Under this heading may be placed the burials which consisted in first
depositing the bodies on scaffolds, where they were allowed to remain
for a variable length of time, after which the bones were cleaned and
deposited either in the earth or in special structures called by
writers "bone-houses." Roman [Footnote: Hist. of Florida, 1775, p.
89.] relates the following concerning the Choctaws:
"The following treatment of the dead is very strange ... As soon as
the deceased is departed, a stage is erected (as in the annexed plate
is represented) and the corpse is laid on it and covered with a bear
skin; if he be a man of note, it is decorated, and the poles painted
red with vermillion and bear's oil; if a child, it is put upon stakes
set across; at this stage the relations come and weep, asking many
questions of the corpse, such as, why he left them? did not his wife
serve him well? was he not contented with his children? had he not
corn enough? did not his land produce sufficient of everything? was he
afraid of his enemies? etc. and this accompanied by loud howlings; the
women will be there constantly, and sometimes with the corrupted air
and heat of the sun faint so as to oblige the bystanders to carry them
home; the men will also come and mourn in the same manner, but in the
night or at other unseasonable times, when they are least likely to be
discovered.
"The stage is fenced round with poles; it remains thus a certain time
but not a fixed space; this is sometimes extended to three or four
months, but seldom more than half that time. A certain set of
venerable old Gentlemen who wear very long nails as a distinguishing
badge on the thumb, fore and middle finger of each hand, constantly
travel through the nation (when i was there, i was told there were but
five of this respectable order) that one of them may acquaint those
concerned, of the expiration of this period, which is according to
their own fancy; the day being come, the friends and relations
assemble near the stage, a fire is made, and the respectable operator,
after the body is taken down, with his nails tears the remaining flesh
off the bones, and throws it with the entrails into the fire, where it
is consumed; then he scrapes the bones and burns the scrapings
likewise; the head being painted red with vermillion is with the rest
of the bones put into a neatly made chest (which for a Chief is also
made red) and deposited in the loft of a hut built for that purpose,
and called bone house; each town has one of these; after remaining
here one year or thereabouts, if he be a man of any note, they take
the chest down, and in an assembly of relations and friends they weep
once more over him, refresh the colour of the head, paint the box, and
then deposit him to lasting oblivion.
"An enemy nor one who commits suicide is buried under the earth as one
to be directly forgotten and unworthy the above ceremonial obsequies
and mourning."
Jones [Footnote: Antiquities of the Southern Indiana, 1873, p. 105.]
quotes one of the older writers, as follows, regarding the
_Natchez_ tribe:
"Among the Natchez the dead were either inhumed or placed in tombs.
These tombs were located within or very near their temples. They
rested upon four forked sticks fixed fast in the ground, and were
raised some three feet above the earth. About eight feet long and a
foot and a half wide, they were prepared for the reception of a single
corpse. After the body was placed upon it, a basket-work of twigs was
woven around and covered with mud, an opening being left at the head,
through which food was presented to the deceased. When the flesh had
all rotted away, the bones were taken out, placed in a box made of
canes, and then deposited in the temple. The common dead were mourned
and lamented for a period of three days. Those who fell in battle were
honored with a more protracted and grievous lamentation."
Bartram [Footnote: Bartram's Travel, 1791, p. 516.] gives a somewhat
different account from Roman of burial among the Choctaws of Carolina:
"The Choctaws pay their last duties and respect to the deceased in a
very different manner. As soon as a person is dead, they erect a
scaffold 18 or 20 feet high in a grove adjacent to the town, where
they lay the corps, lightly covered with a mantle; here it is suffered
to remain, visited and protected by the friends and relations, until
the flesh becomes putrid, so as easily to part from the bones; then
undertakers, who make it their business, carefully strip the flesh
from the bones, wash and cleanse them, and when dry and purified by
the air, having provided a curiously-wrought chest or coffin,
fabricated of bones and splints, they place all the bones therein,
which is deposited in the bone-house, a building erected for that
purpose in every town; and when this house is full a general solemn
funeral takes place; when the nearest kindred or friends of the
deceased, on a day appointed, repair to the bone-house, take up the
respective coffins, and, following one another in order of seniority,
the nearest relations and connections attending their respective
corps, and the multitude following after them, all as one family, with
united voice of alternate allelujah and lamentation, slowly proceeding
on to the place of general interment, when they place the coffins in
order, forming a pyramid; [Footnote: Some ingenious men whom I have
conversed with have given it as their opinion that all those pyramidal
artificial hills, usually called Indian mounds, were raised on this
occasion, and are generally sepulchres. However, I am of different
opinion.] and, lastly, cover all over with earth, which raises a
conical hill or mount; when they return to town in order of solemn
procession, concluding the day with a festival, which is called the
feast of the dead."
Morgan [Footnote: League of the Iroquois 1851, p. 171] also alludes to
this mode of burial:
"The body of the deceased was exposed upon a hark scaffolding erected
upon poles or secured upon the limbs of trees, where it was left to
waste to a skeleton. After this had been effected by the process of
decomposition in the open air, the bones were removed either to the
former house of the deceased, or to a small bark-house by its side,
prepared for their reception. In this manner the skeletons of the
whole family were preserved from generation to generation by the
filial or parental affection of the living After the lapse of a number
of years, or in a season of public insecurity, or on the eve of
abandoning a settlement, it was customary to collect these skeletons
from the whole community around and consign them to a common resting
place.
"To this custom, which is not confined to the Iroquois, is doubtless
to be ascribed the barrows and bone-mounds which have been found in
such numbers in various parts of the country. On opening these mounds
the skeletons are usually found arranged in horizontal layers, a
conical pyramid, those in each layer radiating from a common center.
In other cases they are found placed promiscuously."
D. G. Brinton [Footnote: Myths of the New World, 1868. p. 256.]
likewise gives an account of the interment of collected bones:
"East of the Mississippi nearly every nation was accustomed at stated
periods--usually once in eight or ten years--to collect and clean the
osseous remains of those of its number who had died in the intervening
time, and inter them in one common sepulcher, lined with choice furs,
and marked with a mound of wood, stone, or earth. Such is the origin
of those immense tumuli filled with the mortal remains of nations and
generations, which the antiquary, with irreverent curiosity, so
frequently chances upon in all portions of our territory. Throughout
Central America the same usage obtained in various localities, as
early writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. Instead of
interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished chieftain,
they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, usually in
small chests of canes or splints. Such were the charnel-houses which
the historians of De Soto's expedition so often mention, and these are
the 'arks' Adair and other authors who have sought to trace the
descent of the Indians from the Jews have likened to that which the
ancient Israelites bore with them in their migrations.
"A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of her
deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them in
such a casket, handsomely decorated with feathers (Rich. Arc. Exp, p.
260). The Caribs of the mainland adopted the custom for all, without
exception. About a year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached,
painted, wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and
kept suspended from the door of their dwelling (Gumilla Hist. del
Orinoco I., pp. 199, 202, 204). When the quantity of these heirlooms
became burdensome they were removed to some inaccessible cavern and
stowed away with reverential care."
George Catlin [Footnote: Hist. N. A. Indians, 1844, I, p. 90.]
describes what he calls the "Golgothas" of the Mandans:
"There are several of these golgothas, or circles of twenty or thirty
feet in diameter, and in the center of each ring or circle is a little
mound of three feet high, on which uniformly rest two buffalo skulls
(a male and female), and in the center of the little mound is erected
'a medicine pole,' of about twenty feet high, supporting many curious
articles of mystery and superstition, which they suppose have the
power of guarding and protecting this sacred arrangement.
"Here, then, to this strange place do these people again resort to
evince their further affections for the dead, not in groans and
lamentations, however, for several years have cured the anguish, but
fond affection and endearments are here renewed, and conversations are
here held and cherished with the dead. Each one of these skulls is
placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been pulled and placed
under it. The wife knows, by some mark or resemblance, the skull of
her husband or her child which lies in this group, and there seldom
passes a day that she does not visit it with a dish of the best-cooked
food that her wigwam affords, which she sets before the skull at
night, and returns for the dish in the morning. As soon as it is
discovered that the sage on which the skull rests is beginning to
decay, the woman cuts a fresh bunch and places the skull carefully
upon it, removing that which was under it.
"Independent of the above-named duties, which draw the women to this
spot, they visit it from inclination, and linger upon it to hold
converse and company with the dead. There is scarcely an hour in a
pleasant day but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or
lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in the
most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were
wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back."
From these accounts it may be seen that the peculiar customs which
have been described by the authors cited were not confined to any
special tribe or area of country, although they do not appear to have
prevailed among the Indians of the northwest coast, so far as known.