THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 
VoL. XXV: APRIL, 1891. 292. 
MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF THE NAVAJO INDIANS. 
BY R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D. 
HILE in New Mexico, a few years ago, the writer had 
abundant opportunities to study the various modes that 
the Navajo Indians resort to for the purpose of disposing of their 
dead. Heretofore it has been very generally supposed that this 
tribe practices but three well-defined methods of' burial, and it is 
never their custom to deviate from them. I find, however, that 
the Navajos may choose any one of four means of disposing of 
their deceased, and in this matter they are very much controlled 
by circumstances. 
First and by far the commonest method is the cliff burial, 
wherein the body of the man, woman, or child is removed from 
the lodge or “ hogan” where the death took place, and is carried 
to some neighboring cañon, deposited without much ceremony 
in any of its semi-horizontal rents or fissures in its sides, and 
there thoroughly covered and walled in with pieces of rock and 
smaller stones. Most frequently this is performed at dusk, and 
the body of the deceased may be dressed in clothes that the indi- 
vidual possessed and valued during life. I have often seen their 
dead children decked out in’buckskin garments, and wearing both 
bracelets and necklace of beads. The “ hogan” in which the 
sick person succumbed is either abandoned or immediately 
burned, but in no event is it ever occupied by any of the tribe 
