78 THE FEAST OF THE DEAD. [1636. 



the air resounded with discordant outcries.^ The 

 naked multitude, on, under, and around the scaffold, 

 were flinging the remains of their dead, discharged 

 from their envelopments of skins, pell-mell into 

 the pit, where Brebeuf discerned men who, as the 

 ghastly shower fell around them, arranged the bones 

 in their places with long poles. All was soon over ; 

 earth, logs, and stones were cast upon the grave, 

 and the clamor subsided into a funereal chant, — so 

 dreary and lugubrious, that it seemed to the Jesuits 

 the wail of despairing souls from the abyss of per- 

 dition.^ 



Such was the origin of one of those strange sep- 

 ulchres which are the wonder and perplexity of 

 the modern settler in the abandoned forests of the 

 Hurons. 



1 "Approchans, nous vismes tout a fait une image de TEnfer: cette 

 fi[rande place estoit toute remplie de feux & de flammes, &. I'air retentis- 

 soit de toutes parts des voix confuses de ces Barbares," etc. — Brebeuf, 

 Relation des Hurons, 1636, 209 (Cramoisy). 



2 " Se mirent a chanter, mais d'un ton si lamentable & si lugubre, 

 qu'il nous representoit I'horrible tristesse & I'abysme du desespoir dans 

 lequel sont plonge'es pour iamais ces ames malheureuses." — Ibid., 210. 



For other descriptions of these rites, see Charlevoix, Bressani, Du 

 Creux, and especially Lafitau, in whose work they are illustrated with 

 engravings. In one form or another, they were widely prevalent. Bar- 

 tram found them among the Floridian tribes. Traces of a similar prac- 

 tice have been observed in recent times among the Dacotahs. Remains 

 of places of sepulture, evidently of kindred origin, have been found in 

 Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio. Many have been discovered 

 in several parts of New York, especially near the River Niagara. ( See 

 Squier, Aboriginal Monuments of New York.) This was the eastern extrem- 

 ity of the ancient territory of the Neuters. One of these deposits is said 

 to have contained the bones of several thousand individuals. There is 

 a large mound on Tonawanda Island, said by the modern Senecas to be a 

 Neuter burial-place. (See Marshall, Historical Sketches of the Niagara 

 Frontier, 8.) In Canada West, they are found throughout the region 

 once occupied by the Neuters, and are frequent in the Huron district. 



Dr. Tache' writes to me, — "I have inspected sixteen bone-pits," (in 



