THOMAS. ] BURIAL CUSTOMS. ; Zl 
Another method followed by the same people, according to Mr. J. W. 
Spencer,' was to make a shallow hole in the ground, setting the body in 
it up to the waist, so that most of the body was above the ground. <A 
trench was then dug about the graye, in which pickets were planted. 
But the usual method was to place split pieces of wood about three feet 
long over the body, meeting at the top in ‘the form of a roof, on which 
dirt was thrown to keep them in place. 
According to Potherie,? the Iroquois were accustomed to cover the 
bodies, after being deposited in the “fosse,” with bark of trees, on which 
they cast earth and stones. 
According to Schooleraft,* the Mohawks of New York— 
make a large round hole in which the body can be placed upright or upon its haunches: 
which after the body is placed in it is covered with timber to support the earth which 
they lay over, and thereby keep the body from being pressed. They then raise the 
earth in a round hill over it.* 1 
The burial customs of northern tribes, known to have occupied por- 
tions of the effigy mound district, agree so exactly with what we see in 
the sepulchral tumuli of this district as to justify the conclusion reached 
by Dr. Lapham, after a long and careful personal study of them, that 
they are to be attributed to Indians. Some he was rather inclined to 
ascribe to tribes which had migrated, had been driven off by other tribes, 
or been incorporated into them previous to the advent of the white race. 
But he maintained that the subsequent tribes or those found occupy- 
ing the country “continued the practice of mound-building so far as to 
erect a circular or conical tumulus over their dead.” And he adds sig- 
nificantly, “This practice appears to be a remnant of ancient customs 
that connects the mound-builders with the present tribes.” ° 
The evidence in regard to these unstratified mounds appears to lead 
directly to the conclusion that they are all the work of the Indians 
found occupying the country at the time it was first visited by whites or of 
their ancestors. If it is conceded that the smail unstratified tumuli are 
in part the work of these aborigines, there would seem to be no escape 
from the conclusion that all the burial mounds of this district are to be 
ascribed to them; for, although there are some two or three types of 
burial and burial mounds, the gradation from one to the other is so 
complete as to leave no marked line of distinction, and Dr. Lapham is 
fully justified in asserting that the evidence connects the mound-build- 
ers with the modern Indians. The stratified mounds in which the hard 
clay or mortar covering over the remains is found, and which we shall 

1 Pioneer Life. 
2 Potherie, Histoire de Amérique Septentrionale, IT, p. 43. 
3 History of Indian Tribes of the United States, Part IIT, p. 193. 
4As Dr. Yarrow has described the burial customs of the North American Indians in 
the first Annual Report of the Bureau, I will omit further quotations and refer the 
reader to his paper. 
5 Antiquities of Wisconsin, p. 89. 
