CREMATION— FLORIDA. 57 



" This refrain is repeated over and over indefinitely, but the words 

 have no meaning whatever." 



Mr. Henry Grillman* has published an interesting account of the explo- 

 ration of a mound near Waldo, Fla., in which he found abundant evidence 

 that cremation had existed among the former Indian population. It is as 

 follows : 



" In opening a burial-mound at Cade's Pond, a small body of water sit- 

 uated about two miles northeastward of Santa Fe Lake, Florida, the writer 

 found .two instances of cremation, in each of which the skull of the subject, 

 which was unconsumed, was used as the depository of his ashes. The mound 

 contained besides a large number of human burials, the bones being much 

 decayed. With them were deposited a great number of vessels of pottery, 

 many of which are painted in brilliant colors, chiefly red, yellow, and brown, 

 and some of them ornamented with indented patterns, displaying not a little 

 skill in the ceramic art, though they are reduced to fragments. The first of 

 the skulls referred to was exhumed at a depth of 2 J feet. It rested on its apex 

 (base uppermost), and was filled with fragments of half incinerated human 

 bones, mingled with dark-colored dust, and the sand which invariably sifts 

 into crania under such circumstances. Immediately beneath the skull lay 

 the greater part of a human tibia, presenting the peculiar compression 

 known as a platycnemism to the degree of affording a latitudinal index of 

 .512 ; while beneath and surrounding it lay the fragments of a large num- 

 ber of human bones, probably constituting an entire individual. In the 

 second instance of this peculiar mode in cremation, the cranium was dis- 

 covered on nearly the opposite side of the mound, at a depth of 2 feet, and, 

 like the former, resting on its apex. It was filled with a black mass — the 

 residuum of burnt human bones mingled with sand. At three feet to the 

 eastward lay the shaft of a flattened tibia, which presents the longitudinal 

 index of .527. Both the skulls were free from all action of fire, and though 

 subsequently crumbling to pieces on their removal, the writer had opportunity 

 to observe their strong resemblance to the small orthocephalic crania which 

 he had exhumed from mounds in Michigan. The same resemblance was 

 perceptible in the other crania belonging to this mound. The smajl, nar- 



*Amer. Natural., November, 18?f, p. 753. 



