BUSHNELL] ISTATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL. 87 



But although the embankments which once siirroimded the ancient 

 vilLiges are rapidly disappearing, and all traces of the palisades 

 have vanished, nevertheless the cemeteries are to be discovered, and 

 the same writer continued (p. 45) : "At various places in the county 

 large cemeteries are found ; but most, if not all, of them may be with 

 safety referred to the Senecas. Indeed, many articles of European 

 origin accompany the skeletons. A cemetery of large size, and, from 

 the character of the relics found in the graves, of high antiquity, is 

 now in part covered by the village of Lima. Pipes, pottery, etc., 

 are discovered here in great abundance ; and it is worthy of remark, 

 they are identical M^ith those found within the ancient enclosures." 



Possibly the cemetery in which the two Algonquians were buried 

 during the month of June, 1731, was among those examined by 

 Squier. It is of interest to add that on the left bank of the Genesee, 

 nearly opposite Avon, stood the town of Canawaugus^ the birthplace 

 of the great Chief Cornplanter, and on the site are found objects of 

 both European and native origin. Just north of the preceding site, 

 on the western edge of Scottsville, in Monroe County, is an old ceme- 

 tery " in a gravel jDit. The skeletons are drawn up, but no articles 

 are found except a flat stone at the feet of each." (Beauchamp, (1).) 

 This seems to refer to flexed remains as distinguished from the ex- 

 tended bodies discovered in the more recent graves, and may have 

 been those " hollowed out round like pits," mentioned by Le Beau as 

 being the older form. 



VARIOUS TYPES OF BURIALS 



Many burials of special interest, either by reason of their rather 

 unusual form or the material which they revealed, have been dis- 

 covered in different parts of the present State of New York. These 

 may be attributed to the people of the Five Nations, and seem to 

 prove that all followed various methods of disposing of their dead. 

 The quotations are made from Beauchamp, (1), by whom the infor- 

 mation was gathered from several sources. In Genesee County, the 

 home of the Seneca, a cemetery encountered in a gi-avel bank some 

 G miles southeast of Bergen " has skeletons in a sitting posture, with 

 and without early relics." These were undoubtedly flexed, the bodies 

 closely wrapped and then placed in pits — the early form o'f inhuma- 

 tion. Eastward from the preceding, in Seneca County, once occupied 

 by the Cayuga, the ancient village of Kendala stood about 4 miles 

 southwest of the present settlement of Eomulus. It was destroyed 

 in 1779. One of the graves then standing was thus described : " The 

 body was laid on the surface of the earth in a shroud or garment; 

 then a large casement made very neat with boards something larger 

 than the body and about four foot high put over the body as it lay 



