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Partial Scaffold Burial and Ossuaries
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.
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Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs
Among the North American Indians
Native American Nations
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