NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF RURIAL 

 EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 



By David I. Bushnell,, Jr. 



ALGONOUIAN GROUPS 



When that part of America which extends westward from the 

 Atlantic to the Mississippi was discovered by Europeans it was occu- 

 pied by numerous tribes, speaking distinct languages, with many 

 dialects. And as the habitations and other structures erected by the 

 widely scattered tribes differed in form, size, and the material of 

 which they were constructed, and presented many interesting charac- 

 teristics (Bushnell, (1)), so did the cemeteries and forms of burial 

 vary in distant parts of the country. In New England and the 

 lower Hudson Valley were tribes belonging to the Algonquian family, 

 many of which were often mentioned in the early records of the colo- 

 nies. Their small villages, a cluster of mat or bark covered wig- 

 wams, frequently grouped within an encircling palisade, lay scattered 

 along the coast, and inland up the valleys of many streams. They 

 cultivated fields of corn and raised other vegetal products, and dur- 

 ing certain seasons of the year collected vast quantities of oysters and 

 clams to serve as food, as attested by the great accumulations of shells 

 now encountered along the coast. Others of this linguistic group 

 dominated the coast as far south as the central portion of the present 

 State of North Carolina, thus including the people discovered by the 

 English expeditions sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 and sub- 

 sequent years, and the group of tribes which formed the Powhatan 

 confederacy, so famed in the early history of Virginia. Like all 

 tribes then living near the sea, they visited the coast for the purpose 

 of gathering oysters and other mollusks, and to take fish in their 

 weirs. During other seasons they would leave their villages and enter 

 the virgin forests to hunt, thus securing both food and peltry, the 

 latter to be used in making garments and various necessary articles. 



Westward, beyond the mountains and the Ohio, were many Algon- 

 quian tribes, the best known being the Miami, the Sauk and Fox, 

 the several tribes which constituted the loosely formed Illinois con- 

 federacy, the Menominee and scattered O jib way of the north, and 

 southward in the valley of the Ohio and elsewhere the widely dis- 

 persed Shawnee. While the Algonquian tribes of the East were sed- 



11 



