YARROW. | BURIAL BENEATH, OR IN CABINS, ETC. 123 
had the greatest value for in his lifetime. His eldest wife, or the queen dowager, has 
the second choice of his possessions, and the remaining effects are divided among his 
other wives and children. 
According to Bernard Roman,* the *‘funeral customs of the Chick- 
asaws did not differ materially from those of the Muscogulges. They 
interred the dead as soon as the breath left the body, and beneath the 
couch in which the deceased expired.” 
The Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona, a tribe living a consider- 
able distance from the Chickasaws, follow somewhat similar customs, as 
related by Dr. John Menard, formerly a physician to their agency : 
The Navajo custom is to leave the body where it dies, closing up the house or hogan 
or covering the body with stones or brush. In case the body is removed, it is taken 
to a cleft in the rocks and thrown in, and stones piled over. The person touching or 
carrying the body first takes off all his clothes and afterwards washes his body with 
water before putting them on or mingling with the living. When a body is removed 
from a house or hogan, the hogan is burned down, and the place in every case aban- 
doned, as the belief is that the devil comes to the place of death and remains where 
a dead body is. Wild animals frequently (indeed, generally) get the bodies, and it is 
a very easy matter to pick up skulls and bones around old camping grounds, or where 
the dead are laid. In case it is not desirable to abandon a place, the sick person is 
left out in some lone spot protected by brush, where they are either abandoned to 
their fate or food brought to them until they die. This is done only when all hope is 
gone. Ihave found bodies thus left so well inclosed with brush that wild animals 
were unable to get at them; and one so left to die was revived by a cup of coffee from 
our house and is still living and well. 
Lieut. George HE. Ford, Third United States Cavalry, in a personal 
communication to the writer, corroborates the account given by Dr. 
Menard, as follows : 
This tribe, numbering about 8,000 souls, occupy a reservation in the extreme north- 
western corner of New Mexico and Northeastern Arizona. The funeral ceremonies of 
the Navajos are of the most simple character. They ascribe the death of an indi- 
vidual to the direct action of Chinde, or the devil, and believe that he remains in the 
vicinity of the dead. For this reason, as soon as a member of the tribe dies a shallow 
grave is dug within the hogan or dwelling by one of the near male relatives, and into 
this the corpse is unceremoniously tumbled by the relatives, who have previously pro- 
tected themselves from the evil influence by smearing their naked bodies with tar from 
the pinion tree. After the body has thus been disposed of, the hogan (composed of 
logs and branches of trees covered with earth) is pulled down over it and the place 
deserted. Should the deceased have no near relatives or was of no importance in the 
tribe, the formality of digging a grave is dispensed with, the hogan being simply lev- 
eled over the body. ‘This carelessness does not appear to arise from want of natural 
affection for the dead, but fear of the evil influence of Chinde upon the surviving rela- 
tives causes them to avoid doing anything that might gain for them his ill-will. A 
Navajo would freeze sooner than make a fire of the logs of a fallen hogan, even though 
from all appearances it may have been years in that condition. There are no mourn- 
ing observances other than smearing the forehead and under the eyes with tar, which 
is allowed to remain until worn off, and then not renewed. The deceased is apparently 
forgotten, as his name is never spoken by the survivors for fear of giving offense to 
Chinde. 
*A Concise Nat. Hist. of East and West Florida, 1775. 
