THE I'ATNTINC OV IfT^MAN BONES AMONC TlIK rNDTANS. 6l8 



in a wooden 1k)X. every year oilin.i; and cleansinji Uieni; by tbese means pro- 

 serve them foi' many a;j:es, so thai yon may see an Indian in possession of the 

 bones of his t^randlathi'r, or some of his rehitions of a lon;,'er antiquity. 



In Florida hoiu' i):iintin<2: sotMiis to Iiavo hocn practiced extensively 

 and from an early period. The cusloin is iiiciitioned in this part of 

 (ho country hy (hircilasso do la V('<>a and by Ilorrera. Romans (p. 

 88) doscrilx's il amoii.ii' the Choctaw as follows: 



The day [of the burial] being come, the friends and relations assomblo near 

 the stage, a tire is made, and the respectable operator, after the body is taken 

 down I from the stage on which it has lain for two to f(mr months], with his 

 nails tears the remaining flesh off the bones and throws it with the entrails 

 into the fire, where it is consumed; ilicn he scrapes the bones and burns the 

 scrapings likewise. The head being jtainted red with vernulion, is, with the 

 rest of the bones, put into a neatly made chest (which for a chief is also made 

 red) and deposited in the loft of a hut built for that ])urpose, and called " l)one 

 house." Each town has one of these. After remaining hero one year, or there- 

 abouts, if he be a man of any note, they take the chest down, and in an assembly 

 of relations and friends they weep once more over him, refresh the color of the 

 head, i)aint the box, and then deposit liim to lasting oblivion. 



An enemy and one who conunits suicide is buried under the earth, as one to 

 be directly forgotten and unworthy of the above ceremonial obsequies and 

 mourning. 



The late Andrew E. Douglass found what was po-ssibly inten- 

 tionally })ainted bones near St. Augustine, Fla." 



In certain parts of California the custom of bone painting seems 

 to have been common. 



Dr. H. F. ten Kate discovered several painted skeletons in Lower 

 California (a cave on P^spiritu Santo Island) and M. Diguet found 

 others in the valley of Las Calaveritas. All the specimens from 

 this ijart of the coimtry were painted red. Those discovered by 

 ten Kate were colored with ocher, while Diguet's specimens were 

 decorated Avith a paint obtained from volcanic ashes. M. Diguet 

 (p. 43) thought the localization of the burials in which painted 

 l)()nes are found was restricted to "'the islands of Espiritu Santo 

 and Cerralbo and a number of localities on the peninsula reaching 

 in a straight line from the Gulf of California to the Pacific Ocean."' 

 The collections in the National Museum include one male adult 

 h:keleton (No. 148213, collected by E. Palmer), from the Espiritu 

 Santo Island, Lower California, })arts of which, especially the 

 femora, show what appears to be intentional red j^ainting. It is 

 probable that from parts of this skeleton the paint, Avhich looks 

 like ocher, has been washed off. There is another male adult skele- 

 ton (No. C1398, collected bj^ L. Belding). and a separate lower jaw, 



« Sanchez Mound, situated about S miles north of St. Augustine. Over 20 

 bodies found. " Each cluster of bones was surmounted by the skull, and the 

 whole mass encrusted with red paint, which discolored the sand an inch around 

 them." (Proceedings Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1882, XXXI, p. 587.) 



