40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [uci.l. 71 



the Body, with part of the presents, inakiiig choice of such as may be 

 most proper for it. They also bury with it, some Stores of Indian 

 Wheat, with a Pot to boil it in, for fear the dead l*erson should be 

 hungry on his long Journey; and they repeat the same Ceremony 

 at the Year's End. A good Number of Presents still remainmg, 

 they divide them into several Lots, and play at a Game, call'd of the 

 Stick to give them to the Winner." (Joutel, (1), pp. 174-175.) 



From this very interesting account of the burial customs of the 

 Illinois Indians it is evident they had several ways and methods 

 of disposing of their dead. Some were placed in "lofty coffins," 

 which undoubtedly refers to a form of tree or scaffold burial, and 

 in this connection it is interesting to know that when settlers entered 

 Truro township, in the present Knox County, Illinois, a few miles 

 west of the ancient Peoria village on the Illinois River, they found 

 tree burials of quite recent origin. Logs had been split in halves 

 and hollowed out, and so served as coffins which rested in forks of 

 trees some 10 to 15 feet above the ground. These remained in this 

 position until about the year 1830, when they were removed by the 

 settlers and buried in the earth. These must have been the " lofty 

 coffins" of Joutel. But the bodies were not always so securely 

 protected, and in the year 1092, within a short time of Joutel's visit, 

 another Frenchnuin referred to the burial customs of the Illinois 

 and said : " It is not their custom to bury the dead ; they wrap them 

 in skins, and hang them by the feet and head to the tops of trees." 

 (Rasles, (1), p. 167.) And touching on the ceremonies which at- 

 tended the burial, the same Father wrote: "When the Illinois are 

 not engaged in war or hunting, their time is spent cithei- in games, 

 or at feasts, or in dancing. They have two kinds of dances ; some are 

 a sign of rejoicing, and to these they invite the most distinguished 

 women and young girls; others are a token of their sadness at the 

 death of the most important men of their Tribe. It is by these 

 dances that they profess to honor the deceased, and to wipe away 

 the tears of his relatives. All of them are entitled to have the death 

 of their near relatives bewailed in this manner, provided that they 

 make presents for this purpose. The dances last a longer or shorter 

 time according to the price and value of the presents, which, at the 

 end of the dance, are distributed to the dancers." (P. 1(57.) 



And when settlers arrived near the banks of the Mackinaw, a 

 tributary of the Illinois, near the present village of Ix;xington, 

 McLean County, Illinois, in 1843, they discovered a body of an In- 

 dian wrapped in bark and suspended in a tree to]). The body was 

 taken down and buried in what is now called Indian Burial Ground, 

 some 24 miles southeast of Lexington. 



It is interesting to be able to trace other burial places and burial 

 customs of the western Algon(|uian tribes in comparatively recent 



