118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 71 



pliratries, and if such a distinction was made when the bodies were 

 first phiced in the " bone-honses," it is more than probable the same 

 rule was followed when they were finally removed from them, then 

 carried, and with certain ceremony placed on the surface and cov- 

 ered with earth. This may be the explanation of many groups of 

 bundled burials encountered in mounds in the South, and again this 

 would tend to prove some connection between the builders of the 

 mound in question and the Muskhogean tribe, the Choctaw. The 

 mound just mentioned, although larger than the majority, may be 

 considered typical of the region. 



The mounds on the east coast, or more correctly in the eastern 

 portion of the peninsula, were somewhat different from those to the 

 westward, and probably the burial customs were likewise different. 

 Drawings made by the French artist Jacobo Le Moyne, who visited 

 the east coast in the year 1564, were reproduced by De Bry in the 

 second part of his famous collection of voyages, printed in 1591. 

 One of the engravings, representing a burial ceremony in one of the 

 Timucuan villages, is reproduced in plate 13, h. The description of 

 the plate as given in the old work reads : " Wlien a chief in that 

 province dies, he is buried with great solemnities, his drinking-cup 

 is placed on the grave, and many arrows are planted in the earth 

 about the mound itself. His subjects mourn for him three whole 

 days and nights, without taking any food. All the other chiefs, his 

 friends, mourn in like manner; and both men and women, in testi- 

 mony of their love for him, cut off more than half their hair. Be- 

 sides this, for six months afterwards certain chosen women three 

 times every day, at dawn, noon, and twilight, mourn for the de-- 

 ceased king with a great howling. And all his household stuff is put 

 into his house, w^hich is set on fire, and the whole burned up together. 

 In like manner, when their priests die, they are buried in their own 

 houses; which are then set on fire, and burned up with their fur- 

 niture." (Le Moyne, (1).) 



It will be noticed that in the drawing the house, evidently that 

 of the deceased, is shown wrapped in flames, thus conforming with 

 the description. The custom of destrojdng the houses in which 

 death had occurred was also followed by the Natchez, the Taensa, 

 and probably others. The Creeks are known to have abandoned 

 their habitations after the death of one of the occupants, and may 

 under some conditions have burned the structure; in other instances 

 they continued to occupy the house after having interred the re- 

 mains beneath the floor. 



The village drawn by the French artist in 1564 probably stood in 

 the present Duval County, Florida, a region in which many very 

 interesting burial mounds have been discovered and examined. Many 



