Books: An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians
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H. C. Yarrow >> An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians
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In a communication received from Dr. A. J McDonald, physician to the
Los Pinos Indian Agency, Colorado, a description is given of crevice
or rock-fissure burial, which follows.
"As soon as death takes place the event is at once announced by the
medicine-man, and without loss of time the squaws are busily engaged
in preparing the corpse for the grave. This does not take long;
whatever articles of clothing may have been on the body at the time of
death are not removed. The dead man's limbs are straightened out, his
weapons of war laid by his side, and his robes and blankets wrapped
securely and snugly around him, and now everything is ready for
burial. It is the custom to secure, if possible, for the purpose of
wrapping up the corpse, the robes and blankets in which the Indian
died. At the same time that the body is being fitted for interment,
the squaws having immediate care of it, together with all the other
squaws in the neighborhood, keep up a continued chant or dirge, the
dismal cadence of which may, when the congregation of women is large,
be heard for quite a long distance. The death song is not a mere
inarticulate howl of distress; it embraces expressions eulogistic in
character, but whether or not any particular formula of words is
adopted on such occasion is a question which I am unable, with the
materials at my disposal, to determine with any degree of certainty.
"The next duty falling to the lot of the squaws is that of placing the
dead man on a horse and conducting the remains to the spot chosen for
burial. This is in the cleft of a rock, and, so far as can be
ascertained, it has always been customary among the Utes to select
sepulchres of this character. From descriptions given by Mr. Harris,
who has several times been fortunate enough to discover remains, it
would appear that no superstitious ideas are held by this tribe with
respect to the position in which the body is placed, the space
accommodation of the sepulchre probably regulating this matter; and
from the same source I learn that it is not usual to find the remains
of more than one Indian deposited in one grave. After the body has
been received into the cleft, it is well covered with pieces of rock,
to protect it against the ravages of wild animals. The chant ceases,
the squaws disperse, and the burial ceremonies are at an end. The men
during all this time have not been idle, though they have in no way
participated in the preparation of the body, have not joined the
squaws in chanting praises to the memory of the dead, and have not
even as mere spectators attended the funeral, yet they have had their
duties to perform. In conformity with a long-established custom, all
the personal property of the deceased is immediately destroyed. His
horses and his cattle are shot, and his wigwam, furniture, &c.,
burned. The performance of this part of the ceremonies is assigned to
the men; a duty quite in accord with their taste and inclinations.
Occasionally the destruction of horses and other property is of
considerable magnitude, but usually this is not the case, owing to a
practice existing with them of distributing their property among their
children while they are of a very tender age, retaining to themselves
only what is necessary to meet every-day requirements.
"The widow 'goes into mourning' by smearing her face with a substance
composed of pitch and charcoal. The application is made but once, and
is allowed to remain on until it wears off. This is the only mourning
observance of which I have any knowledge.
"The ceremonies observed on the death of a female are the same as
those in the case of a male, except that no destruction of property
takes place, and of course no weapons are deposited with the corpse.
Should a youth die while under the superintendence of white men, the
Indians will not as a rule have anything to do with the interment of
the body. In a case of the kind which occurred at this agency some
time ago, the squaws prepared the body in the usual manner; the men of
the tribe selected a spot for the burial, and the employes at the
agency, after digging a grave and depositing the corpse therein,
filled it up according to the fashion of civilized people, and then at
the request of the Indians rolled large fragments of rocks on top.
Great anxiety was exhibited by the Indians to have the employes
perform the service as expeditiously as possible."
An interesting cave in Calaveras County, California, which had been
used for burial purposes, is thus described by Prof. J. D. Whitney:
[Footnote: Rep. Smithsonian Inst. 1867, p. 406.]
"The following is an account of the cave from which the skulls, now in
the Smithsonian collection, were taken. It is near the Stanislaus
River, in Calaveras County, on a nameless creek, about two miles from
Abbey's Ferry, on the road to Vallicito, at the house of Mr. Robinson.
There were two or three persons with me, who had been to the place
before and knew that the skulls in question were taken from it. Their
visit was some ten years ago, and since that the condition of things
in the cave has greatly changed. Owing to some alteration in the road,
mining operations, or some other cause which I could not ascertain,
there has accumulated on the formerly clean stalagmitic floor of the
cave a thickness of some 20 feet of surface earth that completely
conceals the bottom, and which could not be removed without
considerable expense. This cave is about 27 feet deep at the mouth and
40 to 50 feet at the end, and perhaps 30 feet in diameter. It is the
general opinion of those who have noticed this cave and saw it years
ago that it was a burying-place of the present Indians. Dr. Jones said
he found remains of bows and arrows and charcoal with the skulls he
obtained, and which were destroyed at the time the village of Murphy's
was burned. All the people spoke of the skulls as lying on the surface
and not as buried in the stalagmite."
The next description of cave burial, described by W. H. Dall
[Footnote: Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol 1, p 62.], is so
remarkable that it seems worthy of admittance to this paper. It
relates probably to the Innuit of Alaska.
"The earliest remains of man found in Alaska up to the time of writing
I refer to this epoch [Echinus layer of Dall]. There are some crania
found by us in the lowermost part of the Amaknak cave and a cranium
obtained at Adakh, near the anchorage in the Bay of Islands. These
were deposited in a remarkable manner, precisely similar to that
adopted by most of the continental Innuit, but equally different from
the modern Aleut fashion. At the Amaknak cave we found what at first
appeared to be a wooden inclosure, but which proved to be made of the
very much decayed supra-maxillary bones of some large cetacean. These
were arranged so as to form a rude rectangular inclosure covered over
with similar pieces of bone. This was somewhat less than 4 feet long,
2 feet wide, and 18 inches deep. The bottom was formed of flat pieces
of stone. Three such were found close together, covered with and
filled by an accumulation of fine vegetable and organic mold. In each
was the remains of a skeleton in the last stages of decay. It had
evidently been tied up in the Innuit fashion to get it into its narrow
house, but all the bones, with the exception of the skull, were
reduced to a soft paste, or even entirely gone. At Adakh a fancy
prompted me to dig into a small knoll near the ancient shell-heap; and
here we found, in a precisely similar sarcophagus, the remains of a
skeleton, of which also only the cranium retained sufficient
consistency to admit of preservation. This inclosure, however, was
filled with a dense peaty mass not reduced to mold, the result of
centuries of sphagnous growth, which had reached a thickness of nearly
2 feet above the remains. When we reflect upon the well-known slowness
of this kind of growth in these northern regions, attested by numerous
Arctic travelers, the antiquity of the remains becomes evident."
It seems beyond doubt that in the majority of cases, especially as
regards the caves of the Western States and Territories, the
interments were primary ones, and this is likewise true of many of the
caverns of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, for in the three States
mentioned many mummies have been found, but it is also likely that
such receptacles were largely used as places of secondary deposits.
The many fragmentary skeletons and loose bones found seem to
strengthen this view.
MUMMIES.
In connection with cave burial, the subject of mummifying or embalming
the dead may be taken up, as most specimens of the kind have generally
been found in such repositories.
It might be both interesting and instructive to search out and discuss
the causes which have led many nations or tribes to adopt certain
processes with a view to prevent that return to dust which all flesh
must sooner or later experience, but the necessarily limited scope of
this preliminary work precludes more than a brief mention of certain
theories advanced by writers of note, and which relate to the ancient
Egyptians. Possibly at the time the Indians of America sought to
preserve their dead from decomposition some such ideas may have
animated them, but on this point no definite information has been
procured. In the final volume an effort will be made to trace out the
origin of mummification among the Indians and aborigines of this
continent.
The Egyptians embalmed, according to Cassien, because during the time
of the annual inundation no interments could take place, but it is
more than likely that this hypothesis is entirely fanciful. It is said
by others they believed that so long as the body was preserved from
corruption the soul remained in it. Herodotus states that it was to
prevent bodies from becoming a prey to animal voracity. "They did not
inter them," says he, "for fear of their being eaten by worms; nor did
they burn, considering fire as a ferocious beast, devouring everything
which it touched." According to Diodorus of Sicily, embalmment
originated in filial piety and respect. De Maillet, however, in his
tenth letter on Egypt, attributes it entirely to a religious belief
insisted upon by the wise men and priests, who taught their disciples
that after a certain number of cycles, of perhaps thirty or forty
thousand years, the entire universe became as it was at birth, and the
souls of the dead returned into the same bodies in which they had
lived, provided that the body remained free from corruption, and that
sacrifices were freely offered as oblations to the manes of the
deceased. Considering the great care taken to preserve the dead, and
the ponderously solid nature of their tombs, it is quite evident that
this theory obtained many believers among the people. M. Gannal
believes embalmment to have been suggested by the affectionate
sentiments of our nature--a desire to preserve as long as possible the
mortal remains of loved ones; but MM. Volney and Pariaet think it was
intended to obviate, in hot climates especially, danger from
pestilence, being primarily a cheap and simple process, elegance and
luxury coming later; and the Count de Caylus states the idea of
embalmment was derived from the finding of desiccated bodies which the
burning sands of Egypt had hardened and preserved. Many other
suppositions have arisen, but it is thought the few given above are
sufficient to serve as an introduction to embalmment in North America.
From the statements of the older writers on North American Indians, it
appears that mummifying was resorted to among certain tribes of
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, especially for people of
distinction, the process in Virginia for the kings, according to
Beverly, [Footnote: Hist. of Virginia, 1722, p 185] being as follows:
"The _Indians_ are religious in preserving the Corpses of their
Kings and Rulers after Death, which they order in the following
manner: First, they neatly flay off the Skin as entire as they can,
slitting it only in the Back; then they pick all the Flesh off from
the Bones as clean as possible, leaving the Sinews fastned to the
Bones, that they may preserve the Joints together: then they dry the
Bones in the Sun, and put them into the Skin again, which in the mean
time has been kept from drying or shrinking; when the Bones are placed
right in the Skin, they nicely fill up the Vacuities, with a very fine
white Sand. After this they sew up the Skin again, and the Body looks
as if the Flesh had not been removed. They take care to keep the Skin
from shrinking, by the help of a little Oil or Grease, which saves it
also from Corruption. The Skin being thus prepar'd, they lay it in an
apartment for that purpose, upon a large Shelf rais'd above the Floor.
This Shelf is spread with Mats, for the Corpse to rest easy on, and
skreened with the same, to keep it from the Dust. The Flesh they lay
upon Hurdles in the Sun to dry, and when it is thoroughly dried, it is
sewed up in a Basket, and set at the Feet of the Corpse, to which it
belongs. In this place also they set up a _Quioccos,_ or Idol,
which they believe will be a Guard to the Corpse. Here Night and Day
one or other of the Priests must give his Attendance, to take care of
the dead Bodies. So great an Honour and Veneration have these ignorant
and unpolisht People for their Princes even after they are dead."
It should be added that, in the writer's opinion, this account and
others like it are somewhat apocryphal, and it has been copied and
recopied a score of times.
According to Pinkerton [Footnote: Collection of Voyages, 1812, vol.
XIII, p 39.], the Werowanco preserved their dead as follows:
"... By him is commonly the sepulchre of their Kings. Their bodies are
first bowelled, then dried upon hurdles till they be very dry, and so
about the most of their joints and neck they hang bracelets, or chains
of copper, pearl, and such like, as they used to wear. Their inwards
they stuff with copper beads, hatchets, and such trash. Then lap they
them very carefully in white skins, and so roll them in mats for their
winding-sheets. And in the tomb, which is an arch made of mats, they
lay them orderly. What remaineth of this kind of wealth their Kings
have, they set at their feet in baskets. These temples and bodies are
kept by their priests.
"For their ordinary burials, they dig a deep hole in the earth with
sharp stakes, and the corpse being lapped in skins and mats with their
jewels they lay them upon sticks in the ground, and so cover them with
earth. The burial ended, the women being painted all their faces with
black coal and oil do sit twenty-four hours in the houses mourning and
lamenting by turns with such yelling and howling as may express their
great passions....
"Upon the top of certain red sandy hills in the woods there are three
great houses filled with images of their Kings and devils and tombs of
their predecessors. Those houses are near sixty feet in length, built
harbourwise after their building. This place they count so holy as
that but the priests and Kings dare come into them; nor the savages
dare not go up the river in boats by it, but they solemnly cast some
piece of copper, white beads, or pocones into the river for fear their
Okee should be offended and revenged of them.
"They think that their Werowances and priests which they also esteem
quiyoughcosughs, when they are dead do go beyond the mountains towards
the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in form of their Okee,
with their heads painted red with oil and pocones, finely trimmed with
feathers, and shall have beads, hatchets, copper, and tobacco, doing
nothing but dance and sing with all their predecessors. But the common
people they suppose shall not live after death, but rot in their
graves like dead dogs."
The remark regarding truthfulness will apply to this account in common
with the former.
The Congaree or Santee Indians of South Carolina, according to Lawson,
used a process of partial embalmment, as will be seen from the
subjoined extract from Schoolcraft; [Footnote: Hist. Indian Tribes of
the United States, 1854, Part IV, p. 155, _et seq_] but instead
of laying away the remains in caves, placed them in boxes supported
above the ground by crotched sticks.
"The manner of their interment is thus: A mole or pyramid of earth is
raised, the mould thereof being worked very smooth and even, sometimes
higher or lower, according to the dignity of the person whose monument
it is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made ridgeways, like the
roof of a house. This is supported by nine stakes or small posts, the
grave being about 6 or 8 feet in length and 4 feet in breadth, about
which is hung gourds, feathers, and other such like trophies, placed
there by the dead man's relations in respect to him in the grave. The
other parts of the funeral rites are thus: As soon as the party is
dead they lay the corpse upon a piece of bark in the sun, seasoning or
embalming it with a small root beaten to powder, which looks as red as
vermilion; the same is mixed with bear's oil to beautify the hair.
After the carcass has laid a day or two in the sun they remove it and
lay it upon crotches cut on purpose for the support thereof from the
earth then they anoint it all over with the aforementioned ingredients
of the powder of this root and bear's oil. When it is so done they
cover it over very exactly with the bark of the pine or cypress tree
to prevent any rain to fall upon it, sweeping the ground very clean
all about it. Some of his nearest of kin brings all the temporal
estate he was possessed of at his death, as guns, bows and arrows,
beads, feathers, match coat etc. This relation is the chief mourner,
being clad in moss, with a stick in his hand, keeping a mournful ditty
for three or four days, his face being black with the smoke of pitch
pine mixed with bear's oil. All the while he tells the dead mans
relations and the rest of the spectators who that dead person was, and
of the great feats performed in his lifetime, all that he speaks
tending to the praise of the defunct. As soon as the flesh grows
mellow and will cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it,
making the bones very clean then anoint them with the ingredients
aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth
artificially woven of opossum's hair. The bones they carefully
preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By
these means they preserve them for many ages that you may see an
Indian in possession of the bones of his grandfather or some of his
relations of a longer antiquity. They have other sorts of tombs as
when an Indian is slain in, that very place they make a heap of stones
(or sticks where stones are not to be found), to this memorial every
Indian that passes by adds a stone to augment the heap in respect to
the deceased hero. The Indians make a roof of light wood or pitch pine
over the graves of the more distinguished, covering it with bark and
then with earth leaving the body thus in a subterranean vault until
the flesh quits the bones. The bones are then taken up, cleaned,
jointed, clad in white dressed deer skins, and laid away in the
_Quiogozon,_ which is the royal tomb or burial place of their
kings and war captains, being a more magnificent cabin reared at the
public expense. This Quiogozon is an object of veneration, in which
the writer says he has known the king, old men, and conjurers to spend
several days with their idols and dead kings, and into which he could
never gain admittance."
Another class of mummies are those which have been found in the
saltpeter and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a matter of
doubt with archaeologists whether any special pains were taken to
preserve these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the
soil with certain minerals would account for the condition in which
the specimens were found. Charles Wilkins [Footnote: Trans. Amer.
Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 360] thus describes one:
"... exsiccated body of a female ... was found at the depth of about
10 feet from the surface of the cave bedded in clay strongly
impregnated with nitre, placed in a sitting posture, incased in broad
stones standing on their edges, with a flat stone covering the whole.
It was enveloped in coarse clothes, ... the whole wrapped in deer-
skins, the hair of which was shaved off in the manner in which the
Indians prepare them for market. Enclosed in the stone coffin were the
working utensils, beads, feathers, and other ornaments of dress which
belonged to her."
The next description is by Dr Samuel L. Mitchill: [Footnote: Trans.
and Coll. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 318]
[A letter from Dr. Mitchill of New York, to Samuel M. Burnside, Esq.,
Secretary of the American Antiquarian Society, on North American
Antiquities.]
"Aug 24th, 1815
"DEAR SIR: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of
American antiquity now in New York, It is a human body [Footnote: A
mummy of this kind, of a person of mature age, discovered in Kentucky,
is now in the cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society. It is a
female. Several human bodies were found enwrapped carefully in skins
and cloths. They were inhumed below the floor of the cave,
_inhumed_, and not lodged in catacombs.] found in one of the
limestone caverns of Kentucky. It is a perfect exsiccation, all the
fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and other firm parts are in a
state of entire preservation. I think it enough to have puzzled Bryant
and all the archaologists.
"This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the neighborhood of
Glasgow for saltpetre.
"These recesses, though under ground, are yet dry enough to attract
and retain the nitrick acid. It combines with lime and potash, and
probably the earthy matter of these excavations contains a good
proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst these drying and
antiseptick ingredients, it may be conceived that putrefaction would
be stayed, and the solids preserved from decay. The outer envelope of
the body is a deer skin, probably dried in the usual way and perhaps
softened before its application by rubbing. The next covering is a
deer's skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp instrument
resembling a hatter's knife. The remnant of the hair and the gashes in
the skin nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. The next wrapper is
of cloth made of twine doubled and twisted. But the thread does not
appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the loom. The
warp and filling seem to have been crossed and knotted by an operation
like that of the fabricks of the northwest coast, and of the Sandwich
islands. Such a botanist as the lamented Muhlenburgh could determine
the plant which furnished the fibrous material.
"The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth like the preceding, but
furnished with large brown feathers arranged and fastened with great
art so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from wet and
cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole bears a near
similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the nations of the
northwestern coast of America. A Wilson might tell from what bird they
were derived.
"The body is in a squatting posture with the right arm reclining
forward and its hand encircling the right leg. The left arm hangs
down, with its hand inclined partly under the seat. The individual,
who was a male did not probably exceed the age of fourteen, at his
death. There is near the occiput a deep and extensive fracture of the
skull, which probably killed him. The skin has sustained little
injury, it is of a dusky colour, but the natural hue cannot be decided
with exactness from its present appearance. The scalp, with small
exceptions is cohered with sorrel or foxy hair. The teeth are white
and sound. The hands and feet, in their shrivelled state, are slender
and delicate. All this is worthy the investigation of our acute and
perspicacious colleague, Dr Holmes.
"There is nothing bituminous or aromatic in or about the body, like the
Egyptian mummies, nor are there bandages around any part. Except the
several wrappers, the body is totally naked. There is no sign of a
suture or incision about the belly whence it seems that the viscera
were not removed.
"It may now be expected that I should offer some opinion, as to the
antiquity and race of this singular exsiccation.
"First, then, I am satisfied that it does not belong to that class of
white men of which we are members.
"2dly. Nor do I believe that it ought to be referred to the bands of
Spanish adventurers, who, between the years 1500 and 1600, rambled up
the Mississippi, and along its tributary streams. But on this head I
should like to know the opinion of my learned and sagacious friend,
Noah Webster.
"3dly. I am equally obliged to reject the opinion that it belonged to
any of the tribes of aborigines, now or lately inhabiting Kentucky.
"4thly. The mantle of the feathered work, and the mantle of twisted
threads, so nearly resemble the fabricks of the indigines of Wakash
and the Pacifick islands, that I refer this individual to that era of
time, and that generation of men, which preceded the Indians of the
Green River, and of the place where these relicks were found. This
conclusion is strengthened by the consideration that such manufactures
are not prepared by the actual and resident red men of the present
day. If the Abbe Clavigero had had this case before him, he would have
thought of the people who constructed those ancient forts and mounds,
whose exact history no man living can give. But I forbear to enlarge;
my intention being merely to manifest my respect to the society for
having enrolled me among its members, and to invite the attention of
its Antiquarians to further inquiry on a subject of such curiosity.
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