PREFACE 



In the journals of many explorers and missionaries who traversed 

 the great wilderness east of the Mississippi when it was yet the home 

 of native tribes are references to the burial customs of the people 

 with whom they came in contact. Villages were widely dispersed 

 throughout the land, and often the places of burial were near by, 

 differing in distant parts of the country, conforming with the man- 

 ners of the tribe by whom the particular region was occupied. The 

 native villages have now disappeared, although many sites are 

 indicated by bits of pottery and other objects scattered over the 

 surface, but frequently the cemeteries once belonging to the settle- 

 ments may be discovered. The forms of burial varied. Among some 

 tribes a period of months or years would intervene between the 

 death of the person and the final disposition of the remains, and 

 seldom were all the ceremonies attending death and burial recorded 

 by a single writer, therefore it is necessary, when attempting to re- 

 count the entire procedure, to quote from several narratives. And in 

 many instances the description of the last disposition of the dead 

 will agree with the position of the remains now revealed in the 

 ancient cemeteries, thus tending to identify the former occupants of 

 the sites, and to verify the statements of early observers, many of 

 which are presented on the following pages. 



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