CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 355 



Cremation, whit-h we met with so frequently in Georgia, but saw but once dur- 

 ing our work on the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, was not noted by us during our 

 first year's work along the northwest Florida coast, and but twice, unmistakably, 

 during this, our second year's work. In the peninsula of Florida we have not met 

 with true cremation where it was evidentl}' the purpose to Ijurn the body as a form 

 of burial, such cremation as is found there apparently being where single bones or 

 parts of skeletons have lain in close proximit}' to ceremonial fires. These fragments 

 of burnt bone are often found lying with bones unaffected by fire, while, at times, a 

 skeleton is seen to have the bones of one arm burnt or calcined, or sometimes a por- 

 tion of the skull, and the like. 



Cremation, then, as a form of burial, cannot be said to have obtained in penin- 

 sular Floi'ida and was practised but occasionally in the mainland, or northwestern 

 portion. 



There seems to be a possible explanation for this occasional occurrence of crema- 

 tion in a district where inhumation was so generally practised. Cabeca de Vaca. 

 who, as the reader is aware, spent some Aears among the aborigines of the northwest 

 Florida coast, tells us that persons there in general were buried, but that doctors 

 were cremated. In our work on the mounds of the Georgia coast we pointed out 

 that this statement could not apply to that part of the country', since cremation was 

 very widely practised there, and, moreover, often included the bodies of infants. 

 But along the northwest Florida coast, the district of which Cabeca de Vaca's state- 

 ment was made, the result of our investigations seems to bear out the assertion. 



It was our intention, another season, to carry our investigation from Mobile 

 bay westward along the coast, in the endeavor to trace connection between that 

 district and the region we have covered to the east. 



Since our return, this spring and summer (1902), Mr. J. S. Raybon, captain of 

 our steamer, who has in previous years so successfully located mounds for us, went 

 over part of Mobile bay and most of the Mississippi coast. 



A few mounds rewarded his search on the eastern shore of Mobile bay, but 

 along the coast of Mississippi, apart from shell-heaps, almost nothing was met with. 



