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 informs us that it
reached as far back as the Theban war, in the account of which mention
is made of the burning of Menoaeus 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 peoples 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
this country, with discursive notes and an account of its origin among
the Nishinams of California, by Stephen Powers, [Footnote: Cont. to N.
A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. iii, p. 341] 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 a 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 [Footnote: Hist. Indian tribes of the United States, 1854,
part IV, p. 224] 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 them. 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 [Footnote: Adventures on the Columbia River, 1831, vol. ii,
p. 387] gives an account of the process as performed by the Tolkotins
of Oregon:
"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 seven feet long, of cypress, neatly split, and in the
interstices is 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,
etc., 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 lifetime she has been known to have committed
any act of infidelity or omitted administering to him savory food or
neglected his clothing, etc, 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 fuel, etc., 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 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, etc. Invitations are then bent
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."
Perhaps a short review of some of the peculiar and salient points of
this narrative may be permitted. It is stated that the corpse is kept
nine days after death--certainly a long period of time, when it is
remembered that Indians as a rule endeavor to dispose of their dead as
soon as possible. This may be accounted for on the supposition that it
is to give the friends and relatives an opportunity of assembling,
verifying the death, and of making proper preparations for the
ceremony. With regard to the verification of the dead person, William
Sheldon [Footnote: Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p 377] gives
an account of a similar custom which was common among the Caraibs of
Jamaica, and which seems to throw some light upon the unusual
retention of deceased persons by the tribe in question, although it
must be admitted that this is mere hypothesis:
"They had some very extraordinary customs respecting deceased persons.
When one of them died, it was necessary that all his relations should
see him and examine the body in order to ascertain that he died a
natural death. They acted so rigidly on this principle, that if one
relative remained who had not seen the body all the others could not
convince that one that the death was natural. In such a case the
absent relative considered himself as bound in honor to consider all
the other relatives as having been accessories to the death of the
kinsman, and did not rest until he had killed one of them to revenge
the death of the deceased. If a Caraib died in Martinico or Guadaloupe
and his relations lived in St. Vincents, it was necessary to summon
them to see the body, and several months sometime elapsed before it
could be finally interred. When a Caraib died he was immediately
painted all over with _roucou_, and had his mustachios and the
black streaks in his face made with a black paint, which was different
from that used in their lifetime. A kind of grave was then dug in the
_carbet_ where he died, about 4 feet square and 6 or 7 feet deep.
The body was let down in it, when sand was thrown in, which reached to
the knees, and the body was placed in it in a sitting posture,
resembling that in which they crouched round the fire or the table
when alive, with the elbows on the knees and the palms of the hands
against the cheeks. No part of the body touched the outside of the
grave, which was covered with wood and mats until all the relations
had examined it. When the customary examinations and inspections were
ended the hole was filled, and the bodies afterwards remained
undisturbed. The hair of the deceased was kept tied behind. In this
way bodies have remained several months without any symptoms of decay
or producing any disagreeable smell. The _roucou_ not only
preserved them from the sun, air, and insects during their lifetime,
but probably had the same effect after death. The arms of the Caraibs
were placed by them when they were covered over for inspection, and
they were finally buried with them."
Again, we are told that during the burning the by-standers are very
merry. This hilarity is similar to that shown by the Japanese at a
funeral, who rejoice that the troubles and worries of the world are
over for the fortunate dead. The plundering of strangers present, it
may be remembered, also took place among the Indians of the Carolinas.
As already mentioned on a preceding page, the cruel manner in which
the widow is treated seems to be a modification of the Hindoo suttee,
but if the account be true, it would appear that death might be
preferable to such torments.
It is interesting to note that in Corsica, as late as 1743, if a
husband died women threw themselves upon the widow and beat her
severely. Bruhier quaintly remarks that this custom obliged women to
take good care of their husbands.
George Gibbs, in Schoolcraft, [Footnote: Hist. Indian Tribes of the
United States, 1853, part iii, p. 112.] states that among the Indians
of Clear Lake, California, "the body is consumed upon a scaffold built
over a hole, into which the ashes are thrown and covered"
According to Stephen Powers, [Footnote: Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol.,
1877, vol. iii, p. 169.] cremation was common among the Se-nel of
California. He thus relates it--
"The dead are mostly burned. Mr. Willard described to me a scene of
incremation that be once witnessed which was frightful for its
exhibitions of fanatic frenzy and infatuation. The corpse was that of
a wealthy chieftain, and as he lay upon the funeral pyre they placed
in his mouth two gold twenties, and other smaller coins in his ears
and hands, on his breast, etc., besides all his finery, his feather
mantles, plumes, clothing, shell money, his fancy bows, painted
arrows, etc. When the torch was applied they set up a mournful
ululation, chanting and dancing about him, gradually working
themselves into a wild and ecstatic raving, which seemed almost a
demoniacal possession, leaping, howling, lacerating their flesh. Many
seemed to lose all self-control. The younger English-speaking Indians
generally lend themselves charily to such superstitious work,
especially if American spectators are present, but even they were
carried away by the old contagious frenzy of their race. One stripped
off a broadcloth coat, quite new and fine, and ran frantically yelling
and cast it upon the blazing-pile. Another rushed up and was about to
throw on a pile of California blankets, when a white man, to test his
sincerity, offered him $16 for them, jingling the bright coins before
his eyes, but the savage (for such he had become again for the
moment), otherwise so avaricious, hurled him away with a yell of
execration and ran and threw his offering into the flames. Squaws,
even more frenzied, wildly flung upon the pyre all they had in the
world--their dearest ornaments, their gaudiest dresses, their strings
of glittering shells. Screaming, wailing, tearing their hair, beating
their breasts in their mad and insensate infatuation, some of them
would have cast themselves bodily into the flaming ruins and perished
with the chief had they not been restrained by their companions. Then
the bright, swift flames with their hot tongues licked this 'cold
obstruction' into chemic change, and the once 'delighted spirit' of
the savage was borne up....
"It seems as if the savage shared in Shakspeare's shudder at the
thought of rotting in the dismal grave, for it is the one passion of
his superstition to think of the soul of his departed friend set free
and purified by the swift purging heat of the flames, not dragged down
to be clogged and bound in the moldering body, but borne up in the
soft, warm chariots of the smoke toward the beautiful sun, to bask in
his warmth and light, and then, to fly away to the Happy Western Land.
What wonder if the Indian shrinks with unspeakable horror from the
thought of _burying his friend's soul!_--of pressing and ramming
down with pitiless clods that inner something which once took such
delight in the sweet light of the sun! What wonder if it takes years
to persuade him to do otherwise and follow our custom! What wonder if
even then he does it with sad fears and misgivings! Why not let him
keep his custom! In the gorgeous landscapes and balmy climate of
California and India incremation is as natural to the savage as it is
for him to love the beauty of the sun. Let the vile Esquimaux and the
frozen Siberian bury their dead if they will; it matters little, the
earth is the same above as below, or to them the bosom of the earth
may seem even the better; but in California do not blame the savage if
he recoils at the thought of going under ground! This soft, pale halo
of the lilac hills--ah, let him console himself if he will with the
belief that his lost friend enjoys it still! The narrator concluded by
saying that they destroyed full $500 worth of property. 'The
blankets,' said he with a fine Californian scorn of such absurd
insensibility to a good bargain, 'the blankets that the American
offered him $16 for were not worth half the money.'
"After death the Se-nel hold that bad Indians return into coyotes.
Others fall off a bridge which all souls must traverse, or are hooked
off by a raging bull at the further end, while the good escape across.
Like the Yokaia and the Konkan, they believe it necessary to nourish
the spirits of the departed for the space of a year. This is generally
done by a squaw, who takes pinole in her blanket, repairs to the scene
of the incremation, or to places hallowed by the memory of the dead,
where she scatters it over the ground, meantime rocking her body
violently to and fro in a dance and chanting the following chorus:
Hel-lel-li-ly,
Hel-lel-lo,
Hel-lel-lu.
"This refrain is repeated over and over indefinitely, but the words
have no meaning whatever."
Mr. Henry Gillman [Footnote: Amer. Natural, November, 1878, p. 753]
has published an interesting account of the exploration of a mound
near Waldo, Fla., in which he found abundant evidence that cremation
had existed among the former Indian population. It is as follows:
"In opening a burial-mound at Cade's Pond, a small body of water
situated about two miles northeastward of Santa Fe Lake, Florida, the
writer found two instances of cremation, in each of which the skull of
the subject, which was unconsumed, was used as the depository of his
ashes. The mound contained besides a large number of human burials,
the bones being much decayed. With them were deposited a great number
of vessels of pottery, many of which are painted in brilliant colors,
chiefly red, yellow, and brown, and some of them ornamented with
indented patterns, displaying not a little skill in the ceramic art,
though they are reduced to fragments. The first of the skulls referred
to was exhumed at a depth of 2 1/2 feet. It rested on its apex (base
uppermost), and was filled with fragments of half incinerated human
bones, mingled with dark-colored dust, and the sand which invariably
sifts into crania under such circumstances. Immediately beneath the
skull lay the greater part of a human tibia, presenting the peculiar
compression known as a platycnemism to the degree of affording a
latitudinal index of .512; while beneath and surrounding it lay the
fragments of a large number of human bones, probably constituting an
entire individual. In the second instance of this peculiar mode in
cremation, the cranium was discovered on nearly the opposite side of
the mound, at a depth of 2 feet, and, like the former, resting on its
apex. It was filled with a black mass--the residuum of burnt human
bones mingled with sand. At three feet to the eastward lay the shaft
of a flattened tibia, which presents the longitudinal index of .527.
Both the skulls were free from all action of fire, and though
subsequently crumbling to pieces on their removal, the writer had
opportunity to observe their strong resemblance to the small
orthocephalic crania which he had exhumed from mounds in Michigan. The
same resemblance was perceptible in the other crania belonging to this
mound. The small, narrow, retreating frontal, prominent parietal
protuberances, rather protuberant occipital, which was not in the
least compressed, the well-defined supraciliary ridges, and the
superior border of the orbits, presenting a quadrilateral outline,
were also particularly noticed. The lower facial bones, including the
maxillaries, were wanting. On consulting such works as are accessible
to him, the writer finds no mention of any similar relics having been
discovered in mounds in Florida or elsewhere. For further particulars
reference may be had to a paper on the subject read before the Saint
Louis meeting of the American Association, August, 1878."
The discoveries made by Mr. Gillman would seem to indicate that the
people whose bones he excavated resorted to a process of partial
cremation, some examples of which will be given on another page. The
use of crania as receptacles is certainly remarkable, if not unique.
The fact is well known to archaeologists that whenever cremation was
practiced by Indians it was customary as a rule to throw into the
blazing pyre all sorts of articles supposed to be useful to the dead,
but no instance is known of such a wholesale destruction of property
as occurred when the Indians of southern Utah burned their dead, for
Dr. E. Foreman relates, in the American Naturalist for July, 1876, the
account of the exploration of a mound in that Territory, which proved
that at the death of a person not only were the remains destroyed by
fire, but all articles of personal property, even the very habitation
which had served as a home. After the process was completed, what
remained unburned was covered with earth and a mound formed.
A. S. Tiffany [Footnote: Proc. Dav. Acad. Nat Soc., 1867-76, p. 64.]
describes what he calls a cremation-furnace, discovered within seven
miles of Davenport, Iowa:
"... Mound seven miles below the city, a projecting point known as
Eagle Point. The surface was of the usual black soil to the depth of
from 6 to 8 inches. Next was found a burnt indurated clay, resembling
in color and texture a medium-burned brick, and about 30 inches in
depth. Immediately beneath this clay was a bed of charred human
remains 6 to 18 inches thick. This rested upon the unchanged and
undisturbed loess of the bluffs, which formed the floor of the pit.
Imbedded in this floor of unburned clay were a few very much
decomposed, but unburned, human bones. No implements of any kind were
discovered The furnace appears to have been constructed by excavating
the pit and placing at the bottom of it the bodies or skeletons which
had possibly been collected from scaffolds, and placing the fuel among
and above the bodies, with a covering of poles or split timbers
extending over and resting upon the earth, with the clay covering
above, which latter we now find resting upon the charred remains. The
ends of the timber covering, where they were protected by the earth
above and below, were reduced to charcoal, parallel pieces of which
were found at right angles to the length of the mound. No charcoal was
found among or near the remains, the combustion there having been
complete. The porous and softer portions of the bones were reduced to
pulverized bone-black. Mr. Stevens also examined the furnace. The
mound had probably not been opened after the burning."
This account is doubtless true, but the inferences may be incorrect.
Many more accounts of cremation among different tribes might be given
to show how prevalent was the custom, but the above are thought to be
sufficiently distinctive to serve as examples.