YARROW.} MOUND BURIAL. 115 
where the Ind‘ans burned their dead and left mounds of earth over the graves, but I 
have not examined them myself. * * * 
According to Bancroft,* the Dorachos, an isthmian tribe of Central 
America, also followed the cist form of burial. 
In Verag ia the Dorachos had two kinds of tombs, one for the principal men, con- 
structed with flat stones laid together with much care, and in which were placed 
costly jars and urns filled with food and wine for the dead. Those for the plebians 
were merely trenches, in which were deposited some gourds of maize and wine, and 
the place filled with stones. In some parts of Panama and Darien only the chiefs and 
lords recerved funeral rites. Among the common people a person feeling his end 
approaching either went himself or was led to the woods by his wife, family, or friends, 
who, supplying him with some cake or ears of corn and a gourd of water, then left him 
to die alone or to be assisted by wild beasts. Others, with more respect for their dead, 
buried them in sepulchers made with niches, where they placed maize and wine and 
renewed the same annually. With some, a mother dying while suckling her infant, 
the living child was placed at her breast and buried with her, in order that in her 
future state she might continue to nourish it with her milk. 
BURIAL IN MOUNDS. 
In view of the fact that the subject of mound-burial is so extensive, 
and that in all probability a volume by a member of the Bureau of Eth- 
nology may shortly be published, it is not deemed advisable to devote 
any considerable space to it in this paper, but a few interesting examples 
may be noted to serve as indications to future observers. 
The first to which attention is directed is interesting as resembling 
cist. burial combined with deposition in mounds. The communication is 
from Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum of Archee- 
ology, Cambridge, made to the Boston Society of Natural History, and 
is peblished in volume XX of its proceedings, October 15, 1878: 
* « * He then stated that it would be of interest to the members, in connection 
with the discovery of dolmens in Japan, as described by Professor Morse, to know that 
within twenty-four hours there had been received at the Peabody Museum a small 
collection of articies taken from rude dolmens (or chambered barrows, as they would 
be called in England), recently opened by Mr. E. Curtiss, who is now engaged, under 
his direction, in exploration for the Peabody Museum. 
These chambered mounds are situated in the eastern part of Clay County, Missouri, 
and form a large group on both sides of the Missouri River. The chambers are, in 
the threa opened by Mr. Curtiss, about 8 feet square, and from 44 to 5 feet high, each 
chamber having a passage-way several feet in length and 2 in width, leading from 
the southern side and opening on the edge of the mound formed by covering the 
chamber and passage-way with earth. The walls of the chambered passages were 
about 2 feet thick, vertical, and well made of stones, which were evenly laid without 
clay or mortar of any kind. The top of one of the chambers had a covering of large, 
flat rocks, but the others seem to have been closed over with wood. The chambers were 
filled with clay which had been burnt, and appeared asif it had fallen in from above. 
The inside walls of the chambers also showed signs of fire. Under the burnt clay, in 
each chamber, were found the remains of several human skeletons, all of which had 
been burnt to such an extent as to leave but small fragments of the bones, which 
were mixed with the ashes and charcoal. Mr. Curtiss thought that in one chamber 
*Nat. Races of the Pacific States, 1874, vol. i, p. 780. 
