SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHS ASTEHN UNITED STATES 721 



came out of the grave and beat it down very firm ; by this means the dead body 

 lies in a vault, nothing touching him; so that when I saw this way of burial 

 I was mightily pleased with it, esteeming it very decent and pretty, as having 

 seen a great many christians buried without the tenth part of that ceremony 

 and decency. Now when the flesh is rotted and moulded from the bone, they 

 take up the carcass and clean the bones and joint them together ; afterwards 

 they dress them up in pure white dressed deer ^^kins, and lay them amongst 

 their grandees and kings in the quiogozon, which is their royal tomb or burial 

 place of their kings and war captains. This is a very large magnificent cabin, 

 according to their building, which is raised at the public charge of the na- 

 tion, and maintained in a great deal of form and neatness. About seven 

 feet high is a floor or loft made, on which lie all their princes and great 

 men that have died for several hundred years, all attired in the dress I before 

 told you of. No person is to have his bones lie here, and to be thus dressed, 

 unless he gives a round sum of their money to the rulers for admittance. If 

 they remove never so far, to live in a foreign country, they never fail to take 

 all these dead bones along with them, though the tediousness of their short daily 

 marches keeps them never so long on their journey. They reverence and adore 

 this quiogozon with all the veneration and respect that is possible for such a 

 people to discharge, and had rather lose all than any violence or injury offered 

 thereto. 



These savages differ some small matter in their burials; some burying right 

 upwards, and otherwise, as you are acquainted withal in my journal from 

 South to North Carolina; yet they all agree in their mourning, which is, to 

 appear every night at the sepulchre, and howl and weep in a very dismal 

 manner, having their faces dawbed over with lightwood soot, (which is the 

 same as lampblack) and bear's oil. This renders them as black as it is 

 possible to make themselves, so tliat theirs very much resemble the faces of 

 executed men boiled in tar. If the dead person was a grandee, to carry on 

 the funeral ceremonies, they hire people to cry and lament over the dead man. 

 Of this sort there are several who practice it for a livelihood, and are very 

 expert at shedding abundance of tears, and howling like wolves, and so discharg- 

 ing their office with abundance of hypocrisy and art. The women are never 

 accompanied with these ceremonies after death, and to what world they allot 

 that sex, I never understood, unless to wait on their dead husbands: but they 

 have more wit than some of the other eastern nations, who sacrifice themselves 

 to accompany their husbands into the next world. It is the dead man's relations 

 by blood, as his uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, sons and daughters, that mourn 

 in good earnest, the wives thinking their duty is discharged, and that they are 

 become free, when their husband is dead; so as fast as they can look out for 

 another to supply his place. (Lawson, 1860, pp. 293-299.) 



He states specifically of the Santee that they "put up a mound 

 for the dead," embalmed the body "with a small root beaten to 

 powder, which looks as red as vermillion," and clothed themselves 

 with moss while mourning (Lawson, 1860, pp. 42-43). Later he 

 notes a Tuscarora burial conducted like that of the Santee (Lawson, 

 1860, p. 104). One case of suicide is alluded to but no hint of the 

 native attitude toward it is given (Lawson, 1860, p. 328) . 



What appears to have been a reburial custom is mentioned by 

 Peter Martyr in his account of usages in the Duhare province in 



464735—46 47 



