576 TRIBES OF THE UPPER MISSOURI [eth.ann.m 



No gravestones or posts are planted to mark the place, or any 

 inscriptions or devices painted or carved by any of these tribes, 

 denoting the age of the deceased or any other thing. 



As has been frequently stated, there are no large mounds perceived 

 on the upper Missouri, the work of Indians, as have been discovered 

 in some of the western States, but were it an object or custom to bury 

 the dead in that manner we believe there is energy and power suffi- 

 cient among any of these tribes to accomplish a work of the kind, 

 even with the rude tools they have, in a loose soil, free of rock, and 

 in the summer season. These mounds have most probably been na- 

 tional or public depositories for the dead of Indians in stationary 

 huts; and as great superstition is attached to all funeral rites, it is 

 not improbable they were excavated in a length of time by the united 

 efforts of the nation. Being a work in which both women and chil- 

 dren could join, and which could be executed with the most primitive 

 tools, they no doubt worked at it in favorable seasons, stimulated to 

 exertion by the directions and commands of the divining men. These 

 marks of antiquity only prove the nation to have been numerous, 

 stationary, and unanimous in the undertaking. The materials dis- 

 interred from these receptacles must show beyond doubt the state 

 of arts and advancement of the tribe at the time the interment was 

 made, supposing the articles thus exhibited to be of their own manu- 

 facture and not traded from Europeans. Bones reburied are not 

 accompanied with a new deposit of instruments. 



Those articles first enveloped with the body, if found, are rein- 

 terred with it, which, having been the property of the deceased, are 

 valuable, but to none other. It is only when the corpses fall from 

 scaffolds or the bones of the dead by some means have become ex- 

 posed that a second burial takes place; otherwise no Indians disturb 

 the repose of the dead. 



Orphans and the Aged 



The care of orphan children and the aged devolves upon the 

 nearest relatives of their deceased parents, but neither the chiefs 

 nor any other persons not of kin pay them the. least attention, unless 

 they are adopted into their families. The aged and infirm are 

 supported by their sons and other relatives until they become help- 

 less and a burden, and are then left in some encampment to perish. 

 There are no very old people without some relatives. The fact of 

 their being old presumes that some of their lineal descendants are 

 living, and it is with these they reside; but should there be no kin 

 whatever acknowledged they would only the sooner die, as neither 

 chiefs, hunters, nor any others would take the least, interest in them, 

 much less furnish them with provisions or be troubled by packing 



