THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 277 



native state, and that tlie spices and improvements of the enlightened "world have 

 never refined upon them. 



There is not a day in the year in which one may not see in this place evidences of 

 this fact that will wring tears from his eyes and kindle in his bosom a spark of respect 

 and sympathy for the poor Indian, if he never felt it before. Fathers, mothers, wives, 

 and children may be seen lying under these scaffolds, prostrated upon the ground, 

 with their faces in the dirt, howling forth incessantly the most piteous and heart- 

 broken cries and lamentations for the misfortunes of their kindred, tearing their hair, 

 cutting their flesh with their knives, and doing other penance to appease the spirits 

 of the dead, whose misfortunes they attribute to some sin or omission of their own, 

 for which they sometimes inflict the most excruciating self-torture. 



When the scaffolds on which the bodies rest decay and fall to the ground, the near- 

 est relations, having buried the rest of the bones, take the skulls, which are perfectly 

 bleached and purified, and place them in circles of a hundred or more on the prairie — 

 placed at equal distances apart (some eight or nine inches from each other), with the 

 faces all looking to the center — where they are religiously protected and preserved in 

 their precise positions from year to year as objects of religious and affectionate ven- 

 eration. (Plate 48, No. 392.) 



There are several of these " Golgothas" or circles of twenty or thirty feet in diam- 

 eter, and in the center of each ring or circle is a little mound of three feet high, on 

 which uniformly rest two buffalo skulls (a male and female), and in the center of 

 the little mound is erected a " medicine pole," about twenty feet high, supporting 

 many curious articles of mystery and superstition, which they suppose have the 

 power of guarding and protecting this sacred arrangement. Here, then, to this 

 strange place do these people again resort to evince their further affections for the 

 dead; not in groans and lamentations, however, for several years have cured the 

 anguish, but fond affections and endearments are here renewed, and conversations 

 are here held and cherished with the dead. 



Each one of these skulls is placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been 

 pulled and placed under it. The wife knows (by some mark or resemblance) the 

 skull of her husband or her child, which lies in this group, and there seldom passes a 

 day that she does not visit it with a dish of the best cooked food that her wigwam 

 affords, which she sets before the skull at night and returns for the dish in the morn- 

 ing. As soon as it is discovered that the sage on which the skull rests is beginning 

 to decay the woman cuts a fresh buncli, and places the skull carefully upon it, re- 

 moving that which was under it. 



Independent of the above-named duties which draw the women to this spot they 

 visit it from inclination, and linger upon it to hold converse and company with the 

 dead. There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day but more or less of these women 

 may be seen sitting or lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in 

 the most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were wont to 

 do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back. It is not unfrequently 

 the.case that the woman brings her needle- work with her, spending the greater part of 

 the day sitting by the side of the skull of her child, chatting incessantly with it while 

 she is embroidering or garnishing a pair of moccasins, and perhaps, overcome with 

 fatigue, falls asleep, with her arms encircled around it, forgetting herself for hours, 

 after which she gathers up her things and returns to the village. 



There is something exceedingly interesting and impressive in these scenes, which 

 are so strikingly dissimilar, and yet within a few rods of teach other. The one is the 

 place where they pour forth the frantic anguish of their souls, and afterwards jiay 

 their visits to the other to jest and gossip with the dead. 



The great variety of shapes and characters exhibited in those groups of crania ren- 

 der them a very interesting study for the craniologist and phrenologist, l>nt I appre- 

 hend that it would be a matter of great difiiculty (if not of impossibility) to procure 

 them at this time for the use and benefit of the scientific world. — G. C. 



