98 Description of some Sepulchral Pits of Indian Origin. 



the women recommenced to cry and lament. Then all the assistants used 

 to descend into the pit, and each person to take a handful of earth, which 

 he carefully preserved, and this earth was supposed to bring them success 

 at play. The bodies and bones were arranged in order, and covered with 

 new furs and bark, over which was placed stones, wood, and earth. Each 

 person then returned to his home, but the women used to go back, from 

 day to day, with some sagamite." 



Here, then, there can be little doubt, is an explanation of the 

 origin of some of these sepulchral pits ; it can hardly be said of all 

 of them, owing to some difference in their character, the peculiarity 

 of their contents, and their apparent inconsistency with the ideas of 

 Indians on the subject of death. In the ceremonies first mentioned 

 there is no notice taken of the burial of cooking utensils with the 

 dead, though they were supplied with food by the women, who placed 

 it near the grave. The utensils which have been found in some of 

 the pits must have been highly valuable, very difficult to procure, and 

 far too usei'ul to the living to be given to the dead merely as presents, 

 and must have been placed there with some other motive. 



Bearing in mind the destruction of human life that attended the 

 war of extermination just referred to, one cannot help in some degree 

 associating the two, and concluding that some of the pits were merely 

 depositories for the dead, formed in time of peace, in accordance with 

 the above custom ; others, more particularly those containing kettles, 

 were made or employed on an emeri^ency, for the purpose of burying 

 the killed in battle, and secreting the property of the vanquished. 



It is easy to imagine, that a party oppressed and threatened with 

 destruction by the Mohawks, unwilling to be encumbered in their 

 flight with such heavy articles, disposed of them in this manner, 

 trusting to their remaining thus concealed or protected from the 

 enemy, by being deposited with the dead, till they should be able to 

 return and recover them. Respect for the dead, being a feeling common 

 to nearly all tribes of Indians, would hinder even their fierce enemies 

 from disturbing them. 



That the kettles which were found in pit ]So. 3, in the township 

 of Oro, were deposited there under some such circumstances, seems 

 more likely from the fact of their having been previously rendered 

 unserviceable ; thus proving almost to a certainty that they were not 

 placed there for any purpose suggested by their ideas of the future 

 lot that attended their deceased friends, as a broken kettle would be 

 even less serviceable to them in their happy hunting-grounds than to 

 those they left behind. 



The following is the authority for calling some of the beads found 

 in these pits by the term " whampum," and Charlevoix's description 

 of the shells from which they have been made. The translation is 

 thought to be tolerably accurate, though one or two of the terms are 

 not easily expressed in English : — 



" I have said that the ' porcelaines ' (whampum ?) of these countries are 



