YARROW. ] ANTIQUITY OF CREMATION. 143 
or more horses are killed over or near the grave. Two horses and a mule were killed 
near Black Hawk’s grave. They were led up near and shot inthe head. At the death 
of a Comanche chief, some years ago, I am told about seventy horses were killed, and 
a greater number than that were said to have been killed at the death of a prominent 
Kiowa chief a few years since. 
The mourning is principally done by the relatives and immediate friends, although 
any one of their own tribe, or one of another tribe, who chances to be passing, will stop 
and moan with the relatives. Their mourning consists in a wierd wail, which to be 
described must be heard, and once heard is never forgotten, together with the sear- 
ifying of their faces, arms, and legs with some sharp instrument, the cutting off of 
the hair, and oftentimes the cutting off of a joint of a finger, usually the little finger 
(Comanches do not cut off fingers). The length of time and intensity of their mourn- 
ing depends upon the relation and position of the deceased in the tribe. I have 
known instances where, if they should be passing along where any of their friends 
had died, even a year after their death, they would mourn. 
The Shoshones, of Nevada, generally concealed their dead beneath 
heaps of rocks, according to H. Butterfield, of Tyho, Nye County, Ne- 
vada, although occasionally they either burn or bury them. He gives as 
reasons for rock burial: 1st, to prevent coyotes eating the corpses; 2d, 
because they have no tools for deep excavations; and 3d, natural indo- 
lence of the Indians—indisposition to work any more than can be helped. 
The Pi-Utes, of Oregon, bury in cairns; the Blackfeet do the same, as 
did also the Acaxers and Yaquis, of Mexico, and the Esquimaux; in fact, 
a number of examples might be quoted. In foreign lands the custom 
prevailed among certain African tribes, and it is said that the ancient 
Balearic Islanders covered their dead with a heap of stones, but this 
ceremony was preceded by an operation which consisted in cutting the 
body in small pieces and collecting in a pot. 
CREMATION. 
Next should be noted this mode of disposing of the dead, a common 
custom to a considerable extent among North American tribes, especially 
those living on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, although we 
have undoubted evidence that it was also practiced among the more 
eastern ones. This rite may be considered as peculiarly interesting from 
its great antiquity, for Tegg* informs us that it reached as far back as 
the Theban war, in the account of which mention is made of the burning 
of Menceacus and Archemorus, who were contemporary with Jair, eighth 
judge of Israel. It was common in the interior of Asia and among the 
ancient Greeks and Romans, and has also prevailed among the Hindoos 
up to the present time. In fact, it is now rapidly becoming a custom 
among civilized people. 
While there is a certain degree of similarity between the performance 
“The Last Act, 1876. 
