SWANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED SITATES 725 



were hung in the town square. After all was over, those who had at- 

 tended the ceremony bathed in the creek, but for 4 days a fire was 

 kept up at the grave. As has been stated elsewhere, the widower 

 mourned and remained strictly continent for 4 montlis, and a widow 

 for 4 years (Swanton, 1928, pp. 388-397). Plate 88 shows a latter 

 day Creek burial ground in Oklahoma. The orientation, head to the 

 west, is apparently due to Christian injfluence. 



Most of our data regarding Chickasaw customs are from Adair, 

 which may be supx^ lamented by some notes from Romans. Adair 

 says that as soon as a death occurred a firebrand was dropped into 

 the water, and Romans states that the house fire was extinguished and 

 a new fire started. Guns were discharged and howls raised to drive 

 away ghosts or as a signal to the relatives (Foreman, 1934, p. 103). 

 A frame of white sticks was placed over the doorway where a 

 liousehold was mourning, and the mourners had a lock of hair 

 clipped off from the deceased's body and refrained from salt food. 

 When a warrior died a natural death, drums and musical instruments 

 were laid aside for 3 days, w^hile the body was washed, anointed, 

 dressed in the best clothes the deceased had possessed, and seated 

 outside facing the door of the winter house. It was borne around 

 tlie winter house three times and afterward seated in the grave 

 facing east with the arms and other movable property the departed 

 had possessed in life ranged around it. Thick logs were then laid 

 over the tomb covered in turn with cypress bark and clay, and the 

 living often slept on top, particularly the widow or widower of the 

 deceased. Those w^ho performed the last rites must be cleansed, but- 

 ton snakeroot being used as a medicine, and they went about their 

 usual tasks in 3 days while the relations mourned for a long time 

 and cried at the grave like the Choctaw. In rocky country it was 

 common for passersby to throw stones on the grave of one who had 

 died far from home (Swanton, 1928 c, pp. 229-234) . 



The ancient Choctaw mortuary customs were quite different and 

 of such a striking character that they have been often described, 

 though these descriptions do not agree in all details. We are fortu- 

 nate, however, in having an early drawing of a burial place from 

 Romans (pi. 89). We are told that if a doctor declared the patient 

 could not recover, he was killed without more ado. The house of the 

 deceased was burned along with the provisions it contained or the 

 latter were sold at a low price. The corpse was first laid on a scaf- 

 fold near the house along with food and property, the skull being 

 painted red. The bier w^as made of cypress bark and the body 

 covered with bear or bison skins or a woolen blanket. The scaffold 

 was decorated and the poles painted red if the deceased were a man 

 of note. A small bark fire was lighted under the scaffold 4 days in 



