386 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



"when a member of the Wolf Clan died, the flesh was scraped from 

 t]ie bones and buried, and the bones allowed to dry for 12 days. At 

 the end of this period the skeleton was wrapped in white buckskin 

 and carried to the place where the Human Skeleton dance was held." ^^ 



Unfortunately, it has not been possible to consult the original re- 

 ports cited by Davidson to determine whether additional details are 

 given. It would be useful to know whether the flesh of the exhumed 

 bodies was sufficiently decomposed to be removed easily (with fewer 

 knife marks) , or whether considerable hacking was required ; whether 

 the body was intact at the beginning of the cleaning; dismembered 

 for more convenient handling; still held together as a skeleton by 

 ligaments even at the conclusion of the cleaning, or simply a bundle 

 of bones, with some limbs still partially articulated. One would like 

 to know, too, how clean these bones were gotten ; not very clean, one 

 would suspect, from the records of "the 'disagreeable stench' which 

 trailed the [Nanticoke] groups who carried these remains through 

 the town of Bethlehem between 1750 and 1760" (Davidson, 1935, p. 

 87). One wonders, too, how long the remains were kept before 

 eventual burial. One also wonders why. 



From the foregoing, it would appear that the removal of the flesh 

 from the bones was a widespread practice in the Southeast and Middle 

 Atlantic coast; that the practice continued from at least before the 

 earliest reports in the 1500's to the latest in the 1800's ; and that there 

 were local variants. The marking of the Tollifero bones indicates 

 considerable antiquity for the practice in the area. In some places 

 the flesh was removed from the bones a few days after death; else- 

 where the bodies were buried for varying lengths of time, exhumed 

 and then cleaned. In some areas, the cleaned bones were replaced in 

 the skin, covered with sand to reproduce the living contours, and laid 

 in a death house; elsewhere they were folded and wrapped neatly into 

 packages, kept for a while and then buried. With some groups, re- 

 moval of the flesh was work for professionals ; in others, a community 

 project. The disposal of the flesh ; the clan, status, or relationship of 

 the individuals accorded this treatment; the motives and probably 

 other aspects of the procedure varied also from place to place, with 

 time and with circimistances. 



One of the important variants is probably the reason for the practice. 

 Part of the evidence may be read from the jDOsition in which the bones 

 were found, part from the bones themselves, and part from the his- 

 torical record. 



The first problem is to establish the existence of the practice. Only 

 with a bundle burial is the position of the bones clear evidence of 

 secondary burial of some sort; a flexed burial where the limbs are 

 so close to the trunk as to suggest that the individual had very little — 



"Adams (1890), cited by Davidson (1935, p. 89). 



