YARROW. | INHUMATION—MOHAWKS. 3 
4th. By SURFACE BURIAL, the remains being placed in hollow trees or 
logs, pens, or simply covered with earth, or bark, or rocks forming cairns. 
5th. By CREMATION, or partial burning, generally on the surface of 
the earth, occasionally beneath, the resulting bones or ashes being placed 
in pits in the ground, in boxes placed on scaffolds or trees, in urns, 
sometimes scattered. 
6th. By AERIAL SEPULTURE, the bodies being left in lodges, houses, 
cabins, tents, deposited on scaffolds or trees, in boxes or canoes, the two 
latter receptacles supported on scaffolds or posts, or placed on the ground. 
Occasionally baskets have been used to contain the remains of children, 
these being hung to trees. 
7th. By AQUATIC BURIAL, beneath the water, or in canoes, which 
were turned adrift. 
These heads might, perhaps, be further subdivided, but the above 
seem sufficient for all practical needs. 
The use of the term burial throughout this paper is to be understood in 
its literal significance, the word being derived from the Teutonic Anglo- 
Saxon ‘“birgan,” to conceal or hide away. 
In giving descriptions of different burials and attendant ceremonies, 
it has been deemed expedient to introduce entire accounts as furnished, 
in order to preserve continuity of narrative, and in no case has the re- 
lator’s language been changed except to correct manifest unintentional 
errors of spelling. 
INHUMATION. 
PIT BURIAL. 
The commonest mode of burial among North American Indians has 
been that of interment in the ground, and this has taken place in a 
number of different ways; the following will, however, serve as good 
examples of the process: 
One of the simplest forms is thus noted by Schoolcraft: * 
The Mohawks of New York made a large round hole in which the body was placed 
upright or upon its haunches, after which it was covered with timber, to support 
the earth which they lay over, and thereby kept the body from being pressed. They 
then raised the earth in a round hill over it. They always dressed the corpse in all 
its finery, and put wampum and other things into the grave with it; and the relations 
suffered not grass nor any weed to grow upon the grave, and frequently visited it and 
made lamentation. 
In Jonest is the following interesting account from Lawsont of the 
burial customs of the Indians formerly inhabiting the Carolinas: 
Among the Carolina tribes the burial of the dead was accompanied with special 
ceremonies, the expense and formality attendant upon the funeral according with the 
rank of the deceased. The corpse was first placed in a cane hurdle and deposited in 
* Hist. Ind. Tribes of U. §., 1853, pt. 3, p. 193. 
tAntiq. of Southern Indians, 1873, pp. 108-110. t Hist. of Carolina, 1714, p. 181. 
