CHAPTER VIII.
BURIAL CUSTOMS:WHY THE DEAD ARE NEVER TAKENTHROUGH THE DOOR.
MANY generations ago, there was a woman born and reared at a village called Os-sa-gon and which is located some six or seven miles south of the mouth of the Klamath river, on the ocean shore. Some years ago this place was a very large village of the Klamath Indians.
When this woman had grown into beautiful womanhood she was wooed and won by a young man of the Wah-teck village, which is located near the old Klamath Bluffs store and near the White Deer-skin dancing grounds. They were both of wealthy families, and celebrated their nuptials of good ceremony of the middle class. During their wedded life they were very happy together, three little ones came to bless this happy union, one boy and two girls. After the third child was born the husband became very ill and entered into the shadowy valley of death, leaving his young widow and children to mourn his untimely departure.
Up until his death, it had always been the custom of the Indians to take the dead body out of the house through the door, and as they carried it through they would take the ashes from the fire-place in the house and throw them through the door as the body was carried out. The ash dust was allowed to remain until the wind had swept it away. This had been their custom from generation to generation. They had performed the same rite with him but in this a strange coincidence happened which changed their custom in removing the dead from the house.
After his burial was over and his wife had once more become reconciled to her daily routine of work, she would sit and weave baskets with her face toward the door, which was contrary to the Indian teachings, as one should never sit facing the doorbut must always sit with their backs turned upon it. She did not think this teaching of any importance and always sat with her face toward the door while at work on her baskets, and at short intervals she would look up from her basket and glance at the door.
Nearly a year had elapsed, when one day while she was sitting weaving her basket, thinking intently of her husband, how happy their wedded life had been, how devotedly she had loved him in life and how deeply she mourned his loss, seemingly his departed spirit answered her from the unknown world. Glancing up at the door she beheld his spirit, and dropped her basket with a sudden cry of joy and sprang to the door that she might take him in her arms, that he might never more leave her in her loneliness. Instead of her husband, the loved one, she caught in her arms the post which stands as a supporting column on the outside of the inner door, or between the inner and outer door of the Indian house. Her conscious self left her as she thought he was trying to get away from her, and, thinking that she had fastened her hold upon his leg, instead she was clinging to the post. Her once supple body and limbs became as rigid as iron when her children and folks gathered around her and tried to make her let go of the post, but their efforts were of no avail for she only clung the tighter. At last they were compelled to cut away the post before they were able to move her to a bed, where they did everything possible to restore her. She remained in this state of unconsciousness for several days, when they decided to take her down to the river and put her into a canoe. They took her down as far as Blue Creek (Ur-ner), some eight miles, and then turning back and coming up the river to Notch-co, some eight miles above the Wah-teck village, making sixteen miles in all. In these sixteen miles the river changes its course from due north swinging around in the different bends, west to nearly south. They kept taking the woman up and down the river the whole summer, until late in the Autumn, and kept her alive during this period by nourishing her with the marrow fat from the leg bones of the deer, of which they applied to her lips and breasts by rubbing. When she had fully regained her consciousness she would, during all her spare time, weave baskets. The main frame or rib work of the basket are hazel switches which is called ho-lealth. In drawingor weaving the work in and out over the switches they turn to the left hand side and the basket-maker always keeps a basket of water within her reach, and at short intervals dips her hand into the water, moistens the switches and straightens them back into their proper places, thus building the basket up straight. This woman never straightened back the switches of her basket, therefore, they were made into a round twist. The children would say to their mother, (Calk) “Why don’t you straighten the switches on your basket?” She would always reply, “Never mind, that is alright”, and tell them to stop talking so much about her basket weaving. She kept on weaving baskets in this manner until all of her children had grown up into man and womanhood.
One evening as the twilight was fast gathering into darkness, she was sitting working on her baskets as usual, with her basket material around her, she simply said, “My time has come, my husband is waiting for me.” She picked up her basket she was weaving and placed it on the fire, saying her spirit, O’quirlth, would have it to use while she was leaving for the world beyond the grave, and died. Her children and her husband’s folks had gathered around in her last dying moments.
The Indians now keep the dead body for one whole day, (twenty-four hours) to satisfy themselves that life has actually departed. They bury the body and after it is laid in the grave, they say that the spirit, O’quirlth, remains hovering around the living and near the newly made grave for five days. When five days have elapsed the spirit departs, and if the individual has lived a good moral life, his spirit goes to Cheek-cheek-alth, there finds the ladder and climbs to God, where he dwells forever in eternal happiness. If he is a mean and degraded wretch his spirit goes the broad road to the old woman and the dog, where she hands him over to the man in the dead boat and he takes the wicked spirit across the river and leaves him to wail in the wilderness of anguish until the judgement day.
When that woman died they did not take her through the door, but made an opening in the wall on the left hand side of the door as one stands on the inside of the house facing the door. From this time on they have never taken a dead body through the door, but always make an opening in the side of thehouse on the left hand side, through which they take the body. The Indians teach their children never to stop or stand in the door-way, in going or coming in. One will never see any one, old or young, stop, stand or sit in the door of an Indian house. Since the death of this woman they always burn the basket material of the deceased, or any unfinished work that belongs to the one that has just died.
There is a coarse grass, a sort of saw grass, that grows on the ridges and under the tan-oaks and fir timber which they use in nearly all their baskets, and this grass we call ham-mo. When one dies and the body is taken out of the house, they place some of this woven grass over the door on the inside, in a manner that one would not notice it, unless it was shown to them. The family will wear strands around their necks, and this is done to prevent them from seeing or meeting the spirit which hovers around and near the body for five days before departing for the unknown realms beyond.
The custom of cutting the hair on the death of a near kindred extends back to the time when they were in the old land, Cheek-cheek-alth.