BULL. 30] 



MORTUAKY CUSTOMS 



945 



Mortars are referred to by numerous 

 writers, includina; AbV)ott (1) in Surveys 

 West of 100th Merid., vii, 1879, (2) Prim. 

 Indus., 1881; Gushing in Proc. Am. 

 Philos. Soc., XXXV, 153, 1896; Fowke, 

 Arch^eol. Hist. Ohio, 1902; Hoffman in 

 14th Rep. B. A. E., 1896; Holmes in Nat. 

 Mus. Rep. 1902, 1903; Jones, Antiq. So. 

 Inds., 1873; Lawson (1701), Hist. Car., 

 repr. 1860; MacCauleyinSth Rep. B. A. E., 

 1887; Meredith in Moorehead's Prehist. 

 Impls., 1900; Morgan, League of Iroquois, 

 1904; Niblack in Rep. Nat. Mus. 1888, 

 1890; Nordenskiuld, Cliff Dwellers of 

 the Mesa Verde, 1893; Powers in Cont. 

 N. A. Ethnol., iii, 1877; Ran in Smith- 

 son. Cont., XXII, 1876; Schoolcraft, Ind. 

 Tribes, i, 1851; Thruston, Antiq. of Tenn., 

 1897; Yates in Moorehead's Prehist. 

 Impls., 1900. (w. H. H.) 



Mortuary customs. Yarrow (1st Rep. 

 B. A. E., 1881) classifies Indian modes 

 of burial as follows: 



(1) Inhumation, (2) Embalmment, (3) 

 Deposition in urns, (4) Surface burial, 

 (5) Cremation, (6) Aerial sepulture, (7) 

 Aquatic burial. As the second relates to 

 the preparation of the body, and the 

 third, fourth, sixth, and seventh refer 

 chiefly to the receptacles or the place of 

 deposit, the disposal of the dead by the 

 Indians may be classed under the heads 

 Burial and Crematio)!. 



The usual mode of burial among North 

 American Indians has been by inhuma- 

 tion, or interment in pits, graves, or holes 

 in the ground, in stone cists, in mounds, 

 beneath or in cabins, wigwams, houses, 

 or lodges, or in caves. As illustrations it 

 may be stated that the ]\Iohawk formerly 

 made a large round hole in which the 

 body was placed in a squatting posture, 

 after which it was covered with timber 

 and earth. Some of the Carolina tribes 

 first placed the corpse in a cane hurdle 

 and deposited it in an outhouse for a day; 

 then it was taken out and wrapped in 

 rush or cane matting, placed in a reed cof- 

 fin, and deposited in a grave. Remains 

 of this kind of wrapping have been found 

 in some of the southern mounds, and in 

 one case in a rock shelter. The bottom of 

 the grave was sometimes covered with 

 bark, on which the body was laid, and 

 logs or slabs placed over it to j^revent the 

 earth from falling on the remains. An 

 ancient form of burial in Tennessee, s. Illi- 

 nois, at points on Delaware r., and among 

 ancient pueblo dwellers in n. New Mexico, 

 was in box-shape cists of rough stone slabs. 

 Sepulchers of this kind have been found 

 in mounds and cemeteries. In some in- 

 stances they were placed in the same 

 general direction, butinexcavationsmade 

 by the Bureau of American Ethnology it 

 was found that these cists, as well as the 

 uninclosed bodies in mounds, were gen- 



erally placed without regard to uniform- 

 ity of direction. When uniformity did 

 occur, it was generally an indication of 



STONE GRAVE, SHOWING ORDINARY CONSTRUCTION 



a comparatively modern interment. The 

 Creeks and the Seminole of Florida gener- 

 ally buried in a circular pit about 4 ft 

 deep; the corpse, 

 with a blanket or 

 cloth wrapped about 

 it, being placed in a 

 sitting posture, the 

 legs bent under and 

 tied together. The 

 sitting position in 

 ancient burials has 

 often been errone- 

 ously inferred from 

 the bones occurring 

 in a heap. It ap- 

 pears to have been a 

 custom in the N. W., 

 as well as in the 

 E. and S.E., to re- 

 move the flesh by 

 previous burial or 

 then to bundle the 



Stone Grave, top 



(thomas) 



■^ 



ith offset 

 (tmomas) 



otherwise, and 

 bones and bury 

 them, ^metimes in communal pits. It 

 was usual in 

 grave burials to 

 place the body 

 in a horizontal 

 position on its 

 back, although 

 the custom of 

 placing on the 

 side, often with 

 the knees drawn 

 up, was also 

 practised; burial 

 face downward, 

 In addition to those 

 mentioned, modes of burials in mounds va- 

 ried. Sometimes a single body and some- 

 times several were 

 placed in a wooden 

 vault of upright 

 timbers or of logs 

 laid horizontally to 

 form a pen. Dome- 

 shaped stone vaults 

 occur over a single 

 sitting skeleton. 

 Not infrequently the body was laid 

 on the ground, slightly covered with 

 earth, and over this a layer of plastic clay 



Arched Stone Grave; Oh 

 (thomas) 



however, was rare. 



JURIAL under heap of STONES; 



Hudson Bay Eskimo, (turner) 



Bull. 30—05- 



-60 



