292 INDIANS. 



any animals or birds which might venture to disturb the 

 remains. 



Such a tomb in the dry climate of the plains will last 

 for several years. Whether it does or does not appears 

 not to concern the Indians in the least. They never re- 

 build or repair ; and when time, decay, or accident has 

 destroyed the platform and scattered the bones on the 

 ground, they are left as they fall, no further care or notice 

 being given to them. 



The elaborate arrangements described above are only 

 made when the Indians, are in a winter encampment, and 

 have plenty of time to devote to the excitement and 

 luxury of grief. At other seasons, or when on a journey, 

 or pressed for time, caves are used for chiefs ; holes or 

 small ravines for the common warriors. Scalped warriors 

 are never buried, but left where they fell. Occasionally 

 a favourite wife of a chief is buried in a tree ; but, as a rule, 

 dead women are hustled into the first convenient hole in 

 rock or prairie without ceremony or special manifestation 

 of grief. 



The country in the vicinity of the Cimarron River, 

 south of Fort Dodge, is almost exclusively a gypsum 

 formation. Instead of wearing channels on the surface 

 of the ground and forming ravines, the rains have pene- 

 trated the soil, dissolved the gypsum, and formed for 

 watercourses long intricate tunnels and caverns innumer- 

 able. These are favourite burying places. During a visit 

 to this locality with a party of soldiers, a cave elaborately 

 walled up was discovered and broken into by the men, and 

 a great quantity of useful and curious articles, trinkets, and 

 Indian finery taken from it. I was little disposed to scold 

 them for the desecration when they brought me a string of 

 at least a dozen white scalps, some of infants, and one of 

 long, fair, and most beautiful silky hair, which had un- 

 doubtedly adorned the head of some woman at least 

 sufficiently cultured to appreciate and take excellent care 

 of the lovely ornament. 



