THE SPECTATOR IN A RED INDIAN'S GRAVE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—While making a survey of a small island in Quatsine Sound, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, last fall. I found an old Indian grave, and in a coffin, with the skeleton, was the small basket I am sending you. The basket contains a mutilated copy of the Spectator. Can you give me the date P From internal evidence I suggest 1861 (circa). Am I right P If you are not acquainted with the method of sepulture followed by the Indians of the West Coast (as we call it), it may interest you to learn that their custom is, when the man is dead, or approximately so, to break his legs at the knee and his arms at the elbow, so that the body may be squeezed into a box, made of cedar, about twenty-four inches square on the end and thirty-two inches long. This box is hewn down from a split board to a thickness of about one half inch ; then cut and bent into shape, the edges thus made in forming the box being sewn together with cedar fibre. Then a lid is made to fit down exactly over this box, and all is bound together with long fibres. In this case the box was placed in a small cave with many others, and great planks,loaded with stones, were covering all. More than fourteen boxes were counted, all of them full of bones and the lares et penates of the defunct. Your trophy was in the top layer of three, so is most recent; the bottom tier of boxes showed great signs of decay. The Indians consider it a great act of sacrilege to disturb their
graves, so, as I was making surveys in the district thereabout, I was not too curious, because these people were often in my employ. The old Spectator found in the little basket was prob- ably obtained from some visiting man-o'-war, and was evidently much cherished. The small tin vessel is the cap of a powder- flask, and the woolly stuff was used by the Indians as wadding in their old flint-lock muskets. I do not know if the Spectator is still regarded as a sort of fetish amongst these people, nor if they still take it in, but it certainly argues a comparatively high state of civilisation amongst them some fifty years ago. You will please remember, Sir, that this place, Quatsino, is the farthest West in the world— here the East begins. It is in Latitude 50° 40' N., Longitude 127° 50' W. The map which I send with this will give you a better idea of Quatsino's position.—I am, Sir, &c., Alberni, Vancouver Island, B.C.
H. -H. BROWNS.
[The date of the paper is August 8th, 1863. It may amuse our readers to remember that a Uganda witch doctor who used a stuffed cat as his familiar in divination filled its body with an old copy of the Spectator.—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
