170 MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
parts of the country. On opening these mounds the skeletons are usually found 
arranged in horizontal layers, a conical pyramid, those in each layer radiating from a 
common center. In other cases they are found placed promiscuously. 
Dr. D. G. Brinton* likewise gives an account of the interment of col- 
lected bones: 
East of the Mississippi nearly every nation was accustomed at stated periods— 
usually once in eight or ten years—to collect and clean the osseous remains of those 
of its number who had died in the intervening time, and inter them in one common 
sepulcher, lined with choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, stone, or earth. 
Such is the origin of those immense tumuli filed with the mortal remains of nations 
and generations, which the antiquary, with irreverent curiosity, so frequently chances 
upon in all portions of our territory. Throughout Central America the same usage 
obtained in various localities, as early writers and existing monuments abundantly 
testify. Instead of interring the bones, were they those of some distinguished chief- 
tain, they were deposited in the temples or the council-houses, usually in small chests 
of canes or splints. Such were the charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto’s 
expedition so often mention, and these are the “‘arks” Adair and other authors who 
have sought to trace the decent of the Indians from the Jews have likened to that 
which the ancient Israelites bore with them in their migration. 
A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of her deceased hus- 
band wherever she went for four years, preserving them in such a casket, handsomely 
decorated with feathers (Rich. Arc, Exp., p. 260), The Caribs of the mainland adopted 
the custom for all, without exception. About a year after death the bones were 
cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, 
and kept suspended from the door of their dwelling (Gumilla Hist. del Orinoco L., 
pp. 199, 202, 204). When the quantity of these heirlooms became burdensome they 
were removed to some inaccessible cavern and stowed away with reverential care. 
George Catlint describes what he calls the “Golgothas” of the Man- 
dans: 
There are several of these golgothas, or circles of twenty or thirty feet in diameter, 
and in the center of each ring or circle is a little mound of three feet high, on which 
uniformly rest two buffalo skulls (a male and female), and in the center of the little 
mound is erected “a medicine pole,” of about twenty feet high, supporting many curi- 
ous articles of mystery and superstition, which they suppose haye the power of guard- 
ing and protecting this sacred arrangement. 
Here, then, to thisstrange place do these people again resort to evince their further 
affections for the dead, not in groans and lamentations, however, for several years 
have cured the anguish, but fond affection and endearments are here renewed, and 
conversations are here held and cherished with the dead. Each one of these skulls 
is placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been pulled and placed under it. 
The wife knows, by some mark or resemblance, the skull of her husband or her child 
which lies in this group, and there seldom passes a day that she does not visit it with a 
dish of the best-cooked food that her wigwam affords, which she sets before the skull 
at night, and returns for the dish in the morning. As soonas it is discovered that the 
sage on which the skullrestsis beginning to decay, the woman cuts a fresh bunch and 
places the skull carefully upon it, removing that which was under it. 
Independent of the above-named duties, which draw the women to this spot, they 
visit it from inclination, and linger upon it to hold converse and company with the 
dead. There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day but more or less of these women 
may be seen sitting or lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in 
the most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were wont to 
do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back. 
*Myths of the New World, 1868, p. 255. 
tHist. N. A. Indians, 1844, i, p. 90, 
