14 INHUMATION— N A VA JOS. 



Bartram* relates the following regarding the Muscogulges of the 

 Carolinas : 



"The Muscogulges bury their deceased in the earth; they dig a four- 

 foot, square, deep pit under the cabin, or couch which the deceased laid on 

 in his house, lining the grave with cypress bark, when they place the corpse 

 in a sitting posture, as if it were alive, depositing with him his gun, toma- 

 hawk, pipe, and such other matters as he had the greatest value for in his 

 lifetime. His eldest wife, or the queen dowager, has the second choice of 

 his possessions, and the remaining effects are divided among his other wives 

 and children." 



According to Bernard Roman, the "funeral customs of the Chickasaws 

 did not differ materially from those of the Muscogulges. They interred the 

 dead as soon as the breath left the body, and beneath the couch in which 

 the deceased expired." 



The Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona, a tribe living a considerable 

 distance from the Chickasaws, follow somewhat similar customs, as related 

 by Dr. John Menard, formerly a physician to their agency : 



"The Navajo custom is to leave the body whei*e it dies, closing up the 

 house or hogan or covering the body with stones or brush. In case the 

 body is removed, it is taken to a cleft in the rocks and thrown in, and 

 stones piled over. The person touching or carrying the body, first takes 

 off all his clothes and afterwards washes his body with water before putting 

 them on or mingling with the living. When a body is removed from a 

 house or hogan, the hogan is burned down, and the place in every case 

 abandoned, as the belief is that the devil comes to the place of death and 

 remains where a dead body is. Wild animals frequently (indeed, generally) 

 get the bodies, and it is a very easy matter to pick up skulls and bones 

 around old camping grounds, or where the dead are laid. In case it is not 

 desirable to abandon a place, the sick person is left out in some lone spot 

 protected by brush, where they are either abandoned to their fate or food 

 brought to them until they die. This is done only when all hope is gone. 

 I have found bodies thus left so well inclosed with brush that wild animals 



* Bartram's Travels, 1791, pp. 515. 



