IQ ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



Captain Bernard Eomans says that the Chicasaws bury their dead almost the 

 moment the breath is out of the body, in the very spot under the couch in which 

 the deceased died, and the nearest relatives mourn over it with woful lamentations. 

 The mourning continues every evening and morning during a wliole year.^ When 

 one of the Chactaws dies, a stage is erected, and the corpse is laid on it and 

 covered with a bear skin ; if it be that of a man of note, it is decorated, and 

 the ])oles painted red with vermilion and bear's oil ; if that of a cliild, it is put 

 upon stakes, set across. The relatives then come and weep, asking many questions 

 of the corpse, such as, why he left them? did not his wife serve him welH was he 

 not contented witli his children ? had he not corn enough] did not his land produce 

 sufficient of everything ? was he afraid of his enemies] etc., and this accompanied 

 by loud howlings ; the women are there constantly, and sometimes with the 

 corrupted air and heat of the sun, faint, so as to oblige the by-standers to carry 

 them home ; the men also mourn in the same manner, but in the night or at other 

 times when they are least likely to be discovered. The stage is fenced round 

 with poles ; it remains thus a certain time, but not a fixed period ; this is some- 

 times extended to three or four months, but seldom more than half that time. 

 Old men, wlio wear very long nails on the thumb, fore, and middle finger of each 

 hand, as a distinguishing badge, constantly travel through the nation, that one 

 of them may acquaint those concerned, of the expiration of this period, which is 

 according to their own fancy ; the day being come, the friends and relatives 

 assemble near the stage, a fire is made, and the venerable operator, after the body 

 is taken down, with his nails tears the remaining flesh off" the bones, and throws 

 it with the entrails into the fire, where it is consumed ; then he scrapes the bones 

 and burns the scrapings. Tlie head being painted red with vermilion is put, with 

 the rest of the bones, into a chest (which for a chief is also made red), and 

 deposited in the loft of a hut built for that purpose, and called the bone-house ; 

 each town has one of these. After remaining here one year or thereabouts, if the 

 deceased was a man of any note, they take the chest down, and in an assembly of 

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

 repaint the box, and then consign him to lasting oblivion. An enemy or any one 

 who commits suicide is buried under the earth as one to be directly forgotten, 

 and unworthy of the above-mentioned obsequies and mourning.^ 



Romans remarks upon this strange treatment of the dead, that Apollonius Rho- 

 dius mentions a similar custom of the inhabitants of Colchis near Pontus ; Ives in 

 his voyage relates a like custom of the ancient Peruvians ; and Ave find again in 

 Hawkesworth's voyage that the people of Otaheite perform their obsequies in a 

 manner little or nothing diff"erent from that of the Chactaws. 



The dead of the Muscokees or Creeks, according to Bernard Romans, are buried 

 in a sitting posture, and they are furnished witli a musket, powder and ball, a 

 hatchet, a pipe, some tobacco, a club, a bow and arrows, a looking glass, some 



' Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, p. 11. 

 " Natural History of East and West Florida, pp. 89-90. 



