MODES OF BURIAL. l»y 



vermilion, and other articles, in order to come well provided into the world of 

 spirits. 



According to the same author, tlie Arkansas, Kansas, Kappas or Kwappas 

 bury their dead, like the Creeks, with the addition of tying the head down to the 

 knees. 



William Bartram says that the Muscogulges bury their deceased in the earth. 

 They dig a deep square pit under the cabin or couch on which the deceased lay 

 in his house, Ihiing the grave with cypress bark. Into this they place the corpse 

 in a sitting posture, as if it were alive, depositing with him his gun, tomahawk, 

 pipe, and such other matters as he held of the greatest value in his lifetime. His 

 eldest wife, or queen dowager, has the first choice of his possessions, and the 

 remaining effects are divided among his other wives and his children. 



The description of the burial customs of the Chactaws by Bartram is as follows, 

 and agrees in the main with that of Captain Romans, but contains several 

 important additions : " Tlie Chactaws pay their last duties and respects to the 

 deceased in a very different manner from the Muscogulges. As soon as a person 

 is dead, they erect a scaftbld eighteen or twenty feet high, in a grove adjacent to 

 the town, where they lay the corpse, lightly covered with a mantle ; here it is suffered 

 to remain, visited and protected by the friends and relatives, until the flesh becomes 

 putrid; then undertakers, who make it their business, carefully strip the flesh from 

 the bones, wash and cleanse them, and when dry and purified by the air, they are 

 placed in a curiously wrought chest or coffin, fabricated of bones and splints, which 

 is deposited in tlie bone-house, a building erected for that purpose in every town. 

 When this house is full, a general solemn funeral takes place. Then the nearest 

 kindred or friends of the deceased, on a day appointed, repair to the bone-house, 

 take out the respective coffins, and following one another in order of seniority, the 

 nearest relatives and connections accompanying their respective corpses, and the 

 multitude following after them, all as one family, with united voice of alternate 

 alleluyah and lamentation, slowly proceed to the place of general interments, where 

 they place the coffins in order, forming a pyramid ; and lastly they cover all over 

 with earth, which raises a conical hill or mound. Then they return to town in the 

 order of a solemn procession, concluding the day with a festival which is called 

 the feast of the dead.'" 



James Adair, who was a trader with the Indians, and resided in their country 

 for forty years, has given the following account of the burial of the dead by the 

 Cherokees and Chactaws or Cliokta. 



"Except the Cheerake, only one instance of deviation from the ancient and general Indian enstom 

 (of burying articles with the body) occurs to me : which was that of Malakeke, the late famous 

 chieftain of the Kow-wetah head war town of the lower part of the Muskohge Country, who bequeathed 

 all he possessed to his real and adopted relations ; being sensible that his effects would be much more 

 useful to his living friends than to himself during his long sleep. 



"The Cheerake of late years, by the reiterated pursuasion of the traders, have entirely left off the 

 custom of burying effects with the dead body ; the nearest of blood inherits them. They, and several 



' Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, pp. 615-16. 



3 April, 1876. 



