THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. ray i 
States of Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, this same custom is said to 
have obtained. The Osages, as is elsewhere stated, erected, on one 
occasion, a pile of stones, as a monument, when they were going to 
war; and if we may credit the account given by Hunter of the man- 
ners and customs of this and some other Western tribes,* they some- 
times, “‘at or soon after burial, cover the grave with stones, and for 
years after occasionally resort to it, and mourn over or recount the 
merits and virtues of its silent tenant.”+ This was not however the 
only form of interment practiced among them, as we are told that ‘this 
ceremony was performed differently, not only by different tribes, but 
by the individuals of the same tribe, - - - the body being some- 
times placed on the surface of the ground, between flat stones set edge 
upwards, and then covered over, first by similar stones, and then with 
*« What remains to be said of the Indians relates more particularly to the Osages, 
although it will apply with almost as much propriety to the Kansas, Mahas, and 
Ottawas. In fact, if we except the roving bands, the circumstances of the Indians 
settled immediately to the west of the Missouri and Mississippi, are so very similar 
that the delineation of any particular nation or tribe will answer for them all,” ete. : 
Hunter’s Captivity, p. 218: London, 1823. Exactly what amount of credence is to 
be placed in these ‘* Memoirs” is a point about which opinions differ. Gen. Cass, in 
the North American Review tor January, 1826, makes a savage attack upon the 
book, and introduces letters from John Dunn (whose name Hunter took, and who 
had ‘treated him like a brother or son”), Gen. Wm. Clark, and others, to the effect 
that they never knew any such person, and that it was not possible for the events of 
which he speaks to have happened without their knowledge. This is to some extent 
negative evidence, and does not amount to much; but even if it were true, and Hun- 
ter was a myth, and the work that bears his name was a compilation, it would only 
invalidate so much of the narrative as refers to his personal experiences whilst a 
prisoner. All the rest, including that portion devoted to a description of the ‘‘ Man- 
ners and Customs of some of the Western Indians,” would then become simply a 
question of fact, and as such would have to be decided, as all such matters are, by a 
comparison of authorities in order to see how far the statements are corroborated. 
Applying this rule of evidence, it will be found that the reviewer, and not the com- 
piler, will suffer. To go no farther than the instances quoted in the text, we find 
undoubted evidence that the Osages have, within the present century, built both 
stone heaps and burial mounds; and that if they did not bury in stone graves, the 
Delawares, Kickapoos, and Shawnees did, and these tribes can be shown to have 
lived within the region and inside of the time covered by Hunter’s narrative. If, 
now, there were no such individual as Hunter, as the reviewer plainly intimates, 
then the compiler of the volume that bears his name must have manutactured the 
story out of whole cloth, which is not probable, or else he must have obtained his 
information from some person who was cognizant of the existence at some time of 
this form of burial among the Indians. If, on the other hand, Hunter was a real 
personage, and the bog is a genuine record of his experiences, then the statement 
must be accepted as true, for the reason that it is not only antecedently very proba- 
ble in itself, but because the account he has given of the customs of the tribes 
among whom he clams to have been a prisoner, has not, as yet, been successfully, 
impugned. 
+ Captivity, p. 309. 
H. Mis. 334, pt. 1 
27 
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