138 MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
were allowed to repose in the earth long enough for the fleshy parts to 
decay, and the bones were then collected, placed in urns, and reinterred. 
Dr, E, Foreman, of the Smithsonian Institution, furnishes the following 
account of urns used for burial : 
I would call your attention to an earthenware burial-urn and cover, Nos. 27976 and 
27977, National Museum, but very recently received from Mr. William McKinley, of 
Milledgeville, Ga. It was exhumed on his plantation, ten miles below that city, on 
the bottom lands of the Oconee River, now covered with almost impassible cane- 
brakes, tall grasses, and briers. We had a few months ago from the same source one 
of the covers, of which the ornamentation was different but more entire. A portion 
of a similar cover has been received also from Chattanooga, Tenn. Mr. McKinley 
ascribes the use of these urns and covers to the Muscogees, a branch of the Creek 
Nation. 
These urns are made of baked clay, and are shaped somewhat like 
the ordinary steatite ollas found in the California coast graves, but the 
bottoms instead of being round run down to a sharp apex; on the top 
was a cover, the upper part of which also terminated in an apex, and 
around the border, near where it rested on the edge of the vessel, are 
indented scroll ornamentations. 
The burial-urns of New Mexico are thus described by E. A. Barber:* 
Burial-wns * * * comprise vessels or ollas without handles, for cremation, 
usually being from 10 to 15 inches in height, with broad, open mouths, and made of 
coarse clay, with a laminated exterior (partially or entirely ornamented). Frequently 
the indentations extend simply around the neck or rim, the lower portion being plain. 
So far as is known, up to the present time no burial-urns have been 
found in North America resembling those discovered in Nicaragua by 
Dr. J. C. Bransford, U.S. N., but it is quite within the range of possi- 
bility that future researches in regions not far distant from that which 
he explored may reveal similar treasures. Figure 6 represents different 
forms of burial-urns. a, b, and e, after Foster, are from Laporte, Ind. 
J, after Foster, is from Greenup County, Kentucky; d is from Milledge- 
ville, Ga., in Smithsonian collection, No. 27976; and ¢ is one of the pe- 
culiar shoe-shaped urns brought from Ometepec Island, Lake Nicaragua, 
by Surgeon J. C. Bransford, U.S. N. 
SURFACE BURIAL. 
This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far 
as can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it was 
employed as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed 
for time. The Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow 
trees, the bodies being placed in an upright position, occasionally the 
dead being crammed into a hollow log lying on the ground. With some 
of the Eastern tribes a log was split in half and hollowed out sufii- 
* Amer. Naturalist, 1876, vol. x, p. 455 et seq. 
