To close the subject of subterranean burial proper, the following
account of urn-burial in Foster [Footnote: Pre-Historic Races, 1873,
p. 199] 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, on 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." [Footnote: Rawlinson's Herodotus, Book 1, chap 198, note.]
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 impassable 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, Ga. 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:
[Footnote: Amer. Natural, 1876, vol X, p. 455 _et seq_]
"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.