132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



If a man was killed in war, his relatives made presents to their 

 patrons to encourage them to organize a group of warriors to avenge 

 the death ( JK 10 : 271-273) . 



Some miusual modes of death were treated in different ways.^^ If 

 a person died by drowning or by freezing, the neighboring villages 

 gathered and feasted. Many presents, double the usual number, were 

 given. The corpse was stretched out on a mat at the cemetery, 

 between a ditch on one side and a fire on the other. Some young 

 men chosen by the deceased's relatives cut off the fleshy parts of the 

 body which had been marked with a coal by the protector of the dead 

 person. This flesh and the entrails were then thrown into the fire 

 and the body, stripped of its flesh, was thrown into the ditch. 

 Women walked several times around the men who were cutting up 

 the body, encouraged them to render this good service to the whole 

 country, and put wampum beads into their mouths. Sometimes the 

 mother of the deceased, crying, joined the group and sang in a pitiful 

 tone, lamenting the death of her son. The ceremony was performed 

 to appease the Sky or the Lake who was believed to be angry. If it 

 was not performed, disastrous changes of weather and accompanying 

 accidents would follow as a result of its anger. In one instance, a 

 man drowned at the beginning of November and was buried on the 

 17th without any ceremony. On that same day a heavy snow fell 

 that stayed on the ground all winter: the result of the Indians not 

 having performed the ceremony to cut up the body ( JK 10 : 163-165, 

 273). 



A Huron who died a violent death was burned or buried immedi- 

 ately, often while still half alive. His bones, as well as the bones 

 of those who died from cold, were not removed from the grave and 

 reburied at the Feast of the Dead, as the Huron believed that those who 

 died in war, by shipwreck, etc., had no communication in the afterlife 

 with other souls ( JR 39 : 31) . 



If a person died outside of Huronia, the Indians burned the body 

 and extracted the bones to take back vdth them ( JR 11 : 131) .^^ 



If a young baby, less than a month or two old, died, it was buried 

 by the road, in order that it might enter a woman's womb and be 

 reborn (JR 10: 273; cf. JR 15: 183— "They believe that souls enter 

 bodies after death"). 



For years, one woman kept m her house the body of her dead son 

 (JR39:29). 



« These special modes of burial may be related to the Iroquois rites to expel from the 

 houses the souls of murdered enemies, witches, or those who died unnatural, suicidal, 

 or violent deaths as mentioned by Hewitt (1895 b : 107). 



" Compare the present Iroquois belief that "death in a foreign land is considered punish- 

 ment for past sins or an evil life" and the strong feeling that "the body should be brought 

 home" (Shimony 1961 a : 234). 



