184 MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
their breasts and shoulders, and raise the skin in the same manner to make the-scars 
show to advantage after the wound was healed. Some of their mutilations were 
ghastly, and my heart sickened to look at them, but they would not appear to receive 
any pain from then. 
It should be remembered that many of Beckwourth’s statements are 
to be taken cum grana salis. 
From I. L. Mahan, United States Indian agent for the Chippewas of 
Lake Superior, Red Clitf, Wisconsin, the following detailed account of 
mourning has been received : 
There is probably no people that exhibit more sorrow and grief for their dead than 
they. The young widow mourns the loss of her husband; by day as by night she is 
heard silently sobbing; she is a constant visitor to the place of rest; with the greatest 
reluctance will she follow the raised camp. The friends and relatives of the young 
mourner will incessantly devise methods to distract her mind from the thought of her 
lost husband. She refuses nourishment, but as nature is exhausted she is prevailed 
upon to partake of food; the supply is scant, but on every occasion the best and lar- 
gest proportion is deposited upon the grave of her husband. In the mean time the 
female relatives of the deceased have, according to custom, submitted to her charge 
a parcel made up of different cloths ornamented with bead-work and eagle’s feathers, 
which she is charged to keep by her side—the place made vacant by the demise of her 
husband—a reminder of her widowhood. She is therefore for a term of twelve moons 
not permitted to wear any finery, neither is she permitted to slicken up and comb her 
head; this to avoid attracting attention. Once in a while a female relative of de- 
ceased, commiserating with her grief and sorrow, will visit her and voluntarily pro- 
ceed to comb out the long-neglected and matted hair. With a jealous eye a vigilant 
watch is kept over her conduct during the term of her widowhood, yet she is allowed 
the privilege to marry, any time during her widowhood, an unmarried brother or 
cousin, or a person of the same Dodem [sic] (family mark) of her husband. 
At the expiration of her term, the vows haying been faithfully performed and kept, 
the female relatives of deceascd assemble and, with greetings commensurate to the 
occasion, proceed to wash her face, comb her hair, and attire her person with new 
apparel, and otherwise demonstrating the release fro her vow and restraint. Still 
she has not her entire freedom. If she will still refuse to marry a relative of the de- 
ceased and will marry another, she then has to purchase her freedom by giving a 
certain amount of goods and whatever else she might have manufactured during her 
widowhood in anticipation of the future now at hand. Frequently, though, during 
widowhood the vows are disregarded and an inclination to flirt and play courtship or 
form an alliance of marriage outside of the relatives of the deceased is being indulged, 
and when discovered the widow is set upon by the female relatives. her slick braided 
hair is shorn close up to the back of her neck, all her apparel and trinkets are torn 
from her person, and a quarrel frequently results fatally to some member of one or the 
other side. 
Thomas L. McKenney* gives a description of the Chippewa widow 
which differs slightly from the one above: 
I have noticed several women here carrying with them rolls of clothing. On inquir- 
ing what these imported, I learn that they are widows who carry them, and that these 
are badges of mourning. It is indispensable, when a woman of the Chippeway Nation 
loses her husband, for her to take of her best apparel—and the whole of it isnot worth 
a dollar—and roll it up, and confine it by means of her husband’s sashes; and if he 
had ornaments, these are generally put on the top of the roll, and around it is wrapped 
a piece of cloth. This bundle is called her husband, and it is expected that she is 
*Tour to the Lakes, 1827, p. 292. 
