S WANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 811 



man, speaking probably of the Potomac tribe, says that the bodies 

 were left in ossuaries until the flesh fell away, when the bones were 

 wrapped in a mat and taken to the abandoned house of the deceased, 

 where they remained until the house fell to ruins. Common peo- 

 ple were buried "in graves like ours" and thus apparently at full 

 length. Among the eastern Siouans the corpse was wrapped in mats 

 and laid in a long grave covered with bark laid over a ridge pole, 

 the whole being covered in turn with earth. After the flesh had 

 rotted away, the bones were taken up, cleaned, placed in proper 

 relation to one another, wrapped in a clean white deerskin and laid 

 in the quiozogon or ossuary. The mounds made for dead Santee 

 and Tuscarora Indians were thus merely vaults over the bodies. 

 A reburial custom was reported among the South Carolina Siouans 

 by Peter Martyr on the authority of a native informant. A Tim- 

 ucua chief was buried in the earth, a mound raised above, around 

 which arrows were stuck, and his drinking shell was placed on top. 

 Afterward his house and property were burned. The Tocobaga In- 

 dians separated the bones from the flesh and buried the former 

 ceremonially. The Tekesta also separated the bones and placed them 

 in a grave box. The Cherokee buried in the earth either at full 

 length or flexed. The Creeks and Chickasaw flexed the bodies of 

 their dead and buried them under the floors of their houses, but 

 Choctaw usage was more elaborate. They placed their dead first 

 on scaffolds, and, after some time had elapsed, a functionary known 

 as a Buzzard Man cleaned the bones, burned or buried the flesh, and 

 returned the bones to the family of the deceased enclosed in a ham- 

 per. At intervals the people of each Choctaw canton assembled to 

 carry the accumulated hampers of bones to a specified spot, where 

 they were buried and a mound raised over them. In the early 

 part of the nineteenth century the missionaries induced them to 

 give up this custom for burial in the earth. Bodies of Biloxi and 

 Pascagoula chiefs were dried and placed with those of their pred- 

 ecessors around the insides of their temples. Natchez commoners 

 seem to have been buried much like the Creeks, in the earth; the 

 chiefs were laid in the ground in or near the temple and their 

 bones exumed later to be placed in hampers inside of that edifice. 

 The customs of the Bayogoula, Houma, and Chitimacha were prob- 

 ably like those of the Choctaw. The Tunica seem to have buried 

 their dead in the earth. Among the Natchez as well as in Florida 

 it was customary to burn the house of the deceased. For the Caddo, 

 see Bulletin 132 (Swanton, 1942). 



In the Algonquian and eastern Siouan areas poisoning seems to 

 have been a popular method of disposing of enemies. It is rarely 

 mentioned elsewhere. Among the Algonquians of the northeast we 

 also learn of the use of tribal marks tattooed on the shoulder. The 



