﻿go SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. /8 



The work of reconnoissance was concluded early in June and 

 excavations were begun on a group of eight small burial mounds 

 on the farm of Mr. Lawrence Slay near Crandall, in Clarke County. 

 These mounds averaged about 30 feet in diameter and were for 

 the most part unstratified. Skeletal remains, ranging in number from 

 one individual to fifteen or more, were found in each mound. Evi- 

 dences of cremation were observed in several of the mounds and 

 in one of them, resting on a thick layer of charcoal, was found 

 a compact mass of broken and calcined bones, representing the 

 remains of a dozen or more individuals. As is usual in mounds of 

 this type, the bones were in a very poor state of preservation even 



Fk;. 90. — Nanih Waiya, sacred mound of the Choctaw, in Winston County, 

 Mississippi. According to Choctaw tradition, Nanih Waiya is the birth 

 place of the tribe, the first man and woman having come up from the under- 

 world through the mound. 



where they had not been subjected to fire. Figure 91. showing the 

 bone layer in one of the mounds, will afford some idea of the 

 condition in which the bones were found. From the few accounts 

 we have of the early explorations into the Choctaw country, it is 

 known that the Imrial customs of this tribe during the eighteenth 

 century and earlier were ditTerent from those practiced at a later 

 date. The dead were formerly placed on a platform erected for 

 the purpose, from which, some months later, they were removed 

 by the " bone-pickers," whose official dtity it was to carefully scraj>e 

 and clean the bones. These were then placed in cane hampers 

 and deposited in the bone house, one or more of which was to be 

 found in each Choctaw village. The bones were later taken from 

 the bone house and carried some distance from the village, where 



