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Urn-Burial
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.
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Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs
Among the North American Indians
Native American Nations
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