Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/226

212 happy hunting ground. They believed that the smoke was the transferring agent between life here and there. When these Indians first saw the palefaces, as they called the white men, they thought them some of their dead returned to them in a new guise, and one that they by no means liked. After this time they began to bury their dead, explaining the change of custom by saying: "Indians go long way; no more smoke take 'em. Indians have to carry bow, arrows, skins, eberytingeverything [sic]; take long time, no more want to come back."

The body was prepared for burial while still warm in the following manner: First, the knees were tied close to the chest and the head pressed down between them; the whole body was then compressed into as small and as round a form as possible, tied securely with buckskin string, wrapped in skins, and tied again. It was then buried in a large, round hole, the face turned upward, as were also the feet. The possessions were heaped upon the body and buried with it. After the Indians had begun to own horses and dogs, these were shot on the graves of their masters and their bodies left there.

This tribe now prepare their dead and bury them as nearly like the white people as possible, even neglecting to give them the accumulated property of this life.

Since obtaining the above information I have made a number of excavations in their old burial places and find that no particular position for placing the body could have been observed. The head sometimes faced the east, but just as often the west, and in several instances it faced upward and downward. These Indians did not make mounds, but selected soft soil for their graves. The bodies were buried from two to three feet deep; earth and sometimes stones were heaped up until something resembling a mound was formed. This, however, only depended upon the amount of work the living were willing to do for the dead.

They had many customs of mourning. The most interesting one was that adopted by a bereaved wife or mother. The hair of the mourner would be burned from the head, a sacrifice which meant as much to her as the laying away of bright colors means to us, and the ashes mixed with charcoal and pitch. With this mixture her cheeks, chin, and forehead would be streaked, and this emblem of mourning would be worn for many weeks. At the time of burial every Indian was expected to moan or howl, while many of them would writhe about on the ground and utter most unearthly shrieks. For a certain number of days after they had burned or buried their dead, the chief mourners would go to the grave a half hour before sunrise and, looking toward the spot where the sun was to appear, would express their sorrow in cries and moans until the golden rays fell about their world, when they