ALASKAN MUMMIES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1641, 22 March 1884, Page 4

ALASKAN MUMMIES.

Pour Alaskan mummies were brought from Alaska by tho schooner Miah;on her last trip, Thrcq go to Berlin and ono to the Smithsonian In. stitution. The bodies are wonderfully preserved, even the skins in which they are wrapped being intact, One mummy evidently that of a woman, is now in possession of the Alaska Fur Company, and is in a state of almost perfect preservation. The mummies were secured by A Jacobsen, who has been over two years in the country collecting for the Royal Museum of Berlin, He is of opinion that the mummies are at least 200 years old, all evidenco obtainable pointing to that fact. The Esquimaux formerly preserved the bodies of their dead shamans, or medicine men, and those of their chiefs and their wives and their children, in this manner. After death the viscera were removed from the interior of the body through the pelvis, and the limbs being pressed close to tho body, the legs woll up under the chin, were dried and encased in skins, and then placed in some cave or rock shelter which was free from water or moisture. Here they remained for hundreds of years, and were reverenced by tho living. To them were offered part of tho results of their fishing and hunting oxcursions, if they were successful, for they judged success to be duo to tho Bpirits of those bodies were preserved. The mummies just brought down are in a wonderful state of preservation, considering the rude means employed. In the case of one that has been opened, the skin appears to remain intact, and the limbs are movablo,—San Francisco Bulletin.