Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... graves, and in cremation circles. In all of these they were covered with stones.1 Detailed descriptions of the graves explored by us, are given in the appendix. There are also burials covered with pebbles, some of which may be old; and recent graves (p. 20), where the bodies were apparently buried at length with the feet to the east, and both head and foot marked by a stake, the one at the head being the larger. Simple graves in the level ground known to be old were not found. Gibbs saw bodies wrapped in blankets and tied upright to tree trunks at some distance above the ground near the mouth of the Okanogan River.2 Burials in Domes of Volcanic Ash. In this arid region are stretches of country locally known as 'scab land, ' on which are occasionally groups of low dome-shaped knolls from about fifty to one hundred feet in diameter, by three to six feet in height.3 These knolls consist of fine volcanic ash, and apparently have been left by the wind because held in place by roots of sage brush and other vegetation. This ashy material has been swept from the intervening surface leaving the 'scab land' paved with fragments of basalt imbedded in a hard soil. The prehistoric Indians of this region, have used many of these knolls, each as a site for a single grave (Fig. 2, Plate ix).1 These graves, which are located in the tops of the knolls, are usually marked by large river pebbles, or, in some cases, by fragments of basalt that appear as a circular pavement projecting slightly above the surface of the soil. None of them are known to be recent. On the other hand, there is no positive evidence of their great antiquity. In these we sometimes find a box or cyst. This box (Plate x) was formed of thin slabs of basaltic rock some placed on edge and..