In the illustration on page 209 the constant barricades of tangled driftwood encountered everywhere on the up-stream ends and promontories of the many islands of these rivers are shown, although the quantity shown in the view falls greatly below the average, the heads of the islands being often piled up with stacks ten or twenty feet high, which are useful in one way, as forming a dam that serves during freshets and high water, to protect them more or less from the eroding power of the rapid river.
A grave or burial place of the Ayan (or Iyan) Indians probably some three months old, planted on the very edge of the river bank near the site of old Fort Selkirk, was a type of the many we afterward saw at intervals from this point for about two-thirds of the distance to old Fort Yukon, and is represented on page 217. Before burial the body is bent with the knees up to the breast, so as to occupy as little longitudinal space as possible, and is inclosed in a very rough box of hewn boards two and three inches thick, cut out by means of rude native axes, and is then buried in the ground, the lid of the coffin, if it can be called such, seldom being over a foot or a foot and a half below the surface of the pile. The grave's inclosure or fence is constructed of roughly-hewn boards, standing upright and closely joined edge to edge, four corner-posts being prolonged above, and somewhat neatly rounded into a bed-post design represented in the figure, from which they seldom depart. It is lashed at the top by a wattling of willow withes, the lower ends of the boards being driven a short way into the ground, while one or two intermediate stripes of red paint resemble other bands when viewed at a distance. From the grave itself is erected a long, light pole twenty or twenty-five feet in height, having usually a piece of colored cloth flaunting from its top; although in this particular instance the cloth was of a dirty white. Not far away, and always close enough to show that it is some superstitious adjunct of the grave itself, stands another pole of about equal height, to the top of which there is fastened a poorly carved wooden figure of a fish, duck, goose, bear, or some other animal or bird, this being, I believe, a sort of savage _totem_ designating the family or sub-clan of the tribe to which the deceased belonged.