BUSHNELL] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL, 75 



Captain makes a feast for the souls in his Village," and the feast 

 was conducted with much form, " now usually there is only a single 

 feast in each Nation; all the bodies are put into a common pit. I 

 say, usually, for this year, which has happened to be the feast of 

 the Dead, the kettle has been divided; and five Villages of the part 

 where we are have acted by themselves, and have put their dead into 

 a private pit. . . . Twelve years or thereabouts having elapsed, the Old 

 Men and Notables of the Country assemble, to deliberate in a definite 

 way on the time at which the feast shall be held to the satisfaction 

 of the whole Country and of the foreign Nations that may be invited 

 to it. The decision having been made, as all the bodies are to be 

 transported to the Village where is the common grave, each family 

 sees to its dead, but with a care and affection that cannot be described : 

 if they have dead relatives in any part of the Country, they spare 

 no trouble to go for them; they take them from the Cemeteries, 

 bear them on their shoulders, and cover them with the finest robes 

 they have. In each Village they choose a fair day, and proceed to 

 the Cemetery, where those called Aiheonde, who take care of the 

 graves, draw the bodies from the tombs in the presence of the rela- 

 tives, who renew their tears and feel afresh the grief they had the 

 day of the funeral . . . after having opened the graves, they dis- 

 play before you all these Corpses, on the spot, and they leave them 

 thus exposed long enough for the spectators to learn at their leisure, 

 and once for all, what they will be some day. The flesh of some is 

 quite gone, and there is only parchment on their bones; in other 

 cases, the bodies look as if they had been dried and smoked, and 

 show scarcely any signs of putrefaction; and in still other cases 

 they are still swarming with worms. When the friends have gazed 

 upon the bodies to their satisfaction, they cover them with handsome 

 Beaver robes quite new : finally, after some tiuie they stri}) them 

 of their flesh, taking off skin and flesh which they throw into the 

 fire along with the robes and mats in which the bodies were wrapped. 

 As regards the bodies of those recently dead, they leave these in 

 tlie state in which they are, and content themselves by simply cov- 

 ering them with new robes. . . . The bones having been well 

 cleaned, they put them partly into bags, partly into fur robes, loaded 

 them on their shoulders, and covered these packages with another 

 beautiful hanging robe. As for the whole bodies, they put them on 

 a species of litter, and carried them with all the others, each into 

 his Cabin, where each family made a feast to its dead." The bones 

 of the dead were called by the Huron Atisken, "the souls." 



For several days between the reuioval of the bodies froui the touibs 

 and the starting for the scene of the last rites, these many bundles of 



