BtJSHNBLL] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 103 



places. They are very much respected that day, and each one has five 

 servants. Their fac^s are all reddened with vermilion. For my part 

 I have thought that it was in order not to let the fear that they might 

 have of their approaching death be apparent. 



" At the end of four days they begin the ceremony of ' the march 

 of the bodies.' 



" The fathers and the mothers who had brought their dead chil- 

 dren took them and held them in their hands; the oldest of these 

 children did not appear to be more than three years old. They 

 placed them to right and left of the entrance t,o the cabin of the 

 dead female chief. The 14 victims destined to be strangled repaired 

 there in the same order; the chiefs and the relatives of the dead 

 woman appeared there all in mourning — that is to say, with their 

 hair cut. They then made such frightful cries that we thought the 

 devils were come out of the hells to come and howl in this place. 

 The unfortunate persions destined to death danced and the relatives 

 of the dead woman sang. When the march of this fine convoy was 

 begun by two and two, the dead woman was brought out of her 

 cabin on the shoulders of four savages as iOn a stretcher. As soon as 

 she had been taken out, they set fire to the cabin (it is the usual 

 custom with the Nobles). The fathers, who carried their dead 

 children in their hands, marched in front, four paces distant from 

 each other, and after marching 10 steps they let them fall to the 

 ground. Those wlxo bore the dead woman passed over and went 

 around these children three times. The fathers then gathered them 

 up and reassumed their places in the ranks, and at every 10 paces 

 they recommenced this frightful ceremony, until they reached the 

 temple, so that these children were in pieces when this fine convoy 

 arrived. Wliile they interred the female Noble in the temple 

 the victims were stripped before the door, and, after they had been 

 made to sit on the ground, a savage seated himself on the knees of 

 each of them while another behind held his arms. They then 

 passed a cord around his neck and put the skin of a deer over 

 his head; they made each of these poor unfortunates swallow three 

 l)ills of tobacco, and gave him a draught of water to drink, in 

 order that the pills should dissolve in his stomach, which made him 

 lose consciousness; then the relatives of the deceased ranged them- 

 selves at their sides, to right and left, and each, as he sang, drew an 

 end of a cord, which was passed around the neck with a running 

 knot, until they were dead, after which they buried them. If a 

 chief dies and still has his nurse, she must die with him. This na- 

 tion still follows this execrable custom, in spite of all that has been 

 done to turn them from it. Our missionaries have never been able 

 to succeed in that ; all that they were able to do was to succeed some- 

 times in baptizing these poor little infants before their fathers 

 strangled them. Besides, this nation is too much infatuated with 



