192. MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
LFOOD. 
This subject has been sufficiently mentioned elsewhere in connection 
with other matters and does not need to be now repeated. It has been an 
almost universal custom throughout the whole extent of the country to 
place food in or near the grave of deceased persons. 
DANCES. 
Gymnastic exercises, dignified with this name, upon the occasion of a 
death or funeral, were common to many tribes. It is thus described by 
Morgan :* 
An occasional and very singular figure was called the ‘‘ dance for the dead.” It 
was known as the O-hé-wéi. It was danced by the women alone. The music was 
entirely vocal, a select band of singers being stationed in the center of the room. To 
the songs for the dead which they sang the dancers joined in chorus. It was plain- 
tive and mournful music. This dance was usually separate from all councils and the 
only dance of the occasion. It was commenced at dusk or soon after and continued 
until towards morning, when the shades of the dead who were believed to be present 
and participate in the dance were supposed to disappear. The dance was had when- 
ever a family which had lost a member called for it, which was usually a year after the 
event. In the spring and fall it was often given for all the dead indiscriminately, 
who were believed then to revisit the earth and join in the dance. 
The interesting account which now follows is by Stephen Powers,+ 
and relates to the Yo-kai-a of California, containing other matters of 
importance pertaining to burial : 
I paid a visit to their camp four miles below Ukiah, and finding there a unique 
kind of assembly-house, desired to enter and examine it, but was not allowed to do 
so until I had gained the confidence of the old sexton by a few friendly words and the 
tender of a silver half dollar. The pit of it was about 50 feet in diameter and 4 or 5 
feet deep, and it was so heavily roofed with earth that the interior was damp and 
somber asatomb. It looked like a low tumulus, and was provided with a tunnel- 
like entrance about 10 feet long and 4 feet high, and leading down to a level with the 
floor of the pit. The mouth of the tunnel was closed with brush, and the venerable 
sexton would not remove it until he had slowly and devoutly paced several times to 
and fro before the entrance. 
Passing in I found the massive roof supported by a number of peeled poles painted 
white and ringed with black and ornamented with rude devices. The floor was coy- 
ered thick and green with sprouting wheat, which had-been scattered to feed the 
spirit of the captain of the tribe, lately deceased. Not long afterwards a deputation 
of the Senél came up to condole with the Yo-kai-a on the loss of their chief, and 
a dance or series of dances was held which lasted three days. During this time of 
course the Senél were the guests of the Yo-kaf-a, and the latter were subjected to a 
* League of the Iroquois, 1851, p. 287. 
t Cont. to North American Ethnol., 1878, iii, p. 164. 
