1877.] Aboriginal Funereal Customs in the United States. 199 
years, and the skeleton must have been placed there long before 
the vegetation commenced. 
Several ancient skeletons were exhumed in the Cafion of the 
Montezuma in Southeastern Utah, where great numbers of 
graves were found. In one tomb was a portion of a skeleton, 
including the long bones and some of the phalanges. The skull 
had entirely disappeared. From another grave we took a well- 
preserved skull and other portions of the skeleton, all of which 
have been removed to Washington. This latter skull, however, 
is probably that of a modern Navajo. Along the valley of the 
Rio San Juan lies one of the most extensive aboriginal cemeter- 
ies. The graves continue uninterruptedly for several miles, and 
thousands of subjects were evidently here buried. The only 
traces of buildings are some low, circular mounds, about fifty feet 
in diameter, indicating the former existence of adobe structures, 
over which oceur great quantities of broken pottery and a num- 
ber of arrow-points. 
Several tribes were accustomed to incase their dead in stone 
boxes or tombs. Among these were the Lenni Lenape, or Del- 
awares, of Pennsylvania, although the graves already opened show 
an antiquity of probably not more than one hundred and fifty or 
two hundred years, because the native contents, consisting of 
fragments of rude pottery and ornaments, are associated usually 
with articles of European manufacture, such as glass beads, iron 
or copper implements, and portions of fire-arms. A number of 
graves have been examined in the vicinity of the Delaware 
Water Gap. The tumuli were scarcely distinguishable, but were 
Surrounded by traces of shallow trenches. The skeletons lay at 
adepth of about three feet, and were in almost every instance 
Inclosed in rude stone coffins. In one case the body had been 
placed in a slight excavation, facing the east, and above it a low 
mound had been built. 
The second variety of inhumation was tumulus burial. This 
prevailed to agreat extent among the mound builders of the Mis- 
Sissippi Valley. In some instances a mound contained but one — 
Y, while in others it constituted a general burial ground. The 
were generally near the original level of the surface and the 
mounds heaped over them. No particular posture of the body 
was assumed ; sometimes it reclined; occasionally it was sitting, 
but most frequently it was extended on the back. The face was 
often pointed eastward, though no general rule was observed in 
respect to orientation. 
i 
