380 The Natural History 



Fine, or Cypress Tree, to prevent the Rain falling upon it, 

 and other injuries of the Weather; frequently sweeping the 

 Ground very clean about it. Some of his nearest Relations 

 bring all the Temporal Estate he was possest of at his Death, 

 such as Guns, Bows and Arrows, Beads, Feathers, Deer 

 Skills, Matclicoats, and the like, wherewith they adorn the 

 Grave. The nearest Relation is the principal Mourner, be- 

 ing clad in Moss (that grows upon Trees) after a very odd 

 and strange manner, with a Stick in his Hand, keeping a 

 mournful Ditty for three or four Days, his Face being made 

 as black as a Negroe with the Smoak and Soot of the Fitch 

 Fine, mingled with Bears-grease; during this time he tells 

 all the Spectators that approach near him, or pass by, who 

 the deceased was, and what great Feats he performed in his 

 life time, all tending to the Praise of the defunct. 



When the Flesh grows Mellow, and cleaves from the Bones, 

 they take it off and burn it, making the Bones very clean, 

 and anoint them with Ointment, wrapping the Scull up very 

 carefully in a Cloth artificially woven of Fossum's Hair or 

 a dressed Deer Skin, which they every Year or oftner, 

 cleanse and anoint with the Red Oyntment, by these Means 

 they preserve them for many Ages ; they likewise carry them 

 from place to place as they remove their Dwellings; that it 

 is common to see an Indian in the Possession of the Bones of 

 his Grandfather, Father, or some Relation of longer An- 

 tiquity. 



They have other sorts of Monuments or Tombs for the 

 dead, as where one was slain, in that very Place they raise 

 a heap of Stones, if any are to be met with in the Plact., if 

 not, with Sticks, to his Memory ; that every one that passeth 

 by that place augments the Heap in respect of the deceas'd. 

 Some Nations of these Indians have great rojoycing and 

 Feasts at their Burials. 



There 



