Awful Cannibalism

Dr. Franz Bom has just taken to Washington soine wooden masks, carvwgK and other things of interest collected from the so called Fort Rupert Indians, wlio dweil at the north end of the sland of Vancouver. These are the most jrimitive savages on the northwest 3oast, and they still practico cannibalsm. Formerly they kept slaves, whom ,hey would kill and eat at their ceremonials, but the whites have put a stop to that. So now they devour dead bodies instead. The latter are niiimmies, in 'act, beiug inclosed in boxes after death and placed high up in the branches of tall trees. That is the method of burial customary with the tribe. The corpses thus disposed of do not 'decay, but dry up. When one of them is needed for the rarpose hers referred to, it is taken xorn the tree and put in a spot where ;he sea water will flow over it. There it remains for some days, after which it is smoked, so it is said. Dr. Boas has secnred a mask of the cannibal spirit, such as is worn at the ceremonies of the Society of Cannibals in the tribe. It looks like the head of a huge alligator cut out of wood, 'with a sort of wig of cedar bark to represent, hair. A person who is to be initiated into the society spends several months in the woods fasting and is much emaciated when he reappears. After a mock chase he is captured by the other Indians and fetched to the village. He is supposed to be quite wild, and it is his privilege to bite a piece out of the arm or leg of anybody. A festival is held, the ostensible purpose of which is to tame him. It is a very elabórate affair, lasting six weeks, and the climax is reached when the novice disappears and returns with a dead body in his arms. This is immediately cut up and devoured by hiniself .and his fellow cannibals. It is absolutely neeessary that the corpse should be that of one of his own relatives. Not so many years ago this point in the performance would have been mai'ked by the killing of a slave with a warclub, the body eing immediateiy cut up and eaten. The ceremony concludes with the washing of the new eannibal, which operation requires five hours, according to the rituaL When it is finished, he is supposed to be cured of his propensity for biting without provocation. But at any of the numerous tribal ceremonials, if anybody utters a wrong word in a song or misses the rhythm of the music, every member of the Society of Cannibals present is privileged to take a bite out of anybody else. Usually pieces of flesh about as big as a half dollar are bitten out. There is also a society of female cannibals, composed of women, but they do not bite. The ceremonial season among the Fort Rupert Indiaas occurs in the winter. Then for a time the entire social organiza tion of the tribe undergoes a metamorphosis. The ordinary divisions of the people by clans are ignored, and they arrange themselves according to the various societies to which they belong. There is the Ghost society, the Bear society, the Society of the Witch Women, the Society of Fools and many others. These societies are religious in character, being associated also with the tribal myths and traditiona The ancestors of the present generation received from mythical beings certain supernatnral secrets, upon which the societies and the ceremonials are based. One of the societies is the War society. A person undergoing initiation into it is suspended from the rafters of the ceremonial house by a rope passed through strips of the flesh of his back, which are ent for that purpose. Beneath him stand the members of the Society of Fools with sharp lances upraised. If he falls, he is impaled by the lances, and etiquette demands that he shall be eaten at once by the cannibals. It is more than suspected that these Indians do now and then kill an