, though they are somewhat intermingled.

(a) There are places where skulls and skeletons have been plowed up or still remain in the ground and near together, in such a way as to give good ground for the belief which is held by white residents in the region, that formerly persons were buried in the ground and in irregular cemeteries.  I know of such places in Duce Waillops among the Twanas, and at Dungeness and Port Angeles among the Clallam.  These graves were made so long ago that the Indians of the present day profess to have no knowledge as to who is buried in