SURVIVALS OF SUN-WORSHIP. 255 



burial, is too complicated and extended to be more than barely 

 referred to here, in connection with a few interesting customs 

 still prevalent or lately extant in this country or in Europe. Ex- 

 amination shows that headstones in the old burial grounds of 

 Plymouth, Concord, Old Deerfield, and Rutland, Mass., face the 

 west, so that if the dead could rise to a standing posture they 

 would face the east, long associated "with light and warmth, life 

 and happiness and glory." It is customary among the Irish 

 peasantry in County Cork to lay the dead " to be waked " in a 

 similar position, as well as to dig the grave east and west. These 

 customs are directly derived from the usage that prevailed through 

 medieval times of digging the grave east and west and placing the 

 head toward the latter point, a practice which doubtless was an 

 outgrowth of the legend that Christ after death was thus laid. 

 Rev. J. Owen Dorsey has found that the Indians of the Kansas 

 and Omaha tribes place the dead with the head toward the east,* 

 consequently no living Omaha will lie in this position. Accord- 

 ing to Schoolcraft, the Winnebagoes buried their dead in a sitting 

 posture with the face west, or at full length with the feet west, 

 " in order that they may look toward the happy land in the west." f 

 An interesting observation made by Mr. Dorsey is that in singing 

 one of their sacred songs the Kansas Indians were accustomed to 

 raise their left hands, beginning at their left with the east wind, 

 then turning to the south wind, then to the west wind, and last to 

 the north wind, thus completing the dextral circuit. So far as I 

 can gather from the writings of Schoolcraft and others, and from 

 some questioning of experts in Indian customs, there would seem 

 to have been no one rule common to all the North American 

 tribes with regard to the position of the grave with reference to 

 the points of the compass. Some preference for the east-and- 

 west position seems to have existed among certain tribes, but 

 their mode of interment was often modified to suit the contour of 

 the land about their villages. 



In a religious observance called " paying rounds/' much prac- 

 ticed by the Irish peasantry, one finds an interesting instance of 

 the dextral circuit. " Rounds " are paid for the cure of any disease 

 or ailment, either by the person afflicted or vicariously for him 

 by his mother, if living, or, if not, by some near friend. Servant 

 girls in the United States, when ill, sometimes write home to Ire- 

 land and have rounds paid for them. The required rites may be 

 performed at the grave of some holy priest, perhaps one who in 

 his day wrought miracles, or at the grave of a priest who, before 

 dying, gave directions that it would be right and fitting there to 



* Mourning and War Customs of the Kansas Indians. American Naturalist, July, 1885. 

 j- Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, part iv, p. 54. 



