BnsHNELL] l^ATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 25 



until about 1730, when the majority of the tribe began moving north- 

 ward, stopping at the mouth of the Juniata, and elsewhere in the 

 valley of the Susquehanna, at last arriving in southern New York 

 on the eastern branch of the latter stream, where they rested under 

 protection of the Iroquois, wdio then dominated that section. Tribal 

 movements were often slow and deliberate, with stops of years on 

 the way, and a generation elapsed between the starting of the Nanti- 

 coke from the Eastern Shore and their arrival among the Iroquois. 

 Like many tribes, they removed the remains of the dead from their 

 old home to their new settlements. This was witnessed by Hecke- 

 welder, who wrote (op. cit., pp. 75-76): "These Nanticokes had 

 the singular custom of removing the bones of their deceased friends 

 from the burial place to a place of deposit in the country they dwell 

 in. In earlier times they were known to go from Wyoming and 

 Chemenk, to fetch the bones of their dead from the Eastern Shore of 

 Marjdand, even when the bodies were in a putrid state, so that they 

 had to take off the flesh and scrape the bones clean, before the}' could 

 carry them along. I well remember having seem them between 

 the years 1750 and 1760, loaded with such bones, which, being fresh, 

 caused a disagreeable stench, as they passed through the town of 

 Bethlehem." 



One of the ancient Nanticoke sites, one probably occupied at the time 

 of the discovery of the people by the Virginia colonists, stood on the 

 left bank of Choptank Eiver, some 2 miles below Cambridge, Dor- 

 chester County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This village was 

 occupied until the year 1722, or until the tribe began their move- 

 ment northward. Since this site was abandoned, sand, blown and 

 drifted by the winds, has covered the original surface to a depth 

 of many feet. And during the same interval the exposed face 

 of the cliff has receded, caused by the encroachraent of the 

 waters of the Choptank. Now, as the result of these two natural 

 phenomena, the surface once occupied by the village of the Nanti- 

 coke appears on the face of the cliff as a dark line or stratum, from 

 one-half to 1 foot in thickness, and extending for about one-third 

 of a mile along the shore, thus proving the extent of the ancient 

 settlement. At one point on the exposed face of the cliff a quantit}^ 

 of human bones were visible, and when examined this proved to be 

 " a hard-set horizontal bed of human bones and skulls, many of them 

 well preserved, about 1-J- to 2 feet thick, 10 feet long, 3 feet under 

 the village site stratum," and further excavation showed this mass 

 of bones to be " of irregular, circular shape, 25 feet in longest by 

 20 feet in shortest diameter and 1^ to 2 feet thick (thickest in the 

 middle, and tapering at the sides)." A short distance inward and 

 directly above the larger deposit was another mass of bones, this 

 being about 7 feet long, 7 inches thick, and 2 feet wide. The 



