SURFACE BURIAL. 47 



So far as is known, up to the present time no burial-urns have been 



found in North America resembling those discovered in Nicaragua by Dr. 



J. C. Bransford, U. S. N., but it is quite within the range of possibility that 



future researches in regions not far distant from that which he explored may 



reveal similar treasures. 



SURFACE BURIAL. 



This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far as 

 can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it was employed 

 as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed for time. The 

 Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow trees, the bodies 

 being placed in an upright position, occasionally the dead being crammed 

 into a hollow log lying on the ground. With some of the Eastern tribes a 

 log was split in half and hollowed out sufficiently large to contain the 

 corpse ; it was then lashed together with withes and permitted to remain 

 where it was originally placed. In some cases a pen was built over and 

 around it. This statement is corroborated by Mr. R. S. Robertson, of Fort 

 Wayne, Ind., who states in a communication received in 1877 that the 

 Miamis practiced surface burial in two different ways : 



i« * * * i s t. The surface burial in hollow logs. These have been 

 found in heavy forests. Sometimes a tree has been split and the two halves 

 hollowed out to receive the body, when it was either closed with withes or 

 confined to the ground with crossed stakes ; and sometimes a hollow tree is 

 used by closing the ends. 



"2d. Surface burial where the body was covered by a small pen of 

 logs laid up as we build a cabin, but drawing in every course until they 

 meet in a single log at the top." 



Romantically conceived, and carried out to the fullest possible extent 

 in accordance with the ante mortem wishes of the dead, were the obsequies 

 of Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas. The account is given by 

 George Catlin :* 



" He requested them to take his body down the river to this his favor- 

 ite haunt, and on the pinnacle of this towering bluff to bury him on the 

 back of his favorite war-horse, which was to be buried alive under him, 



* Manners, Customs, &e.,of North American Indians, 1844, vol. ii, p. 5. 



