YARROW. | BOX-BURIAL—ESQUIMAUX. 155 
and on each anniversary of the death it is redressed and attended to amid 
certain ceremonies. The writer has been recently informed that a simi- 
lar custom prevailed in Demerara. No authentic accounts are known 
of analogous modes of burial among the peoples of the Old World, al- 
though quite frequently the dead were interred beneath the floors of 
their houses, a custom which has been followed by the Mosquito Indians 
of Central America and one or two of our own tribes. 
BOX-BURIAL. 
Under this head may be placed those examples furnished by certain 
tribes on the northwest coast who used as receptacles for the dead won- 
derfully carved, large wooden chests, these being supported upon a low 
platform or resting on the ground. In shape they resemble a small 
house with an angular roof, and each one has an opening through which 
food may be passed to the corpse. 
Some of the tribes formerly living in New York used boxes much re- 
sembling those spoken of, and the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees 
did the same. 
Capt. J. H. Gageby, United States Army, furnishes the following re- 
lating to the Creeks in Indian Territory : 
* * * are buried on the surface, in a box or a substitute made of branches of trees, 
covered with small branches, leaves, and earth. I have seen several of their graves, 
which after a few weeks had become uncovered and the remains exposed to view. I 
saw in one Creek grave (a child’s) a small sum of silver; in another (adult male) some 
implements of warfare, bow and arrows. They are all interred with the feet of the 
corpse to the east. In the mourning ceremonies of the Creeks the nearer relatives 
smeared their hair and faces with a composition made of grease and wood-ashes, and 
would remain in that condition for several days, and probably a month. 
Josiah Priest* gives an account of the burial repositories of a tribe 
of Pacific coast Indians living on the Talomeco River, Oregon. The 
writer believes it to be entirely unreliable and gives it place as an ex- 
ample of credulity shown by many writers and readers: 
The corpses of the Caciques were so well embalmed that there was no bad smell; 
they were deposited in large wooden coftins, well constructed, and placed upon benches 
two feet from the ground. In smaller coffins, and in baskets, the Spaniards found the 
clothes of the deceased men and women, and so many pearls that they distributed 
them among the officers and soldiers by handsfulls. 
In Bancroft + may be found the following account of the burial boxes 
of the Esquimaux: 
The Eskimos do not as a rule bury their dead, but double the body up and place it 
on the side in a plank box, which is elevated three or four feet from the ground and 
supported by four posts. The grave-box is often covered with painted figures of 
*Aim. Antiq. and Discoy., 1838, p. 286. 
tNat. Races of Pac. States, 1874, vol. i, p. 69. 
