594 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



it was not kuowa whether they inclosed the remains of Indians or white 

 persons. And as to the relics, it is now not known that any of them 

 were actually found in the graves; but they were found on the surface 

 of the ground there, and subsequently turned up Joy the plow about 

 the base of the mound, as well as about the sites of the Big and Little 

 Osnge villages — -as Dr. Morerod states— and are to this day occasion- 

 ally found there. But the "tomahawks" are made of iron, and the 

 ear-rings of brass ; and if any implements or ornaments of bone or shell 

 have been found associated with them, the reasonable conclusion is 

 that they, too, were of French or English manufacture. 



Systematic investigation by adepts may yet discover the mortuary 

 customs of the Osages. Their cemeteries have perhaps not yet been 

 found. They died, of course, but as yet we are ignorant of the disposi- 

 tion of their corpses. The suggestion of Dr. Morerod that they prac- 

 tised cremation is scarcely tenable, for the negative reasons that no 

 mention of such an extraordinary custom is made by Dr. Tissenet, 

 E6uault, or Lieutenant Pike; and that none of the crematories, or 

 ancient fire-hearths ("altars"), have yet been found in the original 

 Osage territory. In the absence of more accurate knowledge upon 

 this point, it is not a violent presumption that these Indians — as the 

 Pawnees, Dakotas, and other tribes of the plains have since been accus- 

 tomed to do— placed their dead upon pole- scaffolds on the prairies, and 

 in the branches of trees in the woods, as their final disposition, where 

 the remains decayed, and in J;ime were dispersed by the elements. 



Hunter, in his "Captivity," p. 300, says, of the Osages, "at or soon 

 after burial, they cover the grave with stones, and for years after oc- 

 casionally resort to it, and mourn over or recount the merits and vir- 

 tues of its silent tenant." This was" not perhaps their general custom ; 

 but, in regard to the burial of Old White Hair, is strictly true. Mr. 

 Holcombe confirms it in his statement: "For many years up to 1870 

 the Osages made annual pilgrimages to the site of their ancient towns 

 in this county, and of the graves of their an3estors and the tomb of the 

 renowned chieftain, Pawhuska, on Blue Mound. Gathering about the 

 mighty mound containing the ashes of their progenitors, they called to 

 mind their virtues and lifting up their voices wept loudly and bitterly. 

 Many citizens of the county have often heard them at their lamenta- 

 tions. The Osages themselves called the Blue Mound the " Crying 

 Mound " because it was to them a place of mourning and weeping." * 1 

 have seen it nowhere stated that the Osages conducted their lamenta- 

 tions at any other locality excepting the Blue Mound, which towered 

 above their princii)al village; and this fact alone is a strong basis for 

 for the supposition that about the apex of this majestic natural eleva- 

 tion these Indians interred all of their distinguished chiefs; thus dis- 

 posing of them, when dead, and of their common people's corpses by 

 difterent methods. We know that old White Hair was buried there, 



* History of Veruon County, pp. 142, 143. 



