672 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



The iiiortuaiy customs of the mouud-builders, as gleaned from an 

 exaiiiiiiatiou of their burial mounds, ancient cemeteries, and otlier 

 depositories of their dead, present so many striking resemblances to 

 those of the Indians when first encountered by the whites, as to leave 

 but little room for doubt regarding the identity of the two peoples. Nor 

 is this similarity limited to the customs in the broad and general sense, 

 but it is carried down to the more minute and striking peculiarities. 



Among the general features in which resemblances are noted are the 

 following: 



The mound-builders, even within the comparatively limited area to 

 which the jjresent discussion refers, as shown in the preceding part of 

 this volume, were accustomed to dispose of their dead in many differ- 

 ent ways; their modes of sepulture were also quite varied, indicating 

 tribal distinctions among them. The same statement will apply with 

 equal force to the Indians. 



"The commonest mode of burial among North American Indians," 

 we are informed by Dr. YaiTow,' " has been that of interment in the 

 ground, and this has taken place in a number of ways." The different 

 ways he mentions are '' in pits, graves, or holes in the ground, stone 

 graves or cists, in mounds, beneath or in cabins, wigwams, houses or 

 lodges, and in caves." 



The most common method of burial among the mound-builders was 

 by inhumation also, and all the different ways mentioned by Dr. Yar- 

 row, as practiced by the Indians, were in vogue among the former. It 

 was for a long time supposed that their chief and almost only place of 

 depositing their dead was i7i the burial mounds, but more thorough 

 explorations have revealed the fact that near many — and as may 

 hereafter be found most — mound villages, are cemeteries, often of con- 

 siderable extent. 



The chief value of this fact in this connection is that it forms one 

 item of evidence against the theory held by some antiquarians that the 

 mound-builders were Mexicans, as the usual mode of disposing of the 

 dead by the latter was cremation.^ According to Brasseur de Bour- 

 bour^, the Toltecs also practiced cremation.' Attention is therefore 

 called to this fact as it is one of a number having a similar bearing 

 which will appear in the course of this discussion. 



Turning now to the particular resemblances between the mortuary 

 customs of the mound-builders and those of the Indians, we notice the 

 following : 



(1) The custom of removing the flesh of the dead before depositing them 

 in their final resting places. — This custom, which has been incidentally 

 mentioned in the preceding references to the burial mounds of the dif- 

 ferent sections, appears to have been more or less common among the 



' Ist. liep. Bureau Ethnology, p. 93. 



^Claviger-o. Hist, ilex., Cullen's trausl., vol. 1, p. 325; Torquematla, ilonarq. lud., vol. 1. p. 60, etc. 



■iBaiiCioft, Native Races, vol. 11, p. 609. 



