Chapter XXVIII

DEATH AND BURIAL

Atsugewi and mountain Maidu left the corpse in the house for one day. They prepared it for burial by dressing it well and adding bead necklaces, then wrapping it in a hide. Yana did the same, washing the body first, and although also adorning the corpse with jewelry, they always removed decorative nose ornaments, replacing these with simple sticks. According to Voegelin, Atsugewi removed the body for burial prone and feet first through the wall of the house, but Garth states that the body was removed through the southern ventilator passage or through the regular entrance way in the roof.

The mountain Maidu, Yana, Yahi, and usually the Atsugewi bent the body into a position called flexed. The arms were folded across the chest and the knees were drawn up against the stomach before wrapping the corpse in a robe which was then sewn shut. The mountain Maidu sometimes put the wrapped cadaver into a large basket. Voegelin was of the opinion that Atsugewi buried their dead lying flat on their backs, and if so, always with the head toward the east. It is thought that this prone burial might be a recent innovation learned from white man.

Mourners among all of our local tribes wailed aloud and brought gifts for the dead. Women, especially the older ones, mourned vigorously. To quote Garth again on Atsugewi, of their mourning he states:

“The deceased’s close relatives mourned the hardest, but friends might also mourn——‘to make them feel better.’ Mourners cried and rolled on the ground, throwing dirt and hot ashes in their faces and hair. Some, in their grief, tried to commit suicide, and a close watch had to be kept over them to prevent their doing so. Favorite methods were to swallow small bits of (obsidian) or to eat a certain kind of spider. Mourners were warned not to cry around the house near the body but to go to the hills to cry, and also not to look down when crying or to cry too much. Otherwise they were subject to bad dreams in which spirits would plague them and possibly kill them. A mourner might acquire power at this time. A widow, with possibly a sister to help her, would wail for a time at daybreak and again in the evening. This lasted for two or three months, sometimes longer. A widower seldom cried more than two or three weeks. The widow visited places at which she had camped with her husband, broke up utensils left there, burned down the brush where he was accustomed to cut wood, and piled up rocks where they had slept together. A widower behaved in similar fashion.... If death occurred in a village, no entertainments could be held for a time; otherwise relatives of the deceased had the right to break things up and throw them around. A man would not sing or attend a ‘big time’ gathering until at least a year after death of a close relative.”

If the lodge were to be lived in again, after a person had died in it, Atsugewi brought in juniper boughs, and these were burned to purify the house. Bark huts, however, were always burned down after an occupant had died.

Mountain Maidu children were kept away from the dead and from the funeral proceedings. In that tribe and probably among all local tribes, if the deceased were rich the funeral would be much larger and more pretentious than if the person had been poor. In the former case the ceremony was followed by a feast. Other tribes buried the dead in the evening generally within twenty-four hours after death, but Yana waited three or four days. Mountain Maidu grave diggers put grass in their mouths. Small shallow graves sufficed for poor people, in fact, among Atsugewi, at least, poor people were often buried in small depressions in lava flows and covered over with convenient rocks.

Enroute to Atsugewi burials no one was permitted to look back, and water was sprinkled along the path to prevent the dead person’s spirit from returning to the village. At the grave the dead were asked aloud please not to look back, for if they did other members of their families would die soon.

Cremation, that is, burning of corpses was rare among tribes of the Lassen area. At the battlefield and in other instances of death far from home, especially in the case of mountain Maidu, burning was done occasionally. After this the bones were collected, wrapped in buckskin, and then buried.

The flexed bodies of the dead were always placed in graves facing eastward. Widows customarily attempted to throw themselves into the graves, but were restrained from doing so. A basket of water was invariably placed next to the body, and most personal property of the deceased was broken and also placed in the grave. The amount of property so disposed of varied with the tribe. Mountain Maidu and especially the Yana tribes put practically everything in the grave. The latter even went so far as to include many gifts of a nature not normally associated with the sex. Aprons and baskets, for instance, might be placed in a man’s burial. Among Atsugewi the relatives retained some of the property of the deceased. Atsugewi might place some food on the grave and mark it with a vertical stick, but it was not tended later, and the site was generally soon lost.

In winter a person might be buried shallowly in the floor of a living house. Next spring the house would be torn down and the dirt walls caved in. There was variation not only between, but within tribes as to the final disposition of houses of the deceased. They might be burned down, a common practice, or they were torn down, abandoned, temporarily deserted, or torn down and rebuilt. If to be lived in again, purification of some sort was always practiced, either by burning juniper boughs in the house, smoking tobacco, bringing in aromatic plants, or treating the main beams. Among Yana tribes the family seems to have habitually abandoned the house right after the funeral and to have burned the whole thing including property and food of all the inmates, retaining only the barest necessities of life such as sleeping robes.

Among Atsugewi all mourners had to deny themselves meat and fresh fish for one day; then they sweated and swam after the funeral. Mountain Maidu mourners, including all persons who had had any part in the funeral, had to undergo four or five days taboo on eating all flesh. They also had to eat alone and from separate dishes, do head scratching with special sticks only, were allowed no hunting, gambling, intercourse, or smoking. Purification of those persons contaminated by participation in burial included swimming and washing every day that the taboos were in effect.

Only Atsugewi, of all local tribes, are said to have practiced suicide, though unquestionably it did occur on occasion among all California Indians.

Mentioning the name of the deceased in the presence of his relatives was considered very poor taste, and was actually forbidden in some cases.

It was forbidden that the widow touch the corpse, so that relatives had to prepare the body for burial. After the funeral, the widow always cut her hair off closely. If an Atsugewi, she made a belt out of it, and the hair belt was then often decorated with shells. In all local tribes the widow traditionally covered her whole head and face with pitch and covered this with white diatomaceous earth or black charcoal. Touching her head or face (the whole body for mountain Maidu) with fingers was taboo; she could do this only with the scratching stick which mountain Maidu widows wore around the neck. Raggedy, ill-looking clothes were worn by the survivor, and Atsugewi widows put pitch on old basketry caps to be worn. A mourning necklace was worn at all times, made of lumps of hard pitch strung onto a fiber string. This was worn until remarriage, which was usually two or three years for Atsugewi and one to three years for mountain Maidu. Pitch on the face and head was normally left on until it wore off of its own accord.

The mourning conduct of grieving men who had lost their wives in death was not nearly so lengthy or as rigorous as was that of widows. Widowers cut their hair too, but among Atsugewi the only other observance required was abstinence of flesh eating for a day. Mountain Maidu widowers spent one sleepless night out in the mountains. Widowers did not generally sing at dances and at “big times” for about a year, but this was not compulsory. The Yana are said to have stayed away from dances for two or three years.

Parents mourning the loss of children cut their hair slightly and placed some pitch on hair or faces. The Atsugewi mother observed a three day meat taboo and the Maidu father went to the hills to seek power. However, loss of a baby in birth or before its navel cord dropped off was considered a more serious situation. Such bereaved parents gave all of their belongings away in order to make a fresh start.

Anniversary mourning rites were not conducted in the Lassen region. An exception was the rare instance among Atsugewi when a child was sick at a time just three years after the death of its parent. Under such circumstances a shaman sang over the child and the whole remaining family and relatives mourned, later washing themselves. With respect to the general lack of mourning anniversaries it is of interest that the foothill (northeast) Maidu held elaborate annual burnings for several years after death of relatives. At these great mourning dance ceremonies large quantities of valuable possessions were burned as sacrifices to honor the dead.