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- 286 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
liams, whose memory goes back to the fifties, when he went to school from a shack on Yates Street opposite the site of the present King Edward Hotel, believes Colville Island may also have been used for this purpose as well, but distinctly remembers the trees and scrub on Deadman's Island and the fire on it described in the following account, which is kindly furnished by Mr. Fawcett. Mr. Fawcett writes:
"Like the Egyptians of old, the Indians of this country had professional mourners, that is, they acted as they did in Bible days. The mourners, usually friends or members of the same tribe, assembled as soon as the death was announced, and either inside or out-side the house they (mostly women, and old women at that) kept up a monotonous howl for hours, others taking their places when they got tired. In the early sixties an execution of four young Indians took place on Bastion Square for a murder committed on the West Coast. All day and night before the execution took place the women of the tribe squatted on the ground in front of the jail, keeping up the monotonous howl or chant, even up to the time the hangman completed his task. After hanging the prescribed time, the murderers were cut down and handed to their friends, who took them away in their canoes for burial. In the earliest days, I don't think they used the regular coffin; the common practice was to use boxes, and especially trunks, Of course for a man or woman a trunk would be a problem to an undertaker, but the Indian solved the problem easily, as they doubled the body up and made it fit the trunk. For larger bodies a box was made of plank, but I do not remember seeing one made the regulation length of six feet, even for an adult, as they always doubled the knees under. A popular
EVOLUTION OF THE SONGHEES 287
coffin for small people was one of Sam Nesbitt's cracker boxes. He was a well-known manufacturer of soda crackers and pilot bread, whose place of business will be remembered by many old-timers at the corner of Yates and Broad Streets.
" The Indians rarely dug graves for their dead, but hoisted them up in trees, tying them to the branches, or merely laid them on the ground, and piled them up on top of one another. In time they fell into the customs of their white brothers, and got coffins made by the undertaker, and many a time I have seen Indians carrying coffins along Government Street, down to the foot of Johnson, for their reserve."?E. F.
In 1861 Mr. Fawcett with four companions, all school-boys at the time, were bathing on Deadman's Island, and had lit a fire to warm themselves. Broken coffins were lying about, and piles of box coffins and trunks; these were set fire to, and the boys promptly made off to escape the wrath of the Indians, who, in those days, were numbered by hundreds. They made good their escape, and the whole island was swept by the flames?trees, scrub and coffins being burnt up. Since that time the island has remained in its present condition.
The Indians on the Songhees Reserve, also, Mr. Fawcett says, buried at two points on the reserve, but when the smallpox worked such havoc among them, the authorities insisted on the bodies being buried in soil, and when the removal of the Indians was accomplished a special amount was allotted to provide for the removal of the bodies elsewhere.?EDITOR.
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