Books: An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians

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"With respect, I remain yours,

"SAMUEL L. MITCHILL"

It would appear from recent researches on the Northwest coast that the
natives of that region embalmed their dead with much care, as may be
seen from the work recently published by W. H. Dall, [Footnote: Cont.
to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. 1, p. 89] the description of the mummies
being as follows:

"We found the dead disposed of in various ways; first, by interment in
their compartments of the communal dwelling, as already described;
second, by being laid on a rude platform of drift-wood or stones in
some convenient rock shelter. These lay on straw and moss, covered by
matting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or carvings
associated with them. We found only three or four specimens in all in
these places, of which we examined a great number. This was apparently
the more ancient form of disposing of the dead, and one which more
recently was still pursued in the case of poor or unpopular
individuals.

"Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within a few
centuries, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was
adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The
bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters in running water,
dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings of fur and
fine grass matting The body was usually doubled up into the smallest
compass, and the mummy case, especially in the case of children, was
usually suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in some convenient
rock shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepared body was placed in a
lifelike position, dressed and armed. They were placed as if engaged
in some congenial occupation, such as hunting, fishing, sewing, etc.
With them were also placed effigies of the animals they were pursuing,
while the hunter was dressed in his wooden armor and provided with an
enormous mask, all ornamented with feathers and a countless variety of
wooden pendants, colored in gay patterns. All the carvings were of
wood, the weapons even were only fac-similes in wood of the original
articles. Among the articles represented were drums, rattles, dishes,
weapons, effigies of men, birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of
rods or scales of wood, and remarkable masks, so arranged that the
wearer when erect could only see the ground at his feet. These were
worn at their religious dances from an idea that a spirit which was
supposed to animate a temporary idol was fatal to whoever might look
upon it while so occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the
masking of those who had gone into the land of spirits.

"The practice of preserving the bodies of those belonging to the
whaling class--a custom peculiar to the Kadiak Innuit--has erroneously
been confounded with the one now described. The latter included women
as well as men, and all those whom the living desired particularly to
honor. The whalers, however, only preserved the bodies of males, and
they were not associated with the paraphernalia of those I have
described. Indeed, the observations I have been able to make show the
bodies of the whalers to have been preserved with stone weapons and
actual utensils instead of effigies, and with the meanest apparel, and
no carvings of consequence. These details, and those of many other
customs and usages of which the shell heaps bear no testimony ... do
not come within my line."

Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings' Expedition [Footnote: Billings'
Exped. 1802, p. 167.] in 1802, speaks of the Aleutian Islanders
embalming their dead, as follows:

"They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead, for they embalm
the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass; bury them in their
best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with their darts
and instruments; and decorate the tomb with various coloured mats,
embroidery, and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less ceremony.
A mother will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut for some
months, constantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it begins to
smell, or when they get reconciled to parting with it."

Regarding these same people, a writer in the San Francisco Bulletin
gives this account-

"The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska Commercial
Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company with the
mummified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of Ounalaska
one hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to science was
secured by Captain Henning, an agent of the company, who has long
resided at Ounalaska. In his transactions with the Indians he learned
that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the island in
question, as the last resting-place of a great chief, known as
Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the neighborhood of
Kagamale, in quest of sea-otter and other furs and he bore up for the
island, with the intention of testing the truth of the tradition he
had heard. He had more difficulty in entering the cave than in finding
it, his schooner having to beat on and off shore for three days.
Finally, he succeeded in effecting a landing, and clambering up the
rocks he found himself in the presence of the dead chief, his family
and relatives.

"The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With great care the
mummies were removed, and all the little trinkets and ornaments
scattered around were also taken away.

"In all there are eleven packages of bodies. Only two or three have as
yet been opened. The body of the chief is inclosed in a large basket-
like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the wrappings are
finely-wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in texture, and
skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of thinly-cut wood, and
adjoining the center portions are pieces of body armor composed of
reeds bound together. The body is covered with the fine skin of the
sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in the interments of the
Aleuts, and round the whole package are stretched the meshes of a
fish-net, made of the sinews of the sea lion; also those of a bird-
net. There are evidently some bulky articles inclosed with the chief's
body, and the whole package differs very much from the others, which
more resemble, in their brown-grass matting, consignments of crude
sugar from the Sandwich Islands than the remains of human beings. The
bodies of a pappoose and of a very little child, which probably died
at birth or soon after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of
the feet of the latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The
remaining mummies are of adults.

"One of the packages has been opened, and it reveals a man's body in
tolerable preservation, but with a large portion of the face
decomposed. This and the other bodies were doubled up at death by
severing some of the muscles at the hip and knee joints and bending
the limbs downward horizontally upon the trunk. Perhaps the most
peculiar package, next to that of the chief, is one which incloses in
a single matting, with sea-lion skins, the bodies of a man and woman.
The collection also embraces a couple of skulls, male and female,
which have still the hair attached to the scalp. The hair has changed
its color to a brownish red. The relics obtained with the bodies
include a few wooden vessels scooped out smoothly; a piece of dark,
greenish, flat stone, harder than the emerald, which the Indians use
to tan skins; a scalp-lock of jet-black hair; a small rude figure,
which may have been a very ugly doll or an idol; two or three tiny
carvings in ivory of the sea-lion, very neatly executed, a comb, a
necklet made of birds' claws inserted into one another, and several
specimens of little bags, and a cap plaited out of sea-grass and
almost water-tight."

With the foregoing examples as illustration, the matter of embalmment
may be for the present dismissed, with the advice to observers that
particular care should be taken, in case mummies are discovered, to
ascertain whether the bodies have been submitted to a regular
preservative process, or owe their protection to ingredients in the
soil of their graves or to desiccation in arid districts.

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.

SURFACE BURIAL.

This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far
as can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it
was employed as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed
for time. The Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow
trees, the bodies being placed in an upright position, occasionally
the dead being crammed into a hollow log lying on the ground. With
some of the Eastern tribes a log was split in half and hollowed out
sufficiently large to contain the corpse; it was then lashed together
with withes and permitted to remain where it was originally placed. In
some cases a pen was built over and around it. This statement is
corroborated by Mr. R. S. Robertson, of Fort Wayne, Ind., who states
in a communication received in 1877 that the Miamis practiced surface
burial in two different ways:

"... 1st. The surface burial in hollow logs. These have been found in
heavy forests. Sometimes a tree has been split and the two halves
hollowed out to receive the body, when it was either closed with
withes or confined to the ground with crossed stakes; and sometimes a
hollow tree is used by closing the ends.

"2d. Surface burial where the body was covered by a small pen of logs
laid up as we build a cabin, but drawing in every course until they
meet in a single log at the top."

Romantically conceived, and carried out to the fullest possible extent
in accordance with the _ante mortem_ wishes of the dead, were the
obsequies of Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas. The account is
given by George Catlin: [Footnote: Manners, Customs, &c., of North
American Indiana, 1844, vol. ii, p. 5]

"He requested them to take his body down the river to this his
favorite haunt, and on the pinnacle of this towering bluff to bury him
on the back of his favorite war-horse, which was to be buried alive
under him, from whence he could see, as he said, 'the Frenchmen
passing up and down the river in their boats.' He owned, amongst many
homes, a noble white steed, that was led to the top of the grass-
covered hill, and with great pomp and ceremony, in the presence of the
whole nation and several of the far-traders and the Indian agent, he
was placed astride of his horse's back, with his bow in his hand, and
his shield and quiver slung, with his pipe and his medicine bag, with
his supply of dried meat, and his tobacco-pouch replenished to last
him through the journey to the beautiful hunting grounds of the shades
of his fathers, with his flint and steel and his tinder to light his
pipes by the way; the scalps he had taken from his enemies' heads
could be trophies for nobody else, and were hung to the bridle of his
horse. He was in full dress, and fully equipped, and on his head waved
to the last moment his beautiful head-dress of the war-eagles' plumes.
In this plight, and the last funeral honors having been performed by
the medicine-men, every warrior of his band painted the palm and
fingers of his right hand with vermilion, which was stamped and
perfectly impressed on the milk-white sides of his devoted horse. This
all done, turfs were brought and placed around the feet and legs of
the horse, and gradually laid up to its sides, and at last over the
back and head of the unsuspecting animal, and last of all over the
head and even the eagle plumes of its valiant rider, where all
together have smouldered and remained undisturbed to the present day."

CAIRN BURIAL.

The next mode of interment to be considered is that of cairn or rock
burial, which has prevailed and is still common to a considerable
extent among the tribes living in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra
Nevadas.

In the summer of 1872 the writer visited one of these rock cemeteries
in middle Utah, which had been used for a period not exceeding fifteen
or twenty years. It was situated at the bottom of a rock slide, upon
the side of an almost inaccessible mountain, in a position so
carefully chosen for concealment that it would have been almost
impossible to find it without a guide. Several of the graves were
opened and found to have been constructed in the following manner: A
number of bowlders had been removed from the bed of the slide until a
sufficient cavity had been obtained; this was lined with skins, the
corpse placed therein, with weapons, ornaments, etc., and covered over
with saplings of the mountain aspen; on top of these the removed
bowlders were piled, forming a huge cairn, which appeared large enough
to have marked the last resting place of an elephant. In the immediate
vicinity of the graves were scattered the osseous remains of a number
of horses which had been sacrificed no doubt during the funeral
ceremonies. In one of the graves, said to contain the body of a chief,
in addition to a number of articles useful and ornamental, were found
parts of the skeleton of a boy, and tradition states that a captive
boy was buried alive at this place.

In connection with this mode of burial it may be said that the ancient
Balearic Islanders covered their dead with a heap of stones, but this
ceremony was preceded by an operation which consisted in cutting the
body in small pieces and collecting in a pot.

CREMATION.

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 Stales, 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.

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