BOSHNELL] IsrATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 37 



Another reference to the burning of bodies was prepared about 

 the same year, and proves that others besides those of persons killed 

 in war were so consumed. "An Officer of the regular Troops has 

 informed me also, that while he had the Command of the Garrison 

 at Oswego^ a Boy of one of the far Westward Nations died there; 

 the Parents made a regular Pile of split Wood, laid the Corps upon 

 it, and burnt it; while the Pile was burning, they stood gravely 

 looking on, without any Lamentations, but when it was burnt down, 

 they gather up the Bones with many Tears, put them into a Box, and 

 carried them away with them." (Colden, (1), p. 16.) 



It would be interesting to know more of the details of this native 

 ceremony, and to know the name of the tribe to which the family 







^■1h't^ 



'/7u- r,/.U,:->:. 



Fig. 2. — Scaffold burials, from Lahontan. 



belonged. Oswego, near the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario, 

 in the land of the Onondaga, was the site of an English fort erected 

 in 1721. It soon became a gathering place for the Indians and 

 traders coming from the west, and much of the Indian trade which 

 had formerly been transacted by the French at Montreal was 

 diverted to this new post. It is easy to imagine that during one 

 of these journeys from their distant home on a western lake or 

 river the child of an Indian family died, and his parents, desiring 

 to bury him near their native village, burned the body, then col- 

 lected the ashes and charred bones, and carried them away, as related 

 by an English officer nearly two centuries ago. 



Probably cremation was resorted to in many instances as a means 

 of reducing the difficulty of removing the remains from the place of 

 death to the locality where it was desired they might be deposited; 



