B USHNELL— ABORIGINAL BURIAL 



the ceremonies attending the death and the subsequent disposal of 

 the remains of members of these tribes. But the customs of the Vir- 

 ginia tribes may have been rather similar to those of the far distant 

 though kindred Biloxi, who at one time lived on the Gulf coast of 

 Mississippi. Butel Dumont, in describing these people as they were 

 during the early part of the eighteenth century, wrote in part: "The 

 Paskagoulas and the Billoxis never inter their chief when he is dead, 

 but they have his body dried in the fire and smoke so that they make 

 of it a veritable skeleton. After having reduced it to this condition 

 they carry it to the temple (for they have one as well as the Natchez) 

 and put it in the place occupied by its predecessor, which they take 

 from the place which it occupied to place it with the bodies of their 

 other chiefs in the interior of the temple, where they are all ranged in 

 succession on their feet like statues." 1 The remains may later have 

 been deposited in mounds, many of which have stood within this 

 region. 



The Cherokee, the great detached Iroquoian tribe whose home 

 during historic times has been among the hills and valleys of the 

 southern Alleghanies, usually placed their dead on a hilltop and cov- 

 ered the body with a heap of stones of varying sizes. The numerous 

 cairns of this mountainous district are of Cherokee origin. But no 

 such custom prevailed among the Iroquois, who have occupied for 

 many generations the central and western parts of the present state 

 of New York. Within recent years ossuaries have been discovered in 

 the western counties of the state; these contain vast quantities of 

 skeletal remains, together with great numbers of objects of native 

 origin. They appear to have been rectangular in form, to have occu- 

 pied a rather prominent position, and to have been carefully prepared. 

 Such a communal burial place was discovered in May, 1909, about one 

 mile southwest of Gasport, Niagara county, but unfortunately no 

 detailed record was made of its contents. However, it is within reason 

 to suppose it to have been similar to the communal burial so clearly 

 described by Pere Le Jeune, in the year 1636, somewhere in the 

 vicinity of Lake Simcoe. The day having arrived when the great 

 burial was to take place, and the people having come together from 

 distant villages bearing the remains of their dead and the numerous 

 presents or offerings to be placed in the grave, the ceremony was soon 

 enacted. "Let me describe the arrangement of this place. It was 

 about the size of the Place Royale at Paris. There was in the middle 

 of it a great pit, about ten feet deep and five brasses wide. All around 

 it was a scaffold, a sort of staging very well made, nine to ten brasses 



1 Quoted by Swanton, ibid., p. 7. 

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