The walls and the floor of the room which the person used is scrubbed
every day with the ho-mon-nah solution, also whatever furniture there
is in the room is gone over very carefully with the disinfecting
process and is kept up for five days until the spirit departs. The
family lives in the same room as usual, but Cah-ma-tow, the grave
digger has his own separate bed in the room. He fixes a small board
for himself on which his meals are served separate from the family
and dines by himself. The morning of the fifth day he arises earlier
than usual, making a broom of the boughs of the Douglas spruce and
sweeps the floor of the house nice and clean. He burns the roots of
the ho-mon-nah which fumigates the house and with solution made of the
same plant he scrubs the floor and goes over all the wood-work in the
house for the last time. After this is finished he gathers up all the
things he has used during the five days, the baskets of solution, his
small board table, etc., and takes them all to the sweat-house. Here
he takes the solution and washes his hands and entire body and after
he has finished bathing he takes the baskets and clothes he has worn
up the hill away from the river to a thicket and hangs them all up in
a small tree, where he leaves them to the elements to decay. He then
comes back and sweats himself thoroughly, afterwards plunging into the
river and comes out cleansed of any foul disease he may have contracted
in handling the dead body.
The Indians get or hire any one who is willing to do the burial as it
is not necessary to be a relative or even a well known friend of the
family.
During the five days the opening in the house where the dead body was
taken out is left open as the family and friends never use or go near
the regular door of the house during this period. After five days have
elapsed the opening in the wall is sealed up tightly leaving no trace
that an opening was ever made in the wall. They never leave the gap
for another case as the Indian never wants to be reminded that another
death may occur in his household.
It has often been expressed by the white man that when a funeral is
held every man, woman and child in the village attends the funeral,
this is far from being true, not any more than the funeral of a white
man. Near friends and relatives of the deceased may attend while a
great many others in the village will go about as usual, not even
pretending to know that a funeral is being held. Of recent years the
white man is allowed to help with the burial if he chooses. Valuable
articles of the dead are not buried with them as is generally believed
by the white theologist, instead only mere trifles of either little or
no value placed in and upon the grave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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