Notes on Memories of a Bear Hunter 



was physician at the Fort Peck Agency from July I, 

 1876, to June 22, 1877. Nothing is known of him 

 or of Major Mitchell since they left the Indian ser- 

 vice. 



17. White Beaver Creek. Tributary of Yellow- 

 stone from the north, lying chiefly in the eastern 

 part of Sweet Grass county, Montana. 



18. Burial Scaffolds. The platforms were com- 

 monly formed of long willow twigs strung together 

 on sinews, and supported beneath by two or three 

 poles running at right angles to the twigs or length- 

 ways of the body. These are made in the same fashion 

 as back-rests or sleeping mattresses. These platforms 

 were sometimes placed in trees or were lashed to 

 four upright poles on the prairie. 



Good figures of the Dakota burial platforms, taken 

 from Yarrow's Mortuary Customs, may be found in 

 Bull. 30 of the Bureau of Amer. Eth., p. 940. 



The mortuary customs of the Indians were very 

 various, and in different parts of the country there 

 were different practices. Thus we have stone graves 

 made of slabs of flat stone, arranged in box-like form ; 

 we have mummies from Alaska and from the dry 

 southwest; in portions of the northwest cremation 

 was practiced, the ashes sometimes being kept in urns 

 and sometimes being scattered, and besides there is 

 the aerial sepulcher described by the author and also 

 aquatic burial. Besides that, the dead were often put 

 on tops of hills, not covered over at all, or on hills, 

 with stones piled over them. The whole subject has 



26.-? 



