Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/197

 *fbeir raifing heaps of Jlones over their dead. 185

the roads, and confecrated thofe heaps to him by undion*, and other religious ceremonies. And in honour to him, travellers threw a (tone t them, and thus exceedingly increafed their bulk : this might occafion Sor lomon to compare the giving honour to a fool, to throwing a (lone into a heap, as each were alike infeniible of the obligation ; and to caufe the Jewifh writers to call this cuftom a piece of idolatrous worfhip. But the In dians place thofe heaps of ftones where there are no dividings of the roads, nor the leafc trace of any road -f. And they then obferve no kind of re ligious ceremony, but raife thofe heaps merely to do honour to their dead, and incite the living to the purfuit of virtue. Upon which account, it feems to be derived from the ancient Jewifli cuftom of increafing Abfalom's tomb ; for the laft things are eafieft retained, becaufe people repeat them ofteneft, and imitate them moft.

libation ; by which means they often became black, and flippery ; as Arnobius relates of the idols of his time; Lubricatum lapidem, et ex tjlivi unguine fordidatam, tancjuam ineflet vis prefens, adulabar. Arnob. Ad-verf. Gent.
 * They rubbed the principal ftone of each of thofe heaps all over with oil, as a facrifice of

f Laban and Jacob raifed a heap of ftones, as a lading monument of their friendly cove nant. And Jacob called the heap Gdleed, " the heap of witnefs." Gen. xxxi. 47.

Though the Cheerake do not sow colled the bones of their .dead, yet they continue to raife and multiply heaps of ftones, as monuments for their dead ; this the Engliih army remem bers well, for in the year 1760, having marched about two miles along a wood-land path, beyond a hill where they had feen a couple of thefe reputed tombs, at the war- woman's creek, they received fo {harp a defeat by the Cheerake, that another fuch muft have inevitably ruined the whole army.

Marry of thofe heaps are to be feen, in all parts of the confinent of North- America .: where ftones could not be had, they raifed large hillocks or mounds of earth, wherein they carefully depofited the bones of their dead, which were placed either in earthen vefiels, or in afimple kind of arks, or chefts. Although the Mohawk Indians may be reafonably ex pected to have loft their primitive cuftoms, by reafon of their great intercourfe with foreign ers, yet I was told by a gentleman of distinguished character, that they obferve the aforefaid Sepulchral cnftom to this day, infomuch, that when they are performing that Jdndred- duly, they cry out, Mahoom Taguyo Kameneb, " Grandfather, I cover you."

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