BUSHNELL] NATIVE CEMETEKIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 131 



The ancient burial places which have been encountered scattered over 

 this region reveal something of the customs of the people, and indi- 

 cate the final disposition of the remains of the dead, but practically 

 nothing is known of the ceremonies which attended death and 

 burial. Mooney, when summarizing Lederer's rather vague narra- 

 tive, said: "They had a strict marriage and kinship system, based 

 on this clan division, with descent in the female line. . . . Even in 

 death this division was followed out and separate quarters of their 

 burial places were assigned to each of the four clans. The dead 

 were wrapped in skins of animals and buried with food and house- 

 hold properties deemed necessary for the use of the ghost in the 

 other world. When a noted warrior died, prisoners of war were 

 sometimes killed at the grave to accompany him to the land of the 

 dead. Their spirit world was in the west, beyond the mountains 

 and the traditional western ocean." (Mooney, (1), p. 33.) 



It is not known to which of the tribes Lederer referred in par- 

 ticular, but there is a possibility of its having been applicable to 

 all the Siouan groups with whom he came in contact while crossing 

 the central piedmont country. He mentioned four gentes, there- 

 fore it would be expected that the ancient cemeteries, of whatever 

 form they were, contained burials in that number of groups (Led- 

 erer, (1)), but at the present time it would be impossible to distin- 

 guish any such division. 



THE SANTEE 



Siouan tribes extended southward into the central piortions of the 

 present State of South Carolina, and the Santee were undoubtedly 

 members of this linguistic family. One of their villages probably 

 stood on the shore of Scott Lake, in the valley lof the Santee about 

 9 miles southwest of Summerton, Clarendon County. Here, near 

 the shore of the lake, is a conical mound of earth, and scattered over 

 the surrounding area are many fragments of pottery and other 

 traces of an Indian settlement, but the surface has been modified 

 by the waters of the Santee during periods of flood, and con- 

 sequently the greater part of the surface as it was at the time of 

 Indian occupancy has been washed away or covered by alluvium. 

 This site is, in a direct line, a little more than 60 miles northwest 

 of Charleston, and the village may have been one visited by Lawson 

 during the first days of January, 1701. The mound may have been 

 the one referred to by Lawson, who, after mentioning his meeting 

 with the Santee, continued : " Near to these Cabins are several Tombs 

 made after the fashion of the Indians; the largest and chiefest of 

 them was the Sepulchre of the late Indian King of the Santees, 

 a Man of Great Power, not only amongst his own subjects, but 

 dreaded by the Neighboring Nations for his great Valour and Con- 



