MUMMIES— SOUTH CAROLINA. 37 



great houses filled with images of their Kings and devils and tombs of their 

 predecessors. Those houses are near sixty feet in length, built harbourwise 

 after their building. This place they count so holy as that but the priests 

 and Kings dare come into them; nor the savages dare not go up the river 

 in boats by it, but they solemnly cast some piece of copper, white beads, 

 or pocones into the river for fear their Okee should be offended and 

 revenged of them. 



" They think that their Werowances and priests which they also esteem 

 quiyoughcosughs, when they are dead do go beyond the mountains towards 

 the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in form of their Okee, with 

 their heads painted red with oil and pocones, finely trimmed with feathers, 

 and shall have beads, hatchets, copper, and tobacco, doing nothing but 

 dance and sing with all their predecessors. But the common people they 

 suppose shall not live after death, but rot in their graves like dead dogs." 



The remark regarding truthfulness will apply to this account in com- 

 mon with the former. 



The Congaree or Santee Indians of South Carolina, according to Law- 

 son, used a process of partial embalmment, as will be seen from the sub- 

 joined extract from Schoolcraft;* but instead of laying away the remains 

 in caves, placed them in boxes supported above the ground by crotched 

 sticks. 



" The manner of their interment is thus : A mole or pyramid of earth 

 is raised, the mould thereof being worked very smooth and even, sometimes 

 higher or lower, according to the dignity of the person whose monument it 

 is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made ridgeways, like the roof of a 

 house. This is supported by nine stakes or small posts, the grave being 

 about 6 or 8 feet in length and 4 feet in breadth, about which is hung 

 gourds, feathers, and other such like trophies, placed there by the dead 

 man's relations in respect to him in the grave. The other parts of the fune- 

 ral rites are thus : As soon as the party is dead they lay the corpse upon a 

 piece of bark in the sun, seasoning or embalming it with a small root beaten 

 to powder, which looks as red as vermilion ; the same is mixed with bear's 

 oil to beautify the hair. After the carcass has laid a day or two in the sun 



* Hist. Indian Tribes of the United States, 1854, Pari IV, p. 135, et seq. 



