yannow.] SCAFFOLD-BURIAL—CHIPPEWAS. 161 
A. Delano,* mentions as follows an example of tree-burial which he 
noticed in Nebraska. 
* * * During the afternoon we passed a Sioux burying-ground, if I may be 
allowed to use an Ivishism. In ahackberry tree, elevated about twenty feet from the 
ground, a kind of rack was made of broken tent poles, and the body (for there was 
but one) was placed upon it, wrapped in his blanket, and a tanned buffalo skin, with 
his tin cup, moccasins, ana various things which he had used in life, were placed upon 
his body, for his use in the land of spirits. 
Figure 18 represents tree-burial, from a sketch drawn by my friend 
Dr. Washington Matthews, United States Army. 
John Young, Indian agent at the Blackfeet Agency, Montana, sends 
the following account of tree-burial among this tribe : 
Their manner of burial has always been (until recently) to inclose the dead body 
in robes or blankets, the best owned by the departe1, closely sewed up, and then, if 
a male or chief, fasten in the branches of a tree so high as to be beyond the reach of 
wolves, and then left to slowly waste in the dry winds. If the body was that of a 
squaw or child, it was thrown into the underbrush or jungle, where it soon became 
the prey of the wild animals. The weapons, pipes, &c., of men were inclosed, and 
the small toys of children with them. The ceremonies were equally barbarous, the 
relatives cutting off, according to the depth of their grief, one or more joints of the 
fingers, divesting themselves of clothing even in the coldest weather, and filling the air 
with their lamentations. All the sewing up and burial process was conducted by the 
squaws, as the men would not touch nor remain in proximity to a dead body. 
The following account of scaffold burial among the Gros Ventres and 
Mandans of Dakota is furnished by E. H. Alden, United States Indian 
agent at Fort Berthold: 
The Gros Ventres and Mandans never bury in the ground, but always on a scaffold 
made of four posts about eight feet high, on which the box is placed, or, if no box is 
used, the body wrapped in red or blue cloth if able, or, if not, a blanket or cheapest 
white cloth, the tools and weapons being placed directly under the body, and there 
they remain forever, no Indian ever daring to touch one of them. It would be bad 
medicine to touch the dead or anything so placed belonging to him. Should the body 
by any means fall to the ground, it is never touched or replaced on the scaffold. As 
soon as one dies he is immediately buried, sometimes within an hour, and the friends 
begin howling and wailing as the process of interment goes on, and continue mourn- 
ing day and night around the grave, without food sometimes three or four days. Those 
who mourn are always paid for if in some way by the other friends of the deceased, 
and those who mourn the longest are paid the most. They also show their grief and 
affection for the dead by a fearful cutting of their own bodies, sometimes only in part, 
and sometimes all over their whole flesh, and this sometimes continues for weeks. 
Their hair, which is worn in long braids, is also cut off to show their mourning. They 
seem proud of their mutilations. A young man who had just buried his mother came 
in boasting of, and showing his mangled legs. 
According to Thomas L. McKenney,t the Chippewas of Fond du Lae, 
Wis., buried on scaffolds, inclosing the corpse in a box. The narrative 
is as follows: 
One mode of burying the dead among the Chippewas is to place the coffin or box 
containing their remains on two cross-pieces, nailed or tied with wattap to four poles, 
* Life on the Plains, 1854, p. 68. t'Tour to the Lakes, 1827, p. 305. 
1lAE 
