AN INDIAN BURIAL. 



247 



The Indians passed ropes under the body ; the 

 husband himself supported the head, and so it was 

 lowered into the grave. The figure was tall, and 

 the face was that of a woman about twenty-three 

 or twenty-four years old. The expression was pain- 

 ful, indicating that in the final struggle the spirit had 

 been reluctant to leave its mortal tenement. There 

 was but one present who shed tears, and that was 

 the old mother of the deceased, who doubtless had 

 expected this daughter to lay her own head in the 

 grave. She held by the hand a bright-eyed girl, 

 who looked on with wonder, happily unconscious 

 that her best friend on earth was to be laid under 

 the sod. The shawl was opened, and showed a 

 white cotton dress under it ; the arms, which were 

 folded across the breast for the convenience of car- 

 rying the body, were laid down by the sides, and 

 the shawl was again wrapped round. The hus- 

 band himself arranged the head, placed under it a 

 cotton cloth for a pillow, and composed it for its fi- 

 nal rest as carefully as if a pebble or a stone could 

 hurt it. He brushed a handful of earth over the 

 face ; the Indians filled up the grave, and all went 

 away. No romance hangs over such a burial scene, 

 but it was not unnatural to follow in imagination 

 the widowed Indian to his desolate hut. 



We had been disappointed in not seeing any rel- 

 ic of Indian customs, and, as it was now eleven 

 o'clock and we had not breakfasted, we did not 

 consider ourselves particularly indemnified for our 

 trouble. 



