814 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



moccasins off when they were about their houses, and how universally 

 they were employed, not much reliance should be placed on this cir- 

 cumstance. They shaved their heads on the right side for the utili- 

 tarian purpose of keeping it away from the bowstring. The medicine 

 men, however, cut their hair in the Creek fashion. We are specifically 

 informed that these Indians did not allow their fingernails to grow 

 long like the Florida Indians. They employed a type of flat bead to 

 which the name roanoke was given, but this was probably the common 

 name for bead and seems to have been bestowed also upon the mar- 

 ginella shells with which they decorated their clothing. This ap- 

 parently accompanied a considerable expansion in trade, which was 

 also reflected in the penal laws. Murder and adultery could here be 

 compounded for money, whereas farther south the death penalty or 

 severe floggings were meted out. This is the only country in which 

 shell gorgets are known to have been made, though there is every 

 reason to suppose that the industry was widely spread. Only a few 

 wore nasal ornaments. Along with the use of bear grease on their hair 

 they combined that of the puccoon root, which gave it a reddish tinge. 

 The women made no use of paint. There was no marked head defor- 

 mation. There is no record of the chunkey game in this area. A 

 curious fact, if it may be relied upon, is Strachey's assertion that the 

 women, among their other industries, made mortars. They made use 

 of a swordlike club with flint edges, and bark shields. There is no 

 mention of litters for carrying about leading men. Mats were usually 

 made of rushes, and baskets of rushes, silk grass, and a kind of root. 

 The literature seems to supply evidence that traces of the old hunting 

 territories of the Algonquians had survived. Autocracies based on in- 

 dividual ability were rather characteristic of the section. Succession 

 of chiefs was traced through the female line, but there were no clans. 

 They had ossuaries or temples in which were placed the bodies of their 

 chiefs, but these were treated somewhat differently from the custom 

 prevailing farther south, and the scaffold on which they were laid 

 seems to have occupied one end of the ossuary instead of the circuit 

 of the walls. The viscera were removed from the skin, the bones re- 

 placed in order and sand filled in between. The Potomac Indians 

 placed the bodies of their chiefs in ossuaries until the flesh fell away, 

 and then wrapped the bones in a mat and put them in the chief's house, 

 which they allowed to fall to ruin. The common people were buried at 

 full length in the earth. Poison was often used in getting rid of per- 

 sonal enemies. The tribal mark is said to have been tattooed on one 

 shoulder. Carved images of the deity were kept in each temple in a 

 small apartment cut off from the rest of the building. They had altar 

 stones near the temples and also scattered through the country at 

 which offerings were made. Female chiefs seem to have been fairly 



