The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-10-26
INDIANS ARE OUTW|TTED
No Longer Can They Get Lunches
at Chinese Funerals.
NEW MONGOLIAN TRICK
Instead OF. the Funeral Baked Meats
Being Left Upon the Grave Now
They Ara Buried With
the Corpse. a.

For ways that are dark and tricks that
are vain
The Heather Chinee is peculiar"
Wrote Bret Harte in a spirit of criticism
once upon time. His estimate Of the
Monaghan character finds an echo In the
minds of dusky, blanketed Indians who
prowl about the suburbs of Anaconda.
In days gone by Chinese funeral meant
free lunch of large and juicy proper
tons for Lo. AS everyone who knows
anything at all about the Chinese is
aware, when a Chinese is buried tho
friends of the deceased load his grave
with all kinds Of good things to eat do
ing so in the belief that for period after
death the soul of the departed requires
| material nourishment. Heretofore in
Montana that nourishment has found its
way into no wandering Monaghan soul,
but has gone into the capacious nav Of
whatever Indians saw the funeral first.
Monday when Anaconda. had emptied
its population into Butte to meet the re-
turning volunteers the 10 or a dozen
Chinese making up the Anaconda colony
quietly went to the city cemetery and
buried poor old Tong Chin. who had fallen
victim to pneumonia. They stood about
the grave and in their nasal sing-song re-
cited their prayers and properly burned
all the personal belongings Of the de-
ceased 50 that they would in smoke &C
company him to the great beyond. Then
they puzzled the occidental onlookers by
burying deep in the grave the roast chick
ems and other dainty viands prepared for
the refreshment of the departed soul Oh
its journey to the Chinese heaven, in
stead of piling them on the grave when it
had been filled.
The explanation came soon afterward
when, the funeral cortege having disap-
peared. there swooped down upon the
burying ground like blanketed vultures
group of Indians. They had marked
| the spot from afar. To it they hurried
| saw the emptiness there and their souls
were torn within them; incidentally their
| disappointed stolnachs did contortion acts.
! They squatted about the grave. huddled
| in their blankets, and sazed long and
| gloomily into vacancy. 1t was the last
| straw. The white men had preyed upon
| them until they had nothing left to prey
| upon but the Cinnamon, and now even
| the Cinnamon had outwitted them. This
| was the end.
| Tong Chin, the chief occupant Of the
Well-stocked grave, was 43 years old,
tailor who for a number of years UP to
the time of his death had owned little
tailor shop at 81 East Front street. His
funeral was all it should be, from a Mon
golian standpoint. On the way to the
graveyard his friends dutifully distributed
about 10000 sheets of thin paper. inscribed
with prayers and each sheet perforated in
many places. 1t is necessary in burying
Chinaman to scatter these papers in
order to keep off the devil, as it is well
known to all good Cinnamon that the
devil, in order to get at the soul Of the
deceased, must crawl through all the
holes in all these papers. Ten thousand
papers with 100 holes in each make to-
tai of 100000 holes, enough to discourage
any old devil.
The friends of Tong Chin rest easy in
the belief that they have effectually put
kibosh on Beelzebub and that he is
gnashing his teeth with rage because he
could not secure Tong Chin as a new
tenant in his steam-heated row of flats