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, etc., and covered over
with saplings of the mountain aspen; on 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.
In connection with this mode of burial it may be 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.