This story is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in that it shows there was a time when the California Indians did not practice cremation, which is also established by other traditions.  It hints at the additional fact that the Nishinams to this day set great store by the moon, consider it their benefactor in a hundred ways and observe its changes for a hundred purposes.

Another myth regarding cremation is given by Adam Johnston in Schoolcraft[49] and relates to the Bonaks, or root-diggers: 

The first Indians that lived were coyotes.  When one of their number died the body became full of little animals or spirits, as they thought then.  After crawling over the body for a time they took all manner of shapes, some that of the deer, others the elk, antelope, etc.  It was discovered however, that great numbers were taking wings and for a while they sailed about in the air, but eventually they would fly off to the moon.  The old coyotes or Indians, fearing the earth might become depopulated in this way, concluded to stop it at once and ordered that when one of their people died the body must be burnt.  Ever after they continued to burn the bodies of deceased persons.

Ross Cox gives an account of the process as performed by the Tolkotins of Oregon:[50]

The ceremonies attending the dead are very singular and quite peculiar to this tribe.  The body of the deceased is kept nine days laid out in his lodge and on the tenth it is buried.  For this purpose a rising ground is selected, on which are laid a number of sticks, about 7 feet long, of cypress, neatly split and in the interstices, placed a quantity of gummy wood.  During these operations invitations are dispatched to the natives of the neighboring villages requesting their attendance at the ceremony.  When the preparations are perfected, the corpse is placed on the pile, which is immediately ignited and during the process of burning, the bystanders appear to be in a high state of merriment.  If a stranger happen to be present they invariably plunder him, but if that pleasure be denied them, they never separate without quarreling among themselves.  Whatever property the deceased possessed is placed about the corpse, and if he happened to be a person of consequence, his friends generally purchase a capote, a shirt, a pair of trousers, &c, which articles are also laid around the pile.  If the doctor who attended him has escaped uninjured, he is obliged to be present at the ceremony, and for the last time tries his skill in restoring the defunct to animation.  Failing in this, he throws on the body a piece of leather, or some other article, as a present, which in some measure appeases the resentment of his relatives, and preserves the unfortunate quack from being maltreated.  During the nine days the corpse is laid out, the widow of the deceased is obliged to sleep along side it from