70 SCAFFOLD BUE1AL. 



skin about four feet in length, elaborately decorated with bead-work in 

 stripes. The outer was covered with rows of blue and white bead-work, 

 the second was green and yellow, and the third blue and red. All were 

 further adorned by spherical brass bells attached all about the borders by 

 strings of beads. 



" The remains with their wrappings lay upon a matting similar to that 

 used by the Navajo and other Indians of the southern plains, and upon a 

 pillow of dirty rags, in which were folded a bag of red paint, bits of ante- 

 lope skin, bunches of straps, buckles, &c. The three bead-work hooded 

 cloaks were now removed, and then we successively unwrapped a gray 

 woolen double shawl, five yards of blue cassimere, six yards of red calico, 

 and six yards of brown calico, and finally disclosed the remains of a child, 

 probably about a year old, in an advanced stage of decomposition. The 

 cadaver had a beaver-cap ornamented with disks of copper containing the 

 bones of the cranium, which had fallen apart. About the neck were long 

 wampum necklaces, with dentalium, unionidce, and auricula;, interspersed with 

 beads. There were alto strings of the pieces of Haliotis from the Gulf of 

 California, so valued by the Indians on this side of the Rocky Mountains. 

 The body had been elaborately dressed for burial, the costume consisting of 

 a red-flannel cloak, a red tunic, and frock-leggins adorned with bead-work, 

 yarn stockings of red and black worsted, and deerskin bead-work mocca- 

 sins. With the remains were numerous trinkets, a porcelain image, a China 

 vase, strings of beads, several toys, a pair of mittens, a fur collar, a pouch 

 of the skin of putorias vison, &c." 



Another extremely interesting account of scaffold burial, furnished by 

 Dr. L. S. Turner, U. S. A., Fort Peck, Mont., and relating to the Sioux, is 

 here given entire, as it refers to certain curious mourning observances 

 which have prevailed to a great extent *>ver the entire globe : 



" The Dakotas bury their dead in the tops of trees when limbs can 

 be found sufficiently horizontal to support scaffolding on which to lay the 

 body, but as such growth is not common in Dakota, the more general prac- 

 tice is to lay them upon scaffolds from 7 to 10 feet high and out of the reach of 

 carniverous animals, as the wolf. These scaffolds are constructed upon four 

 posts set into the ground something after the manner of the rude drawing 



