"The practice of preserving the bodies of those belonging to the
whaling class--a custom peculiar to the Kadiak Innuit--has erroneously
been confounded with the one now described. The latter included women
as well as men, and all those whom the living desired particularly to
honor. The whalers, however, only preserved the bodies of males, and
they were not associated with the paraphernalia of those I have
described. Indeed, the observations I have been able to make show the
bodies of the whalers to have been preserved with stone weapons and
actual utensils instead of effigies, and with the meanest apparel, and
no carvings of consequence. These details, and those of many other
customs and usages of which the shell heaps bear no testimony ... do
not come within my line."

Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings' Expedition [Footnote: Billings'
Exped. 1802, p. 167.] in 1802, speaks of the Aleutian Islanders
embalming their dead, as follows:

"They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead, for they embalm
the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass; bury them in their
best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with their darts
and instruments; and decorate the tomb with various coloured mats,
embroidery, and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less ceremony.
A mother will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut for some
months, constantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it begins to
smell, or when they get reconciled to parting with it."

Regarding these same people, a writer in the San Francisco Bulletin
gives this account-

"The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska Commercial