BUSHNBIA] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 83 



" The best is woven into Girdles. Of this there are two sorts. One 

 about a yard long; with fourteen pieces in a Row, woven, for the 

 most part, into black and white Squares., continued obliquely from 

 edge to edge. The other, not all-out so long, but with fifteen pieces 

 in a Row woven into black Rhomhs or Dlamond-Squai'cs and Crosses 

 within them. The spaces between filled up with white. These two 

 last, are sometimes worn as their richest Ornaments ; but chiefly used 

 in great Payments, esteemed their Noblest Presents, and laid up as 

 their Treasure." 



Such were the varied uses of the true wampum, and the great 

 collar in the Collegio di Propaganda Fide, at Rome, would have 

 belonged to the last group, one of " their Noblest Presents," in this 

 instance undoubtedly serving as a " present to the church," as related 

 by Pere Dablon. 



SENECA CEREMONY, 1731 



Throughout the greater part of the region once occupied by the 

 Five Nations are discovered their ancient cemeteries, often situated 

 near the sites of their former villages. Some have been examined, 

 and these usually reveal the human remains, now rapidly disappear- 

 ing, lying in an extended position. Few accounts of the ceremonies 

 which attended the death and burial of these people have been pre- 

 served, but one of the most interesting relates to the Seneca, as en- 

 acted during the month of June, 1731. True, the two persons who 

 were buried at this Seneca village were not members of the tribe, but, 

 nevertheless, the rites were those of the latter. The relation is pre- 

 served in the journal of a Frenchman who visited the Seneca at that 

 tiijie, accompanied by a small party of Algonquian Indians. During 

 the visit one of the Algonquian women was killed by her husband 

 and he in turn was executed by the Seneca. The double funeral 

 which followed was described by the French traveler, who recorded 

 many interesting details. He first referred to a structure where the 

 bodies were kept for se^^eral days after death and there prepared for 

 burial, and when he arrived at this cabin it was already crowded with 

 men and women, " all seated or rather squatting on their knees, with 

 the exception of four women, who, with disheveled locks, were lying 

 face downward, at the feet of the dead woman." These were the chief 

 mourners. The body of the woman Avas placed on an elevated stage. 

 It was dressed in blue and white garments and a wampum belt was 

 the only ornament. The face was painted, with vermilion on the lips. 

 In her right hand was placed a garden implement, " to denote that 

 during her life she had been a good worker," and in the left hand 

 rested '" the end of a rope, the other end of which, floating in a large 

 bark dish, indicated the sad fate which brought her life to an end." 



