BURIAL IN BOXES— CREEKS, INDIAN TERRITORY. 65 



but little effluvia ; in fact, I have seldom found much in a burial-teepee, and 

 when this mode of burial is thus performed it is less repulsive than natural 

 to suppose." 



This account is furnished by Col. P. W. Norris, superintendent of 

 Yellowstone National Park, he having been an eye-witness of what he 

 relates in 1876. 



The Blackfeet, Sioux, and Navajos also bury in lodges, and the In- 

 dians of Bellingham Bay, according to Dr. J. F. Hammond, U. S. A., 

 place their dead in carved wooden sarcophagi, inclosing these with a rectan- 

 gular tent of some white material. 



Bancroft* states that certain of the Indians of Costa Rica, when a death 

 occurred, deposited the body in a small hut constructed of plaited palm 

 reeds. In this it is preserved for three years, food being supplied, and on 

 each anniversary of the death it is redressed and attended to amid certain 

 ceremonies. The writer has been recently informed that a similar custom 

 prevailed in Demerara. No authentic accounts are known of analogous 

 modes of burial among the peoples of the Old World, although quite fre- 

 quently the dead were interred beneath the floors of their houses, a custom 

 which has been followed by the Mosquito Indians of Central America and 

 one or two of our own tribes. 



BOX BURIAL. 



Under this head may be placed those examples furnished by certain 

 tribes on the Northwest coast who used as receptacles for the dead won- 

 derfully carved, large wooden chests, these being supported upon a low 

 platform or resting on the ground. In shape they resemble a small house 

 with an angular roof, and each one has an opening through which food 

 may be passed to the corpse. 



Some of the tribes formerly living in New York used boxes much re- 

 sembling those spoken of, and the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees did 

 the same. 



Capt, J. H. Gageby, U. S. A., furnishes the following relating to the 

 Creeks in Indian Territory: 



"* * * are buried on the surface, in a box or a substitute made of 



* Nat. Races of Pao. States, 1671, vol. 1, p. 780. 

 5 Y 



