Thoreau

the sealaska heritage institute was a great research resource for my first novel - which has a great deal of Haida/Tlingit legend and practice in the story. Particularly interesting was reading through court transcripts of a family being sued by the provincial government for killing a deer out of season. Part of the burial ritual for the Tlingit is to bury (particularly shaman) with the cremeated remains of a buck leaving the "rack" of antlers in the hands of the body before it too is cremated. then the ashes are put in a Mahalet leather bag with runes and stones - and left in the family home for a year after the transition. It's believed that this keeps the dead connected to the living for one full set of seasons - allowing them to 'supervise the smooth transition of duties, responsibilities and the telling of legends and ceremony'.