File:Exploring the great Yukon. An adventurous expedition down the great Yukon River, from its source in the British North-west Territory, to its mouth in the territory of Alaska (1890) (14595753237).jpg

Identifier: exploringgreatyu00schwrich (find matches)
Title: Exploring the great Yukon. An adventurous expedition down the great Yukon River, from its source in the British North-west Territory, to its mouth in the territory of Alaska
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Schwatka, Frederick, 1849-1892
Subjects: Yukon River (Yukon and Alaska) Alaska -- Description and travel United States -- Discovery and exploration
Publisher: (n.p.) Art and Science Publishing Society
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
to edge,four corner-posts being prolonged above, and somewhatneatly rounded into a bed-post design represented in thefigure, from which they seldom depart. It is lashed atthe top by a wattling of willow withes, the lower ends ofthe boards being driven a short way into the ground,while one or two intermediate stripes of red paint resem-ble other bands when viewed at a distance. From thegrave itself is erected a long, light pole twenty or twenty-five feet in height, having usually a piece of colored clothflaunting from its top; although in this particularinstance the cloth was of a dirty white. Not far away,and always close enough to show that it is some super-stitious adjunct of the grave itself, stands another poleof about equal height, to the top of which there isfastened a poorly carved wooden figure of a fish, duck,goose, bear, or some other animal or bird, this being, Ibelieve, a sort of savage totem designating the family orsub-clan of the tribe to v/hich the deceased belonged,.
Text Appearing After Image:
AYAN GRAVE NEAR OLD FORT SELKIRK.Looking across and down the Yukon River. THROUGH THE UPPER RAMPARTS. 219 This second pole may be, and very often is, a fine youngspruce tree of proper height and shape and convenientsituation, stripped of its limbs and peeled of its bark.The little totem figure at the top may thus be easilyplaced in position before the limbs are cut off. It is some-times constructed as a weather-vane, or more probablyit is easier to secure firmly in its position by a woodenpin driven vertically, and so as the green wood seasonsand shrinks it becomes as it were a sepulcral anemoscopewithout having been so intended. These poles may behorizontally striped with native red paint, and the out-side pole has one or more pieces of cloth suspended fromits trunk. These graves are always near the river shore,generally on the edge of a high gravel bank which is incourse of excavation by the swift current, and whenfresh and the boards white are visible from a distance ofmany miles.

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