B USHNELL— ABORIGINAL BURIAL 



native inhabitants. Not far from the shore they discovered a small 

 settlement, and nearby was a "great burying place, one part whereof 

 was incompassed with a large Palazado, like a Church-yard." At 

 another point they encountered caches filled with corn, and other 

 similar pits which served as graves. Examining one of the latter they 

 soon reached "two Boundles, the one bigger, the other lesser," which 

 contained human remains. The larger held "the bones and skull of 

 a man," the latter the remains of a little child. 1 The bundles also con- 

 tained a quantity of powdered red oxide of iron (Fe 2 3 ). Within the 

 last few years many similar pit-burials have been discovered on the 

 coast of Maine; these contained masses of the insoluble red oxide of 

 iron and certain objects of native origin of an imperishable nature. 

 Similar masses of red oxide were encountered in a cemetery excavated 

 in 1913 near Warren, Rhode Island, in which objects of European 

 origin were likewise discovered. From these occurrences it would 

 appear that placing quantities of the powdered oxide in graves with 

 the human remains was a recognized custom of the coast Algonquian 

 tribes of New England at the time of first contact with Europeans. 

 Later, after coming under the influence of the missionaries and traders, 

 the same people ceased their primitive pit form of burial and placed 

 the remains in an extended position, either wrapped in bark or de- 

 posited in crudely made wooden coffins. Such were the conditions 

 revealed when the ancient "Fort Neck Burying Ground," near the 

 site of the old Niantic fort in Charlestown, Rhode Island, was exam- 

 ined in 1912. 



Closely flexed burials have been discovered in the valley of the 

 Connecticut and elsewhere in New England, and two skeletons so 

 placed were encountered in a single grave near South Hadley, Massa- 

 chusetts. 



A Munsee (Algonquian) cemetery recently uncovered near Mon- 

 tague, New Jersey, contained both flexed and extended burials, and 

 consequently belonged to the transition period, the earlier graves 

 being of the primitive form, the later containing various objects of 

 European origin. Similar customs appear to have prevailed among 

 the Algonquian tribes which at this time occupied the coastal plain of 

 Virginia and Maryland. It is to be regretted that more is not known 

 of the burial customs of the aborigines of the former region, the 

 Powhatan Confederacy, with whom the first Virginia colonists came 

 in contact. But among these people, according to Smith and other 

 early writers, the bodies of the principal men were prepared and 

 wrapped in white skins, then placed on elevated platforms within 



1 Cheever, G. B., The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, New York, 1849, p. 38. 

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