Chapter IV: Part 4

In their Temples they have his [their chief God, the Devil’s] image
euill favouredly carved, and then painted and adorned with chaines
of copper, and beads, and covered with a skin, in such manner as the
deformitie may well suit with such a God. By him is commonly the
sepulchre of their Kings. Their bodies are first bowelled, then
dried upon hurdles till they be very dry, and so about the most of
their ioynts and necke they hang bracelets, or chaines of copper,
pearle, and such like, as they use to wear. Their inwards they
stuffe with copper beads, hatchets, and such trash. Then lappe they
them very carefully in white skins, and so rowle them in mats for
their winding-sheets. And in the Tombe, which is an arch made of
mats, they lay them orderly. What remaineth of this kind of wealth
their Kings have, they set at their feet in baskets. These temples
and bodies are kept by their Priests.

For their ordinary burials, they dig a deepe hole in the earth with
sharpe stakes, and the corpse being lapped in skins and mats with
their Jewels they lay them upon stickes in the ground, and so cover
them with earth. The buriale ended, the women being painted all
their faces with blacke cole and oyle doe sit twenty-foure houres in
the houses mourning and lamenting by turnes with such yelling and
howling as may expresse their great passions. * * *

Upon the top of certain red sandy hills in the woods there are three
great houses filled with images of their Kings and devils and the
tombes of their predecessors. Those houses are near sixty feet in
length, built harbourwise after their building. This place they
count so holey as that but the priests and Kings dare come into
them; nor the savages dare not go up the river in boates by it, but
that they solemnly cast some piece of copper, white beads or pocones
into the river for feare their Okee should be offended and revenged
of them.

They think that their Werowances and priests which they also esteeme
quiyough-cosughs, when they are deade doe goe beyond the mountains
towards the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in form of
their Okee, with their bedes paynted rede with oyle and pocones,
finely trimmed with feathers, and shall have beads, hatchets,
copper, and tobacco, doing nothing but dance and sing with all their
predecessors. But the common people they suppose shall not live
after deth, but rot in their graves like dede dogges.

This is substantially the same account as has been given on a former page, the verbiage differing slightly, and the remark regarding truthfulness will apply to it as well as to the other.

Figure 1 may again be referred to as an example of the dead-house described.

The Congaree or Santee Indians of South Carolina, according to Lawson, used a process of partial embalmment, as will be seen from the subjoined extract from Schoolcraft;[31] but instead of laying away the remains in caves, placed them in boxes supported above the ground by crotched sticks.

The manner of their interment is thus: A mole or pyramid of earth is
raised, the mould thereof being worked very smooth and even,
sometimes higher or lower according to the dignity of the person
whose monument it is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made
ridgeways, like the roof of a house. This in supported by nine
stakes or small posts, the grave being about 6 to 8 feet in length
and 4 feet in breadth, about which is hung gourds, feathers, and
other such like trophies, placed there by the dead man’s relations
in respect to him in the grave. The other parts of the funeral rites
are thus: As soon as the party is dead they lay the corpse upon a
piece of bark in the sun, seasoning or embalming it with a small
root beaten to powder, which looks as red as vermillion; the same is
mixed with bear’s oil to beautify the hair. After the carcass has
laid a day or two in the sun they remove it and lay it upon crotches
cut on purpose for the support thereof from the earth; then they
anoint it all over with the aforementioned ingredients of the powder
of this root and bear’s oil. When it is so done they cover it over
very exactly with the bark or pine of the cypress tree to prevent
any rain to fall upon it, sweeping the ground very clean all about
it. Some of his nearest of kin brings all the temporal estate he was
possessed of at his death, as guns, bows and arrows, beads,
feathers, match-coat, &c. This relation is the chief mourner, being
clad in moss, with a stick in his hand, keeping a mournful ditty for
three or four days, his face being black with the smoke of pitch
pine mixed with bear’s oil. All the while he tells the dead man’s
relations and the rest of the spectators who that dead person was,
and of the great feats performed in his lifetime, all that he speaks
tending to the praise of the defunct. As soon as the flesh grows
mellow and will cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it,
making the bones very clean, then anoint them with the ingredients
aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth
artificially woven of opossum’s hair. The bones they carefully
preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By
these means they preserve them for many ages, that you may see an
Indian in possession of the bones of his grandfather or some of his
relations of a longer antiquity. They have other sorts of tombs, as
when an Indian is slain in that very place they make a heap of
stones (or sticks where stones are not to be found); to this
memorial every Indian that passes by adds a stone to augment the
heap in respect to the deceased hero. The Indians make a roof of
light wood or pitch-pine over the graves of the more distinguished,
covering it with bark and then with earth, leaving the body thus in
a subterranean vault until the flesh quits the bones. The bones are
then taken up, cleaned, jointed, clad in white-dressed deerskins,
and laid away in the _Quiogozon_, which is the royal tomb or
burial-place of their kings and war-captains, being a more
magnificent cabin reared at the public expense. This Quiogozon is an
object of veneration, in which the writer says he has known the
king, old men, and conjurers to spend several days with their idols
and dead kings, and into which he could never gain admittance.

Another class of mummies are those which have been found in the saltpetre and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a matter of doubt with archæologists whether any special pains were taken to preserve these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the soil with certain minerals would account for the condition in which the specimens were found. Charles Wilkins[32] thus describes one:

* * * An exsiccated body of a female[33] * * * was found at the
depth of about 10 feet from the surface of the cave bedded in clay
strongly impregnated with nitre, placed in a sitting posture,
incased in broad stones standing on their edges, with a flat atone
covering the whole. It was enveloped in coarse clothes, * * * the
whole wrapped in deer-skins, the hair of which was shaved off in the
manner in which the Indians prepare them for market. Enclosed in the
stone coffin were the working utensils, beads, feathers, and other
ornaments of dress which belonged to her.

The next description is by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill.[34*]

AUG. 24th, 1815.

DEAR SIR: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of
American antiquity now in New York. It is a human body: found in one
of the limestone caverns of Kentucky. It is a perfect desiccation;
all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and other firm parts
are in a state of entire preservation. I think it enough to have
puzzled Bryant and all the archæologists.

This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the neighborhood of
Glasgow for saltpetre.

These recesses, though under ground, are yet dry enough to attract
and retain the nitrick acid. It combines with lime and potash; and
probably the earthy matter of these excavations contains a good
proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst them drying and
antiseptick ingredients, it may be conceived that putrefaction would
be stayed, and the solids preserved from decay. The outer envelope
of the body is a deer-skin, probably dried in the usual way, and
perhaps softened before its application by rubbing. The next
covering is a deer’s skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp
instrument resembling a batter’s knife. The remnant of the hair and
the gashes in the skin nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. The
next wrapper is of cloth made of twine doubled and twisted. But the
thread does not appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web
by the loom. The warp and filling seem to have been crossed and
knotted by an operation like that of the fabricks of the northwest
coast, and of the Sandwich Islands. Such a botanist as the lamented
Muhlenbergh could determine the plant which furnished the fibrous
material.

The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth, like the preceding, but
furnished with large brown feathers, arranged and fashioned with
great art, so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from
wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole
bears a near similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the
nations of the northwestern coast of America. A Wilson might tell
from what bird they were derived.

The body is in a squatting posture, with the right arm reclining
forward, and its hand encircling the right leg. The left arm hangs
down, with its hand inclined partly under the seat. The individual,
who was a male, did not probably exceed the age of fourteen at his
death. There is near the occiput a deep and extensive fracture of
the skull, which probably killed him. The skin has sustained little
injury; it is of a dusky colour, but the natural hue cannot be
decided with exactness, from its present appearance. The scalp, with
small exceptions, is covered with sorrel or foxey hair. The teeth
are white and sound. The hands and feet, in their shrivelled state,
are slender and delicate. All this is worthy the investigation of
our acute and perspicacious colleague, Dr. Holmes.

There is nothing bituminous or aromatic in or about the body, like
the Egyptian mummies, nor are there bandages around any part. Except
the several wrappers, the body is totally naked. There is no sign of
a suture or incision about the belly; whence it seems that the
viscera were not removed.

It may now be expected that I should offer some opinion as to the
antiquity and race of this singular exsiccation.

First, then, I am satisfied that it does not belong to that class of
white men of which we are members.

2dly. Nor do I believe that it ought to be referred to the bands of
Spanish adventurers, who, between the years 1500 and 1600, rambled
up the Mississippi, and along its tributary streams. But on this
head I should like to know the opinion of my learned and sagacious
friend, Noah Webster.

3dly. I am equally obliged to reject the opinion that it belonged to
any of the tribes of aborigines, now or lately inhabiting Kentucky.

4thly. The mantle of the feathered work, and the mantle of twisted
threads, so nearly resemble the fabricks of the indigines of Wakash
and the Pacifick Islands, that I refer this individual to that era
of time, and that generation of men, which preceded the Indians of
the Green River, and of the place where these relicks were found.
This conclusion is strengthened by the consideration that such
manufactures are not prepared by the actual and resident red men of
the present day. If the Abbe Clavigero had had this case before him,
he would have thought of the people who constructed those ancient
forts and mounds, whose exact history no man living can give. But I
forbear to enlarge; my intention being merely to manifest my respect
to the society for having enrolled me among its members, and to
invite the attention of its Antiquarians to further inquiry on a
subject of such curiousity.

With respect, I remain yours,

SAMUEL L. MITCHILL.

It would appear, from recent researches on the Northwest coast, that the natives of that region embalmed their dead with much care, as may be seen from the work recently published by W. H. Dall,[35] the description of the mummies being as follows:

We found the dead disposed of in various ways; first, by interment
in their compartments of the communal dwelling, as already
described; second, by being laid on a rude platform of drift-wood or
stones in some convenient rock shelter. These lay on straw and moss,
covered by matting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or
carvings associated with them. We found only three or four specimens
in all in these places, of which we examined a great number. This
was apparently the more ancient form of disposing of the dead, and
one which more recently was still pursued in the case of poor or
unpopular individuals.

Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within a few
centuries, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was
adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The
bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters in running
water, dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings of
fur and fine grass matting. The body was usually doubled up into the
smallest compass, and the mummy case, especially in the case of
children, was usually suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in
some convenient rock shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepared body
was placed in a lifelike position, dressed and armed. They were
placed as if engaged in some congenial occupation, such as hunting,
fishing, sewing, &c. With them were also placed effigies of the
animals they were pursuing, while the hunter was dressed in his
wooden armor and provided with an enormous mask all ornamented with
feathers, and a countless variety of wooden pendants, colored in gay
patterns. All the carvings were of wood, the weapons even were only
fac-similes in wood of the original articles. Among the articles
represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men,
birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of rods or scales of wood,
and remarkable masks, so arranged that the wearer when erect could
only see the ground at his feet. These were worn at their religious
dances from an idea that a spirit which was supposed to animate a
temporary idol was fatal to whoever might look upon it while so
occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the masking of those
who had gone into the land of spirits.

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.

Figure 5, copied from Dall, represents the Alaskan mummies.

Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings’ Expedition,[36] 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
Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company with the
mummified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of
Ounalaska one hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to
science was secured by Captain Henning, an agent of the company who
has long resided at Ounalaska. In his transactions with the Indians
he learned that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the
island in question, as the last resting-place of a great chief,
known as Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the
neighborhood of Kagamale in quest of sea-otter and other furs, and
he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth
of the tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering
the cave than in finding it, his schooner having to beat on and off
shore for three days. Finally he succeeded in affecting a landing,
and clambering up the rocks he found himself in the presence of the
dead chief, his family and relatives.

The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With great care
the mummies were removed, and all the little trinkets and ornaments
scattered around were also taken away.

In all there are eleven packages of bodies. Only two or three have
as yet been opened. The body of the chief is inclosed in a large
basket-like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the
wrappings are finely wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in
texture, and skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of
thinly cut wood, and adjoining the center portions are pieces of
body armor composed of reeds bound together. The body is covered
with the fine skin of the sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in
the interments of the Aleuts, and round the whole package are
stretched the meshes of a fish-net, made of the sinews of the sea
lion; also those of a bird-net. There are evidently some bulky
articles inclosed with the chief’s body, and the whole package
differs very much from the others, which more resemble, in their
brown-grass matting, consignments of crude sugar from the Sandwich
Islands than the remains of human beings. The bodies of a pappoose
and of a very little child, which probably died at birth or soon
after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of the feet of the
latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The remaining mummies are
of adults.

One of the packages has been opened, and it reveals a man’s body in
tolerable preservation, but with a large portion of the face
decomposed. This and the other bodies were doubled up at death by
severing some of the muscles at the hip and knee joints and bending
the limbs downward horizontally upon the trunk. Perhaps the most
peculiar package, next to that of the chief, is one which incloses
in a single matting, with sea-lion skins, the bodies of a man and
woman. The collection also embraces a couple of skulls, male and
female, which have still the hair attached to the scalp. The hair
has changed its color to a brownish red. The relics obtained with
the bodies include a few wooden vessels scooped out smoothly:
a piece of dark, greenish, flat stone, harder than the emerald,
which the Indians use to tan skins; a scalp-lock of jet-black hair;
a small rude figure, which may have been a very ugly doll or an
idol; two or three tiny carvings in ivory of the sea-lion, very
neatly executed; a comb, a necklet made of bird’s claws inserted
into one another, and several specimens of little bags, and a cap
plaited out of sea-grass and almost water-tight.

In Cary’s translation of Herodotus (1853, p. 180) the following passage occurs which purports to describe the manner in which the Macrobrian Ethiopians preserved their dead. It is added, simply as a matter of curious interest, nothing more, for no remains so preserved have ever been discovered.

After this, they visited last of all their sepulchres, which are
said to be prepared from crystal in the following manner. When they
have dried the body, either as the Egyptians do, or in some other
way, they plaster it all over with gypsum, and paint it, making it
as much as possible resemble real life; they then put round it a
hollow column made of crystal, which they dig up in abundance, and
is easily wrought. The body being in the middle of the column is
plainly seen, nor does it emit an unpleasant smell, nor is it in any
way offensive, and it is all visible as the body itself. The nearest
relations keep the column in their houses for a year, offering to it
the first-fruits of all, and performing sacrifices; after that time
they carry it out and place it somewhere near the city.

NOTE.--The Egyptian mummies could only be seen in front, the back
being covered by a box or coffin; the Ethiopian bodies could be seen
all round, as the column of glass was transparent.

With the foregoing examples as illustration, the matter of embalmment may be for the present dismissed, with the advice to observers that particular care should be taken, in case mummies are discovered, to ascertain whether the bodies have been submitted to a regular preservative process, or owe their protection to ingredients in the soil of their graves or to desiccation in arid districts.

URN-BURIAL.

To close the subject of subterranean burial proper, the following account of urn-burial in Foster[37] may be added:

Urn-burial appears to have been practiced to some extent by the
mound-builders, particularly in some of the Southern States. In the
mounds on the Wateree River, near Camden, S.C., according to Dr.
Blanding, ranges of vases, one above the other, filled with human
remains, were found. Sometimes when the mouth of the vase is small
the skull is placed with the face downward in the opening,
constituting a sort of cover. Entire cemeteries have been found in
which urn-burial alone seems to have been practiced. Such a one was
accidentally discovered not many years since in Saint Catherine’s
Island, off the coast of Georgia. Professor Swallow informs me that
from a mound at New Madrid, Mo., he obtained a human skull inclosed
in an earthen jar, the lips of which were too small to admit of its
extraction. It must therefore have been molded on the head after
death.

A similar mode of burial was practiced by the Chaldeans, where the
funeral jars often contain a human cranium much too expanded to
admit of the possibility of its passing out of it, so that either
the clay must have been modeled over the corpse, and then baked, or
the neck of the jar must have been added subsequently to the other
rites of interment.[38]

It is with regret that the writer feels obliged to differ from the distinguished author of the work quoted regarding urn-burial, for notwithstanding that it has been employed by some of the Central and Southern American tribes, it is not believed to have been customary, but _to a very limited extent_, in North America, except as a secondary interment. He must admit that he himself has found bones in urns or ollas in the graves of New Mexico and California, but under circumstances that would seem to indicate a deposition long subsequent to death. In the graves of the ancient peoples of California a number of ollas were found in long used burying places, and it is probable that as the bones were dug up time and again for new burials they were simply tossed into pots, which were convenient receptacles, or it may have been that bodies were allowed to repose in the earth long enough for the fleshy parts to decay, and the bones were then collected, placed in urns, and reinterred. Dr. E. Foreman, of the Smithsonian Institution, furnishes the following account of urns used for burial:

I would call your attention to an earthenware burial-urn and cover,
Nos. 27976 and 27977, National Museum, but very recently received
from Mr. William McKinley, of Milledgeville, Ga. It was exhumed on
his plantation, ten miles below that city, on the bottom lands of
the Oconee River, now covered with almost impassible canebrakes,
tall grasses, and briers. We had a few months ago from the same
source one of the covers, of which the ornamentation was different
but more entire. A portion of a similar cover has been received also
from Chattanooga, Tenn. Mr. McKinley ascribes the use of these urns
and covers to the Muscogees, a branch of the Creek Nation.

These urns are made of baked clay, and are shaped somewhat like the ordinary steatite ollas found in the California coast graves, but the bottoms instead of being round run down to a sharp apex; on the top was a cover, the upper part of which also terminated in an apex, and around the border, near where it rested on the edge of the vessel, are indented scroll ornamentations.

The burial urns of New Mexico are thus described by E. A. Barber:[39]

Burial-urns * * * comprise vessels or ollas without handles, for
cremation, usually being from 10 to 15 inches in height, with broad,
open mouths, and made of coarse clay, with a laminated exterior
(partially or entirely ornamented). Frequently the indentations
extend simply around the neck or rim, the lower portion being plain.

So far as is known, up to the present time no burial-urns have been found in North America resembling those discovered in Nicaragua by Dr. J. C. Bransford, U.S.N., but it is quite within the range of possibility that future researches in regions not far distant from that which he explored may reveal similar treasures. Figure 6 represents different forms of burial-urns, _a_, _b_, and _e_, after Foster, are from Laporte, Ind. _f_, after Foster, is from Greenup County, Kentucky; _d_ is from Milledgeville, Ga., in Smithsonian collection, No. 27976; and _c_ is one of the peculiar shoe-shaped urns brought from Ometepec Island, Lake Nicaragua, by Surgeon J. C. Bransford, U.S.N.

SURFACE BURIAL.

This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far as can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it was employed as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed for time. The Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow trees, the bodies being placed in an upright position, occasionally the dead being crammed into a hollow log lying on the ground. With some of the Eastern tribes a log was split in half and hollowed out sufficiently large to contain the corpse; it was then lashed together with withes and permitted to remain where it was originally placed. In some cases a pen was built over and around it. This statement is corroborated by R. S. Robertson, of Fort Wayne, Ind., who states, in a communication received in 1877, that the Miamis practiced surface burial in two different ways:

* * * 1st. The surface burial in hollow logs. These have been found
in heavy forests. Sometimes a tree has been split and the two halves
hollowed out to receive the body, when it was either closed with
withes or confined to the ground with crossed stakes; and sometimes
a hollow tree is used by closing the ends.

2d. Surface burial where the body was covered by a small pen of logs
laid up as we build a cabin, but drawing in every course until they
meet in a single log at the top.

The writer has recently received from Prof. C. Engelhardt, of Copenhagen, Denmark, a brochure describing the oak coffins of Borum-Æshœi. From an engraving in this volume it would appear that the manner employed by the ancient Danes of hollowing out logs for coffins has its analogy among the North American Indians.

Romantically conceived, and carried out to the fullest possible extent in accordance with the _ante mortem_ wishes of the dead, were the obsequies of Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas. The account is given by George Catlin:[40]

He requested them to take his body down the river to this his
favorite haunt, and on the pinnacle of this towering bluff to bury
him on the back of his favorite war-horse, which was to be buried
alive under him, from whence he could see, as he said, “the
Frenchmen passing up and down the river in their boats.” He owned,
amongst many horses, a noble white steed, that was led to the top of
the grass-covered hill, and with great pomp and ceremony, in the
presence of the whole nation and several of the fur-traders and the
Indian agent, he was placed astride of his horse’s back, with his
bow in his hand, and his shield and quiver slung, with his pipe and
his medicine bag, with his supply of dried meat, and his
tobacco-pouch replenished to last him through the journey to the
beautiful hunting grounds of the shades of his fathers, with his
flint, his steel, and his tinder to light his pipe by the way; the
scalps he had taken from his enemies’ heads could be trophies for
nobody else, and were hung to the bridle of his horse. He was in
full dress, and fully equipped, and on his head waved to the last
moment his beautiful head-dress of the war-eagles’ plumes. In this
plight, and the last funeral honors having been performed by the
medicine-men, every warrior of his band painted the palm and fingers
of his right hand with vermillion, which was stamped and perfectly
impressed on the milk-white sides of his devoted horse. This all
done, turfs were brought and placed around the feet and legs of the
horse, and gradually laid up to its sides, and at last over the back
and head of the unsuspecting animal, and last of all over the head
and even the eagle plumes of its valiant rider, where all together
have smouldered and remained undisturbed to the present day.

Figure 7, after Schoolcraft, represents an Indian burial-ground on a high bluff of the Missouri River.

According to the Rev. J. G. Wood,[41] the Obongo, an African tribe, buried their dead in a manner similar to that which has been stated of the Seminoles:

When an Obongo dies it is usual to take the body to a hollow tree in
the forest and drop it into the hollow, which is afterwards filled
to the top with earth, leaves, and branches.

M. de la Potherie[42] gives an account of surface burial as practiced by the Iroquois of New York:

Quand ce malade est mort, on le met sur son séant, on oint ses
cheveux et tout son corps d’huile d’animaux, on lui applique du
vermillon sur le visage; on lui met toutes sortes de beaux plumages
de la rassade de la porcelaine et on le pare des plus beaux habits
que l’on peut trouver, pendant que les parens et des vieilles
continuent toujours à pleurer. Cette cérémonie finie, les alliez
apportent plusieurs présens. Les uns sont pour essuyer les larmes et
les autres pour servir de matelas au défunt, on en destine certains
pour couvrir la fosse, de peur, disent-ils, que la plague ne
l’incommode, on y étend fort proprement des peaux d’ours et de
chevreuils qui lui servent de lit, et on lui met ses ajustemens avec
un sac de farine de bled d’Inde, de la viande, sa cuillière, et
généralement tout ce qu’il faut à un homme qui veut faire un long
voyage, avec toux les présens qui lui ont été faits á sa mort, et
s’il a été guerrier on lui donne ses armes pour s’en servir au pais
des morts. L’on couvre ensuite ce cadavre d’écorce d’arbres sur
lesquelles on jette de la terre et quantité de pierres, et on
l’entoure de pierres pour empêcher que les animaux ne le déterrent.
Ces sortes de funérailles ne se font que dans leur village.
Lorsqu’ils meurent en campagne on les met dans un cercueil d’écorce,
entre les branches des arbres où on les élève sur quatre pilliers.

On observe ces mêmes funérailles aux femmes et aux filles. Tous ceux
qui ont assisté aux obsèques profitent de toute la dépouille du
défunt et s’il n’avoit rien, les parens y supléent. Ainsi ils ne
pleurent pas en vain. Le deuil consiste à ne se point couper ni
graisser les cheveux et de se tenir négligé sans aucune parure,
couverts de méchantes hardes. Le père et la mère portent le deuil de
leur fils. Si le père meurt les garçons le portent, et les filles de
leur mère.

Dr. P. Gregg, of Rock Island, Illinois, has been kind enough to forward to the writer an interesting work by J. V. Spencer,[43] containing annotations by himself. He gives the following account of surface and partial surface burial occurring among the Sacs and Foxes formerly inhabiting Illinois:

Black Hawk was placed upon the ground in a sitting posture, his
hands grasping his cane. They usually made a shallow hole in the
ground, setting the body in up to the waist, so the most of the body
was above ground. The part above ground was then covered by a
buffalo robe, and a trench about eight feet square was then dug
about the grave. In this trench they set picketing about eight feet
high, which secured the grave against wild animals. When I first
came here there were quite a number of these high picketings still
standing where their chiefs had been buried, and the body of a chief
was disposed of in this way while I lived near their village. The
common mode of burial was to dig a shallow grave, wrap the body in a
blanket, place it in the grave, and fill it nearly full of dirt;
then take split sticks about three feet long and stand them in the
grave so that their tops would come together in the form of a roof;
then they filled in more earth so as to hold the sticks in place.
I saw a father and mother start out alone to bury their child about
a year old; they carried it by tieing it up in a blanket and putting
a long stick through the blanket, each taking an end of the stick.

I have also seen the dead bodies placed in trees. This is done by
digging a trough out of a log, placing the body in it, and covering
it. I have seen several bodies in one tree. I think when they are
disposed of in this way it is by special request, as I knew of an
Indian woman who lived with a white family who desired her body
placed in a tree, which was accordingly done.[44*] Doubtless there
was some peculiar superstition attached to this mode, though I do
not remember to have heard what it was.

Judge H. Welch[45] states that “the Sauks, Foxes, and Pottawatomies buried by setting the body on the ground and building a pen around it of sticks or logs. I think the bodies lay heads to the east.” And C. C. Baldwin, of Cleveland, Ohio, sends a more detailed account, as follows:

I was some time since in Seneca County and there met Judge Welch.
* * * In 1824 he went with his father-in-law, Judge Gibson, to Fort
Wayne. On the way they passed the grave of an Ottawa or Pottawatomie
chief. The body lay on the ground covered with notched poles. It had
been there but a few days and the worms were crawling around the
body. My special interest in the case was the accusation of
witchcraft against a young squaw who was executed for killing him by
her arts. In the Summit County mounds there were only parts of
skeletons with charcoal and ashes, showing they had been burned.

W. A. Brice[46] mentions a curious variety of surface burial not heretofore met with:

And often had been seen, years ago, swinging from the bough of a
tree, or in a hammock stretched between two trees, the infant of the
Indian mother; or a few little log inclosures, where the bodies of
adults sat upright, with all their former apparel wrapped about
them, and their trinkets, tomahawks, &c., by their side, could be
seen at any time for many years by the few pale-faces visiting or
sojourning here.

A method of interment so closely allied to surface burial that it may be considered under that head is the one employed by some of the Ojibways and Swampy Crees of Canada. A small cavity is scooped out, the body deposited therein, covered with a little dirt, the mound thus formed being covered either with split planks, poles, or birch bark.

Prof. Henry Youle Hind, who was in charge of the Canadian Red River exploring expedition of 1858, has been good enough to forward to the Bureau of Ethnology two photographs representing the variety of grave, which he found 15 or 20 miles from the present town of Winnipeg, and they are represented in the woodcuts, Figures 8 and 9.

_CAIRN-BURIAL._

The next mode of interment to be considered is that of cairn or rock burial, which has prevailed and is still common to a considerable extent among the tribes living in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.

In the summer of 1872 the writer visited one of these rock cemeteries in Middle Utah, which had been used for a period not exceeding fifteen or twenty years. It was situated at the bottom of a rock slide, upon the side of an almost inaccessible mountain, in a position so carefully chosen for concealment that it would have been almost impossible to find it without a guide. Several of the graves were opened, and found to have been constructed in the following manner: A number of bowlders had been removed from the bed of the slide until a sufficient cavity had been obtained; this was lined with skins, the corpse placed therein, with weapons, ornaments, &c., and covered over with saplings of the mountain aspen; on the top of these the removed bowlders were piled, forming a huge cairn, which appeared large enough to have marked the last resting place of an elephant. In the immediate vicinity of the graves were scattered the osseous remains of a number of horses which had been sacrificed, no doubt, during the funeral ceremonies. In one of the graves, said to contain the body of a chief, in addition to a number of articles useful and ornamental, were found parts of the skeleton of a boy, and tradition states that a captive boy was buried alive at this place.

From Dr. O. G. Given, physician to the Kiowa and Comanche Agency, Indian Territory, the following description of burial ceremonies was received. According to this gentleman the Kiowas call themselves _Kaw-a-wāh_, the Comanches _Nerm_, and the Apaches _Tāh-zee_.

They bury in the ground or in crevices of rocks. They do not seem to
have any particular rule with regard to the position. Sometimes
prone, sometimes supine, but always decumbent. They select a place
where the grave is easily prepared, which they do with such
implements as they chance to have, viz, a squaw-axe, or hoe. If they
are traveling, the grave is often very hastily prepared and not much
time is spent in finishing. I was present at the burial of Black
Hawk, an Apache chief, some two years ago, and took the body in my
light wagon up the side of a mountain to the place of burial. They
found a crevice in the rocks about four feet wide and three feet
deep. By filling in loose rocks at either end they made a very nice
tomb. The body was then put in face downwards, short sticks were put
across, resting on projections of rock at the sides, brush was
thrown on this, and flat rocks laid over the whole of it.

The body of the deceased is dressed in the best clothing, together
with all the ornaments most admired by the person when living. The
face is painted with any colored paint they may have, mostly red and
yellow, as I have observed. The body is then wrapped in skins,
blankets, or domestic, with the hands laid across the breast, and
the legs placed upon the thighs. They put into the grave their guns,
bows and arrows, tobacco, and if they have it a blanket, moccasins,
and trinkets of various kinds. One or more horses are killed over or
near the grave. Two horses and a mule were killed near Black Hawk’s
grave. They were led up near and shot in the head. At the death of a
Comanche chief, some years ago, I am told about seventy horses were
killed, and a greater number than that were said to have been killed
at the death of a prominent Kiowa chief a few years since.

The mourning is principally done by the relatives and immediate
friends, although any one of their own tribe, or one of another
tribe, who chances to be passing, will stop and moan with the
relatives. Their mourning consists in a weird wail, which to be
described must be heard, and once heard is never forgotten, together
with the scarifying of their faces, arms, and legs with some sharp
instrument, the cutting off of the hair, and oftentimes the cutting
off of a joint of a finger, usually the little finger (Comanches do
not cut off fingers). The length of time and intensity of their
mourning depends upon the relation and position of the deceased in
the tribe. I have known instances where, if they should be passing
along where any of their friends had died, even a year after their
death, they would mourn.

The Shoshones, of Nevada, generally concealed their dead beneath heaps of rocks, according to H. Butterfield, of Tyho, Nye County, Nevada, although occasionally they either burn or bury them. He gives as reasons for rock burial: 1st, to prevent coyotes eating the corpses; 2d, because they have no tools for deep excavations; and 3d, natural indolence of the Indians--indisposition to work any more than can be helped.

The Pi-Utes, of Oregon, bury in cairns; the Blackfeet do the same, as did also the Acaxers and Yaquis, of Mexico, and the Esquimaux; in fact, a number of examples might be quoted. In foreign lands the custom prevailed among certain African tribes, and it is said that the ancient Balearic Islanders covered their dead with a heap of stones, but this ceremony was preceded by an operation which consisted in cutting the body in small pieces and collecting in a pot.

CREMATION.

Next should be noted this mode of disposing of the dead, a common custom to a considerable extent among North American tribes, especially those living on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, although we have undoubted evidence that it was also practiced, among the more eastern ones. This rite may be considered as peculiarly interesting from its great antiquity, for Tegg[47] informs us that it reached as far back as the Theban war, in the account of which mention is made of the burning of Menœacus and Archemorus, who were contemporary with Jair, eighth judge of Israel. It was common in the interior of Asia, and among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and has also prevailed among the Hindoos up to the present time. In fact, it is now rapidly becoming a custom among civilized people.

While there is a certain degree of similarity between the performance of this rite among the people spoken of and the Indians of North America, yet, did space admit, a discussion might profitably be entered upon regarding the details of it among the ancients and the origin of the ceremony. As it is, simple narrations of cremation in the country, with discursive notes and an account of its origin among the Nishinams of California, by Stephen Powers,[48] seem to be all that is required at this time:

The moon and the coyote wrought together in creating all things that
exist. The moon was good, but the coyote was bad. In making men and
women, the moon wished to so fashion their souls that when they died
they should return to the earth after two or three days as he
himself does when he dies. But the coyote was evil disposed and said
this should not be; but that when men died their friends should burn
their bodies and once a year make a great mourning for them and the
coyote prevailed. So, presently when deer died, they burned his
body, as the coyote had decreed and after a year they made a great
mourning for him. But the moon created the rattlesnake and caused it
to bite the coyote’s son, so that he died. Now, though the coyote
had been willing to burn the deer’s relations, he refused to burn
his own son. Then the moon said unto him, “This is your own rule.
You would have it so, and now your son shall be burned like the
others.” So he was burned, and after a year the coyote mourned for
him. Thus the law was established over the coyote also, and, as he
had dominion over men, it prevailed over men likewise.

This story is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in
that it shows there was a time when the California Indians did not
practice cremation, which is also established by other traditions.
It hints at the additional fact that the Nishinams to this day set
great store by the moon, consider it their benefactor in a hundred
ways and observe its changes for a hundred purposes.

Another myth regarding cremation is given by Adam Johnston in Schoolcraft[49] and relates to the Bonaks, or root-diggers:

The first Indians that lived were coyotes. When one of their number
died the body became full of little animals or spirits, as they
thought then. After crawling over the body for a time they took all
manner of shapes, some that of the deer, others the elk, antelope,
etc. It was discovered however, that great numbers were taking wings
and for a while they sailed about in the air, but eventually they
would fly off to the moon. The old coyotes or Indians, fearing the
earth might become depopulated in this way, concluded to stop it at
once and ordered that when one of their people died the body must be
burnt. Ever after they continued to burn the bodies of deceased
persons.

Ross Cox gives an account of the process as performed by the Tolkotins of Oregon:[50]

The ceremonies attending the dead are very singular and quite
peculiar to this tribe. The body of the deceased is kept nine days
laid out in his lodge and on the tenth it is buried. For this
purpose a rising ground is selected, on which are laid a number of
sticks, about 7 feet long, of cypress, neatly split and in the
interstices, placed a quantity of gummy wood. During these
operations invitations are dispatched to the natives of the
neighboring villages requesting their attendance at the ceremony.
When the preparations are perfected, the corpse is placed on the
pile, which is immediately ignited and during the process of
burning, the bystanders appear to be in a high state of merriment.
If a stranger happen to be present they invariably plunder him, but
if that pleasure be denied them, they never separate without
quarreling among themselves. Whatever property the deceased
possessed is placed about the corpse, and if he happened to be a
person of consequence, his friends generally purchase a capote,
a shirt, a pair of trousers, &c, which articles are also laid around
the pile. If the doctor who attended him has escaped uninjured, he
is obliged to be present at the ceremony, and for the last time
tries his skill in restoring the defunct to animation. Failing in
this, he throws on the body a piece of leather, or some other
article, as a present, which in some measure appeases the resentment
of his relatives, and preserves the unfortunate quack from being
maltreated. During the nine days the corpse is laid out, the widow
of the deceased is obliged to sleep along side it from sunset to
sunrise, and from this custom there is no relaxation even during the
hottest days of summer! While the doctor is performing his last
operations she must lie on the pile, and after the fire is applied
to it she cannot stir until the doctor orders her to be removed,
which, however, is never done until her body is completely covered
with blisters. After being placed on her legs, she is obliged to
pass her hands gently through the flame and collect some of the
liquid fat which issues from the corpse, with which she is permitted
to wet her face and body. When the friends of the deceased observe
the sinews of the legs and arms beginning to contract they compel
the unfortunate widow to go again on the pile, and by dint of hard
pressing to straighten those members.

If during her husband’s life time she has been known to have
committed any act of infidelity or omitted administering to him
savory food or neglected his clothing, &c. she is now made to suffer
severely for such lapses of duty by his relations, who frequently
fling her in the funeral pile, from which she is dragged by her
friends, and thus between alternate scorching and cooling she is
dragged backwards and forwards until she falls into a state of
insensibility.

After the process of burning the corpse has terminated, the widow
collects the larger bones, which she rolls up in an envelope of
birch bark and which she is obliged for some years afterwards to
carry on her back. She is now considered and treated as a slave, all
the laborious duties of cooking, collecting food, &c. devolve on
her. She must obey the orders of all the women, and even of the
children belonging to the village, and the slightest mistake or
disobedience subjects her to the infliction of a heavy punishment.
The ashes of her husband are carefully collected and deposited in a
grave which it is her duty to keep free from weeds, and should any
such appear, she is obliged to root them out with her fingers.
During this operation her husband’s relatives stand by and beat her
in a cruel manner until the task is completed or she falls a victim
to their brutality. The wretched widows, to avoid this complicated
cruelty, frequently commit suicide. Should she, however, linger on
for three or four years, the friends of her husband agree to relieve
her from the her painful mourning. This is a ceremony of much
consequence and the preparations for it occupy a considerable time
generally from six to eight months. The hunters proceed to the
various districts in which deer and beaver abound and after
collecting large quantities of meat and fur return to the village.
The skins are immediately bartered for guns, ammunition, clothing,
trinkets, &c. Invitations are then sent to the inhabitants of the
various friendly villages, and when they have all assembled the
feast commences, and presents are distributed to each visitor. The
object of their meeting is then explained, and the woman is brought
forward, still carrying on her back the bones of her late husband,
which are now removed and placed in a covered box, which is nailed
or otherwise fastened to a post twelve feet high. Her conduct as a
faithful widow is next highly eulogized, and the ceremony of her
manumission is completed by one man powdering on her head the down
of birds and another pouring on it the contents of a bladder of oil.
She is then at liberty to marry again or lead a life of single
blessedness, but few of them, I believe, wish to encounter the risk
attending a second widowhood.

The men are condemned to a similar ordeal, but they do not bear it
with equal fortitude, and numbers fly to distant quarters to avoid
the brutal treatment which custom has established as a kind of
religious rite.

Figure 10 is an ideal sketch of the cremation according to the description given.

Perhaps a short review of some of the peculiar and salient points of this narrative may be permitted.