SWANTON] BURIAL CUSTOMS 233 
Husband and wife were interred together. A chief was honored at death by a 
salute of guns, and a horse, saddled and bridled, was shot above his grave. 
The women of the village came to the bereaved household, stopping before it to 
ery for about half an hour before they offered any words of consolation or 
praise of the deceased. Relatives visit the graves every day to cry for an 
hour or so. Log structures are erected over the spot in most cases, at the 
present day, since burial beneath the floor has been discontinued.” 
Schooleraft’s Chickasaw informants said only: 
When one of the Chickasaw dies they put the finest clothing they have on him; 
also all their jewelry, beads, ete.; this, they say, is to make a good appearance 
so soon as they die. The sick are frequently dressed before they die.” 
Like the writers who have been quoted, I learned that the body of 
a dead person was formerly buried inside of the house in which his 
family lived. The head was always placed toward the west, for 
otherwise it was thought the soul would lose its way. If one died 
during the night, a gun was discharged four times as a signal to the 
relatives, all of whom would then assemble to attend to the interment. 
The fire was also extinguished, all the ashes removed from the house, 
and a new fire started.” 
After the loss of husband or wife the survivor wept over the grave 
morning and evening for a month, just before sunup and sundown. 
A widow stayed in a part of the house separated from the rest for 
a month, was waited upon by others, allowed her hair to go un- 
combed, and ate no food containing salt. They also cut off a little of 
her hair in front. At the end of that time her relatives combed her 
hair and dressed her up and she was allowed to go about as before. 
A widower was treated in the same way, except that he wore a belt 
of a peculiar pattern plaited out of a kind of wool; they also cut his 
hair a little in front. 
According to one informant a widow had to eat apart from the 
rest of the family for an entire month, but a widower only until 
the moon changed, and meanwhile either had to abstain from food 
containing salt. A widow had to remain single for from two to three 
years while a widower could remarry as soon as he desired. 
On this subject I will again quote from Adair: 
All the Indian widows, by an established strict penal law, mourn for the 
loss of their deceased husbands; and among some tribes for the space of three 
or four years.... 
The Muskohge widows are obliged to live a chaste, single life for the tedious 
space of four years; and the Chikkasah women for the term of three, at the 
* Speck in Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. xx, pp. 57-58. 
°3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 1, p. 310. 
* But without any death having taken place, it was customary to put out the fire and 
start a new one every four days. The base stick employed in fire making was taken 
from a large vine found hanging to trees and called cohko’le; the other was of a soft 
white wood called loktobaape’, perhaps what is called ‘“‘matchwood” by the whites. A 
kind of tree fungus was used as punk. They also made fire by means of a flint and a 
piece of iron called kasiltci, articles always carried in their bags, 
55231 °—28——16 
