﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 187 



a Chief was buried at this place and that a captive Piegan boy was in- 

 terred with him to act as liis servant on the trip to the other world, and 

 the discovery of the cranium would seem to lend a plausibilitv to the 

 story. It is hardly necessary to add that we secured the crania from 

 all the graves and such articles as seemed to have a certain ethnologi- 

 cal and archaeological value, after which every stone was carefully re- 

 placed so as to leave no indication that a disturbance of the bones of 

 the dead had taken place. 



At the time of the burial of the Chief already alluded to as having 

 been watched by our guide, the following ceremonies took place : the 

 funeral party consisting of most of the men and women of the villiage 

 mounted on horseback, started at about dusk in the evening to ascend 

 the mountains ; the corpse was fastened upon a horse like a sack of 

 grain the animal being led by one of the mourners ; during the whole 

 of the ascent the entire party shrieked and wailed in the most mourn- 

 ful manner, this noise not ceasing as my informant stated until day- 

 light next morning. Arriving at the spot the grave was hastily made 

 as already described, the body deposited and shots fired, either to 

 scare away bad spirits or as a parting salute, after which the butchery 

 of horses commenced by cutting their throats. At the burial of this 

 Chief twenty are said to have been sacrificed. In removing these 

 remains the requirements of poetic and retributive justice was to a 

 certain extent fulfilled as the band to which their owners belonged 

 murdered Lt. Gunnison and his party on the Sevier River some years 

 previously. 



In the vicinity of Beaver, Utah, several graves were explored which 

 were situated near the mouth of a canyon at the foot of a mountain, these 

 were five feet deep and exactly similar to the graves of white persons. 

 In one of them was found the skeleton of a child aged perhaps five 

 years, who had suffered from a disease of the dorsal vertebrae. With 

 the body had been buried a number of rude toys and play-things. 



In western Utah a cave was discoved in which the Gosh-Ute Indians 

 deposited their dead wrapped in skins and surrounded with different 

 objects used in life, and another similar cave was heard of near the 

 Nevada border • neither of these were explored for want of time. 

 Simpson relates in his most interesting volume lately published by the 

 Engineer Bureau entitled "Explorations across the Great Basin of 

 Utah," the manner of disposing of the dead in vogue amongst the 



