THE CRUMP BURIAL CAVE. 453 



14 feet long, has 7 or 8 steps, 18 or 19 inches apart, made by cutting 

 nto the tree a scarf about 6 inches high and 2 inches deep. Near the 

 foot of the ladder, but out in the open air, was a rock mound of good 

 size, from which some relics had been dug by parties hunting for 

 buried Indian money. 



There are many such houses in the coal measures, and they were 

 used by the aborigines as dwelling or burial places. I have found 

 human bones, and in one instance some beautiful arrow-heads, in a 

 number of such places among the mountains. The aborigines would 

 lay their dead away in rock crevices in wild and retired spots, and 

 cover them with stones enough to protect them from wild animals and 

 leave them in the "Eternal Silence." I have in some instances sent 

 the bones to the Museum; in other cases 1 left them undisturbed. I 

 have walked many miles for the purpose of making similar investiga- 

 tions through the country formerly belonging to the Creeks or Musco- 

 gees, when it was impossible to ride and dangerous even to walk. 



In the year 1881 I visited the site of a former Creek Indian village 

 in Brown's Valley, Marshall County, Ala. This was a village of 

 friendly Creeks. They had helped Gen. Jackson in the war against 

 their countrymen, and after peace was made, he removed and settled 

 them on lands of the Cherokees until they were sent west of the Mis- 

 sissippi. The early settlers told me that when one of the Creeks died, 

 they buried him in a corner of one of the huts or wigwams, which in 

 this village were small houses made of logs after the manner of the 

 white settlers, and that when a person was buried in each corner of a 

 hut, it was pulled down and removed to another spot. I had no means 

 of verifying this report. In the Cherokee country they buried their 

 dead in caves in some instances, but generally in the ground, like 

 Americans. 



Remarks by Mr. Thomas Wilson. — While this method of coffin 

 burial was unusual, if not unknown in the United States, yet there 

 were similar burials among the prehistoric peoples of other countries. 

 In the center of one of the display rooms in the great Prehistoric Mu- 

 seum at Copenhagen stand two coffins, similar in appearance to those 

 just described, made of the cloven and hollowed trunk of an oak tree 

 (PI. ci, Fig. 2). One came from Treenhoi and the other from Borum- 

 Eshoi, Denmark. One contained the body of a man; the other that of 

 a woman. The skeleton of the man had crumbled away; that of the 

 woman was well preserved. From the remains of the clothing they 

 have been able to reconstruct the garment of that period (PI. ci, 

 Fig. 3). The material was wool, which had been closely spun, and 

 was of the color known in the United States as "butternut"; whether 

 that was the original color, or whether it had been changed by contact 

 with the oak coffin, was not determinable. The garments consisted o* 

 a high cap, a wide, roundly cut mantle, a sort of tunic pieces of 

 wool which had probably covered the legs, while at the feet were 



