CHAPTER XXVIII.

A Samoan inquest—Carrying a body about—Embalming in Samoa—Samoan grave fires—Catching a spirit—New Zealand burial customs—The Sexton in Borneo—Dayak funerals—Funeral customs of the Sea Dayaks—Tombs in the air—Exorcising the evil spirit—Cruel treatment of widows—The “village of the dead”—The place of skulls—Praying to the dead—Ojibbeway mourners—Disposing of the property of the dead—A Chippewa ghost story—An invisible presence—A spirited ghost—Veneration for the dead—A royal funeral—The death dance—The last of the “Stung Serpent.”

In Samoa, another of the Polynesian islands, it is considered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he is not buried alive· “When an old man feels sick and infirm,” says the missionary Turner, “and thinks he is dying, he deliberately tells his children and friends to get all ready and bury him. They yield to his wishes, dig a round deep pit, wind a number of fine mats round his body, and lower down the poor old heathen into his grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs are then brought and tied, each with a separate cord, the one end of the cord to the pig and the other to the arm of the old man. The cords are then cut in the middle, leaving the one half hanging at the arm of the old man, and off the pigs are taken to be killed and baked for the burial feast. The old man, however, is still supposed to take the pigs with him to the world of spirits. The greater the chief the more numerous the pigs, and the more numerous the pigs the better the reception in their Hades of heathenism. The poor old man thus wound up, furnished with his pig strings, and covered over with some more mats, is all ready. His grave is then filled up, and his dying groans are drowned amid the weeping and the wailing of the living.

“This revolting custom of burying alive is, as I have noted, not confined to infants and the aged. If a person in sickness shows signs of delirium, his grave is dug, and he is buried forthwith, to prevent the disease spreading to other members of the family. A young man in the prime of life was thus buried lately. He burst up the grave and escaped. He was caughtand forced into the grave again. A second time he struggled to the surface, and they led him to the bush, lashed him fast to a tree, and left him there to die.

“Whenever the eye is fixed in death the house becomes a scene of indescribable lamentation and wailing. ‘Oh! my father, why did you not let me die, and you live here still?’ ‘Oh! my brother, why have you run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?’ ‘Oh! my child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to survive you?’ These and other doleful cries may be heard two hundred yards from the house; and as you go near you find that they are accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes, burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with stones till the blood runs; and this they called an ”offering of blood for the dead.” Every one acquainted with the historical parts of the Bible will here observe remarkable coincidences. After an hour or so, the more boisterous wailing subsides, and, as in that climate the corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations are made without delay. The body is laid out on a mat oiled with scented oil, and, to modify the cadaverous look, they tinge the oil for the face with a little turmeric. The body is then wound up with several folds of native cloth, the chin propped up with a little bundle of the same material, and the face and head left uncovered, while for some hours longer the body is surrounded by weeping relatives. If the person has died of a complaint which has carried off some other members of the family, they will probably open the body to search for the disease. Any inflamed substance they happen to find they take away and burn, thinking that this will prevent any other members of the family being affected with the same disease. This is done when the body is laid in the grave.

“While a dead body is in the house no food is taken under the same roof. The family have their meals outside, or in another house. Those who attended the deceased were formerly most careful not to handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household, if they violated the rule. Fasting was common at such times, and they who did so, ate nothing during the day, but had a meal at night, reminding us of what David said when mourning the death of Abner: ‘So do God to me and more also, if I taste bread or aught else till the sun be down.’ The fifth day was a day of purification. They bathed theface and hands with hot water, and then they were clean, and resumed the usual time and mode of eating.

“The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great excitement and display: all work was suspended in the settlement; no stranger dared to pass through the place. For days they kept the body unburied, until all the different parties connected with that particular clan assembled from various parts of the island, and until each party had in turn paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, singing at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too, was wrapped up in the best robe, viz., the most valuable fine mat clothing which the deceased possessed. Great respect is still shown to chiefs on these occasions, and there was a recent instance of something like a thirty days’ mourning; but the body is seldom paraded about the settlements now-a-days.

“The burial generally takes place the day after death. As many friends as can be present in time attend. Every one brings a present; and the day after the funeral, these presents are all so distributed again as that every one goes away with something in return for what he brought. Formerly, the body was buried without a coffin, except in the cases of chiefs; but now it is quite common to cut off the ends of some canoe belonging to the family, and make a coffin of it. The body being put into this rude encasement, all is done up again in some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the shoulders of four or five men to the grave. The friends follow, but in no particular order; and at the grave again there was often further wailing, and exclamations such as, “Alas! I looked to you for protection, but you have gone away! why did you die! would that I had died for you!” Since the introduction of Christianity, all is generally quiet at the grave. The missionary, or some native teacher appointed by him, attends, reads a portion of Scripture, delivers an address, and engages in prayer, that the living may consider and prepare for the time to die. The grave is called the last resting place; and in the case of chiefs the house is thatched with the leaves of sandal wood, alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near the grave. Attempts have been made to get a place set apart as the village burying-ground, but it is difficult to carry it out. All prefer laying their dead among the ashes of their ancestors, on their own particular ground. As the bones of Joseph were carried from Egypt to Canaan, so did the Samoans carry the skulls of their dead from a land where they had been residing during war, back to the graves of their fathers as soon as possibleafter peace was proclaimed. The grave is often dug close by the house. They make it about four feet deep; and, after spreading it with mats like a comfortable bed, there they place the body, with the head to the rising of the sun and the feet to the west. With the body they deposit several things which may have been used to answer the purpose of a pickaxe in digging the grave; not that they think these things of any use to the dead, but it is supposed that if they are left and handled by others, further disease and death will be the consequence. Other mats are spread over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and then they fill up the grave.

A Samoan Sepulchre.

“The spot is marked by a little heap of stones a foot or two high. The grave of a chief is nearly built up in an oblong slanting form, about three feet high at the foot and four at the head. White stones or shells are intermixed with the top layer; and if he has been a noted warrior, his grave may be surrounded with spears, or his gun laid loosely on the top.”

Embalming, the same authority informs us, is known and practised with surprising skill in one particular family of Samoan chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described by Herodotus, it is performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The viscera being removed and buried, they day after day anoint the body with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices, and they continue to puncture the body all over with fine needles. In about two months the process of desiccation is completed. The hair, which had been cut off and laid aside at the commencement of the operation, is nowglued carefully on to the scalp by a resin from the bush. The abdomen is filled up with folds of native cloth, the body is wrapped up with the same material, and laid out on a mat, leaving the hands, face, and head exposed.

A house is built for the purpose, and there the body is placed with a sheet of native cloth loosely thrown over it. Now and then the face is oiled with a mixture of scented oil and turmeric, and passing strangers are freely admitted to see the remains of the departed. At present there are four bodies laid out in this way in a house belonging to the family to which we refer—viz., a chief, his wife, and two sons. They are laid on a platform, raised on a double canoe. It must be upwards of thirty years since some of them were embalmed, and although thus exposed they are in a remarkable state of preservation. They assign no particular reason for this embalming, further than that it is the expression of their affection to keep the bodies of the departed still with them as if they were alive.

On the evening of the burial of any important chief, his friends kindled a number of fires at a distance of some twenty feet from each other, near the grave, and there they sat and kept them burning till morning light. This was continued sometimes for ten days after the funeral; it was also done before the burial. In the house where the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept burning all night by the immediate relatives of the departed. The common people had a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and had the space between the house and the grave so cleared as that a stream of light went forth all night from the fire to the grave. Whether this had its origin in any custom of burning the dead body, like the ancient Greeks, it is impossible now to ascertain. The probability, however, is that it had not. The account the Samoans give of it, is, that it was merely a light-burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of tender regard: just as we may suppose the Jews did after the death of Asa, when it is said they made a very great burning for him. Those commentators who hold that this and one or two other passages refer to a Jewish mark of respect, and not to the actual burning of the body, have in the Samoan custom which we have just named a remarkable coincidence in their favour.

The unburied occasioned great concern. “No Roman,” says Mr. Turner, “was ever more grieved at the thought of his unburied friend wandering a hundred years along the banks of the Styx than were the Samoans, while they thought of the spirit of one who had been drowned, or of anotherwho had fallen in war, wandering about neglected and comfortless. They supposed the spirit haunted them everywhere night and day, and imagined they heard it calling upon them in a most pitiful tone, and saying, ‘Oh! how cold; oh! how cold.’ Nor were the Samoans, like the ancient Romans, satisfied with a meretumulus-inanis(or empty grave), at which to observe the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the beach, near where a person had been drowned, or on the battle-field, where another fell, might be seen sitting in silence a group of five or six, and one a few yards in advance, with a sheet of native cloth spread out on the ground before him. Addressing some god of the family, he said, ‘Oh! be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man.’ The first thing that happened to light upon the sheet was supposed to be the spirit. If nothing came, it was supposed that the spirit had some ill-will to the person praying. That person after a time retired, and another stepped forward, addressed some other god, and waited the result. By-and-bye something came—grasshopper, butterfly, ant, or whatever else it might be; it was carefully wrapped up, taken to the family, the friends assembled, and the bundle buried with all due ceremony, as if it contained the real spirit of the departed.”

The burial, like all other customs of the New Zealanders, are very singular. Very little, however, was known concerning them until a recent date. At the time Captain Cook visited the country, everything connected with the disposal of their dead was concealed from him by the natives.

It is now known, however, that the dead bodies of slaves were thrown into holes or into the sea, or buried under the poles supporting houses; but the dead bodies of free persons were ever held in high respect. It was only, however, at the death of chiefs that the funeral rites of the people were celebrated. A chief on his death bed was surrounded by most of his relatives, his last words were treasured up, and the resignation with which the dying man submitted to his fate suggested to the mind that he died of his own will. The moment the vital spark fled, its departure was bewailed with doleful cries: abundance of water was shed in the form of tears, and the spectators groaned, sighed, and seemed inconsolable. But all was hollow, except with the immediate relatives of the deceased, and a specimen of the talent of the New Zealanders for dissimulation. Men, women, and children cut themselves with shells, and slaves were slain toattend on the dead in the next world, and in revenge for his death. Since the introduction of fire-arms, guns are fired off at the death of chiefs.

Twenty-four hours after death the body was washed and beaten with flax-leaves, to drive away evil spirits. Priests then dressed the corpse. The legs were bent, the body placed in a sitting attitude, the hair tied in a lump on the crown of the head, and ornamented with albatross feathers; garlands of flowers were wound round the temples, tufts of white down from a sea-bird’s breast were stuck in the ears, the face was smeared with red ochre and oil, and the whole body, save the head, enveloped in a fine mat. In this condition, surrounded with his weapons of war, the bones and preserved heads of his ancestors, the dead chief sat in state; and as the complexion of the skins of the natives alters little after death, there was a life-like appearance in the whole scene. Certain birds were sacrificed to the gods. Tribes from a distance visited the dead. Wisps of the long toitoi grass placed in the dead warrior’s hands were grasped by friends, and flattering laments, of which the following is a good specimen, were sung in his honour:—

“Behold the lightning’s glare:It seems to cut asunder Tuwhara’s rugged mountains.From thy hand the weapon dropped,And thy bright spirit disappearedBeyond the heights of Rauhawa.The sun grows dim, and hastes away,As a woman from the scene of the battle.The tides of the ocean weep as they ebb and flow,And the mountains of the south melt away,For the spirit of the chieftainIs taking its flight to Kona.Open ye the gates of the heavens—Enter the first heaven, then enter the second heaven,And when thou shalt travel the land of spirits,And they shall say to thee, ‘What meanest this?’Say’st thou, the winds of this our worldHave been torn from it in the death of the brave one,The leader of our battles.Atutahi and the stars of the morningLook down from the sky.The earth reels to and fro,For the great prop of the tribes lies low,Ah! my friend, the dews of KokiangaWill penetrate the body;The waters of the rivers will ebb out,And the land be desolate.”

“Behold the lightning’s glare:

It seems to cut asunder Tuwhara’s rugged mountains.

From thy hand the weapon dropped,

And thy bright spirit disappeared

Beyond the heights of Rauhawa.

The sun grows dim, and hastes away,

As a woman from the scene of the battle.

The tides of the ocean weep as they ebb and flow,

And the mountains of the south melt away,

For the spirit of the chieftain

Is taking its flight to Kona.

Open ye the gates of the heavens—

Enter the first heaven, then enter the second heaven,

And when thou shalt travel the land of spirits,

And they shall say to thee, ‘What meanest this?’

Say’st thou, the winds of this our world

Have been torn from it in the death of the brave one,

The leader of our battles.

Atutahi and the stars of the morning

Look down from the sky.

The earth reels to and fro,

For the great prop of the tribes lies low,

Ah! my friend, the dews of Kokianga

Will penetrate the body;

The waters of the rivers will ebb out,

And the land be desolate.”

Dead chiefs sat in state until they gave out an ill odour. Then their bodies were wrapped in mats, put into canoe-shaped boxes along with theirmeris, and deposited on stages nine feet high, or suspended from trees in the neighbourhood of villages, or interred within the houses where they died. Here, after daylight, for many weeks the nearest relatives regularly bewailed their death with mournful cries. Persons tapued from touching the dead were now made clean. Carved wooden ornaments, or rude human images twenty or forty feet high, not unlike Hindoo idols, were erected on the spots where the bodies were deposited. Mourning head dresses made of dark feathers were worn; some mourners clipped half their hair short, and people talked of the dead as if they were alive.

The bodies were permitted to remain about half a year on the stages, or in the earth, after which the bones were scraped clean, placed in boxes or mats, and secretly deposited by priests in sepulchres, on hill tops, in forests, or in caves. The meris and valuable property of chiefs were now received by their heirs. To witness this ceremony of the removal of bones neighbouring tribes were invited to feasts, called the hahunga; and for several successive years afterwards hahungas were given in honour of the dead, on which occasions skulls and preserved heads of chiefs were brought from sepulchres, and adorned with mats, flowers, and feathers. Speeches and laments delivered at hahungas kept chiefs’ memories alive, and stimulated the living to imitate the dead.

In Borneo when a Dayak dies the whole village is tabooed for a day; and within a few hours of death the body is rolled up in the sleeping mat of the deceased, and carried by the “Peninu,” or sexton of the village, to the place of burial or burning. The body is accompanied for a little distance from the village by the women, uttering a loud and melancholy lament. In one tribe—the Pemujan—the women follow the corpse a short way down the path below the village to the spot where it divides, one branch leading to the burning ground, the other to the Chinese town of Siniawau. Here they mount upon a broad stone and weep, and utter doleful cries till the sexton and his melancholy burden have disappeared from view. Curiously enough, the top of this stone is hollowed, and the Dayaks declare that this has been occasioned by the tears of their women, which, during many ages, have fallen so abundantly and so often as to wear away the stone by their continual dropping.

In Western Sarawak the custom of burning the dead is universal. In the district near the Samarahan they are indifferently burnt or buried, andwhen the Sadong is reached, the custom of cremation ceases, the Dayaks of the last river being in the habit of burying their dead. In the grave a cocoa nut and areca nut are thrown; and a small basket and one containing the chewing condiments of the deceased are hung up near the grave, and if he were a noted warrior a spear is stuck in the ground close by. The above articles of food are for the sustenance of the soul in his passage to the other world.

The graves are very shallow, and not unfrequently the corpse is rooted up and devoured by wild pigs. The burning also is not unfrequently very inefficiently performed. “Portions of bones and flesh have been brought back by the dogs and pigs of the village to the space below the very houses of the relatives,” says Mr. St. John. “In times of epidemic disease, and when the deceased is very poor, or the relatives do not feel inclined to be at much expense for the sexton’s services, corpses are not unfrequently thrown into some solitary piece of jungle not far from the village, and there left. The Dayaks have very little respect for the bodies of the departed, though they have an intense fear of their ghosts.

“The office of sexton is hereditary, descending from father to son; and when the line fails, great indeed is the difficulty of inducing another family to undertake its unpleasant duties, involving, as it is supposed, too familiar an association with the dead and with the other world to be at all beneficial. Though the prospect of fees is good, and perhaps every family in the village offers six gallons of unpounded rice to start the sexton in his new and certainly useful career, it is difficult to find a candidate. The usual burying fee is one jav, valued at a rupee; though if great care be bestowed on the interment, a dollar is asked; at other places as much as two dollars is occasionally demanded.”

On the day of a person’s death a feast is given by the family to their relations: if the deceased be rich, a pig and a fowl are killed; but if poor, a fowl is considered sufficient. The apartment and the family in which the death occurs are tabooed for seven days and nights, and if the interdict be not rigidly kept, the ghost of the departed will haunt the place.

Among the Sea Dayaks, as we are likewise informed by Mr. St. John, human bodies are usually buried, although, should a man express a wish to share the privilege of the priests, and be, like them, exposed on a raised platform, his friends are bound to comply with his request.

Immediately after the breath has left the body, the female relations commence loud and melancholy laments; they wash the corpse and dressit in its finest garments, and often, if a man, fully armed, and bear it forth to the great common hall, where it is surrounded by its friends to be mourned over. In some villages a hireling leads the lament, which is continued till the corpse leaves the house. Before this takes place, however, the body is rolled up in clothes and fine mats, kept together by pieces of bamboo tied on with rattans, and taken to the burial-ground. A fowl is then killed as a sacrifice to the spirit who guards the earth, and they commence digging the grave from two and a half to four and a half feet deep, according to the person’s rank: deeper than five feet would be unlawful. Whilst this operation is going on others fell a large tree, and cutting off about six feet, split it in two, and hollow out the pieces with an adze. One part serves as a coffin and the other as the lid; the body is placed within, and the two are secured together by means of strips of pliable cane wound round them.

After the coffin is lowered into the grave, many things belonging to the deceased are cast in, together with rice, tobacco, and betel-nut, as they believe they may prove useful in the other world.

It was an old custom, but now falling into disuse, to place money, gold and silver ornaments, clothes, and various china and brass utensils in the grave; but these treasures were too great temptation to those Malays who were addicted to gambling, and the rifling of the place of interment has often given great and deserved offence to the relations. As it is almost impossible to discover the offenders, it is now the practice to break in pieces all the utensils placed in the grave, and to conceal as carefully as possible the valuable ornaments.

The relatives and bearers of the corpse must return direct to the house from which they started before they may enter another, as it is unlawful or unlucky to stop, whatever may be the distance to be traversed. Sea Dayaks who fall in battle are seldom interred, but a paling is put round them to keep away the pigs, and they are left there. Those who commit suicide are buried in different places from others, as it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in the “Seven-storied Sabayau,” or Paradise, with such of their fellow-countrymen as come by their death in a natural manner, or through the influence of the spirits.

Black is the sign of mourning among the Indians of North America, as among us; but among these savage populations grief is manifested by other signs than the gloomy colour of the dress. The Crows cut part of their hair on the death of a relation. The widows of the Foxes, as a signof mourning, remain several months without changing their clothes, or paying any other attention to their dress. This custom is common to many tribes of the north. Among the Shahonees and several other of the western population, those who have lost one of their relatives manifest their grief by inflicting on themselves mutilations and wounds. The mourning of an Indian for the loss of a relative continues for at least six months. It generally consists in neglecting his person, and painting his face black. A widow will generally mourn the loss of her husband for a year. During all this time she appears sincerely affected, never speaking to any one unless she is forced to do so from necessity or propriety. She always seeks solitude, and desires to remain alone, in order to abandon herself more freely to her affliction. After her mourning is over, she resumes her best garments, and paints herself as coquettishly as possible, in order to find another husband.

The customs observed in the burial of the dead differ in different tribes. The only observance common to them all is the singular one of painting the corpses black. The Omahas swathe the bodies with bandages made of skins, giving them the appearance of Egyptian mummies. Thus enveloped they are placed in the branches of a tree, with a wooden vase full of dried meat by their side, and which from time to time is renewed. The Sioux bury their dead on the summit of a hill or mountain, and plant on the tomb a cedar tree, which may be seen from afar. When no natural elevation exists, they construct a scaffolding two or three yards high.

The Chinooks, says the Abbé Dominech (from whose account of Indian burial customs this description is chiefly derived), and some other populations of Columbia and Oregon, have a more poetical custom. They wrap the bodies of their dead in skins, bind their eyes, put little shells in their nostrils, and dress them in their most beautiful clothes; they then place them in a canoe, which is allowed to drift at the pleasure of the winds and currents, on a lake, a river, or on the Pacific Ocean.

When there is neither lake nor river nor sea near the village, the funeral canoe is attached to the branches of the loftiest trees. These aërial tombs are always so placed that the wild animals cannot reach them; the favourite spots are solitary and wooded islands. These sepulchral canoes are often moored in little bays, under shady trees whose thick foliage overhang them like a protecting dome. There are islands on the large rivers of Columbia where as many as twenty or thirty of these canoes are attached to the cedars and birches on the banks.

Not far from Columbia is a rock which serves as a cemetery for the people of the neighbourhood. One perceives, on examining this village of death, that the tribes of fishermen bestow the same religious care on the dead as do the various tribes of hunters. In one case, as in the other, the favourite objects he used while alive are placed by his side in death. In Columbia, the oar and the net lie by the fisherman in his funereal canoe; in the Great Prairies, the lance, the bow and arrows, and often the war-horse, are buried in the grave with the hunter. To the east as to the west of the Rocky Mountains, the savages venerate, respect, and take care of their friends and relatives even after death. The lamentations and prayers of the survivors are heard each day at dawn and dusk wherever there are tombs.

In New Mexico the whites have singularly modified the customs of the Indians; what remains of their ancient practices bears the impress at once of the superstitious character of the natives, and of the habits of the Spaniards. Thus, the inhabitants of Pueblo de Laguna, who are half Christians, half followers of Montezuma, wrap the body of the deceased in his ordinary garments, lay him in a narrow grave of little depth, and place bread and a vase of water near him. They then throw huge stones upon him with such violence as to break his bones, with the notion that any evil spirit remaining in the carcase may be driven out in the process.

The Sacs and Foxes place their dead, wrapped in blankets or buffalo skins, in rude coffins made out of old canoes or the bark of trees, and bury them; if the deceased was a warrior, a post is erected above his head, painted with red lines, indicating the number of men, women, and children he has killed during his life, and who are to be his slaves in the land of shadows.

The Tahkalis burn the bodies of their dead. The medicine-man who directs the ceremony makes the most extraordinary gesticulations and contortions, for the purpose, as he pretends, of receiving into his hands the life of the deceased, which he communicates to a living person by laying his hands on his head, and blowing on him; the person thus endowed takes the rank of the deceased, whose name he adds to that he bore previously. If the dead man had a wife, she is obliged to lay down on the funeral pyre while it is set on fire, and to remain there till she is almost suffocated with smoke and heat. Formerly, when a woman endeavoured to escape this torture, she was carried to the fire and pushed in, to scramble out how she might. When the corpse is consumed it is theduty of the widow to collect the ashes, place them in a basket and carry them away. At the same time she becomes the servant of her husband’s family, who employ her in all sorts of domestic drudgery, and treat her very ill. This servitude continues during two or three years, at the expiration of which period the relatives of deceased assemble to celebrate the “feast of deliverance.” At this solemnity a pole five or six yards in height is fixed in the ground, to sustain the basket containing the ashes of the deceased, which remain thus exposed till the pole, destroyed by time and the elements, falls down. The widow then recovers her liberty, and can marry again.

Mr. Paul Kane, in his “Wanderings of an Artist,” describes much such a ceremony as observed by him in New Caledonia, which is east of Vancouver’s Island and north of Columbia. Among the tribe called “Taw-wa-tius,” and also among other tribes in their neighbourhood, the custom prevails of burning the bodies, with circumstances of peculiar barbarity to the widows of the deceased. The dead body of the husband is laid naked upon a large heap of resinous wood; his wife is then placed upon the body, and covered over with a skin; the pile is then lighted, and the poor woman is compelled to remain until she is nearly suffocated, when she is allowed to descend as best she can through the flames and smoke. No sooner, however, does she reach the ground, than she is expected to prevent the body from becoming distorted by the action of the fire on the muscles and sinews; and wherever such an event takes place, she must with her bare hands restore the burning body to its proper position, her person being the whole time exposed to the intense heat. Should she fail in the performance of this indispensable rite, from weakness or the intensity of her pain, she is held up by some one until the body is consumed. A continual singing and beating of drums is kept up throughout the ceremony, which drowns her cries.

Afterwards she must collect the unconsumed pieces of bone and the ashes, and put them in a bag made for the purpose, and which she has to carry on her back for three years; remaining for a time a slave to her husband’s relations, and being neither allowed to wash nor comb herself for the whole time, so that she soon becomes a very unpleasant object to behold. At the expiration of three years a feast is given by her tormentors, who invite all the friends and relations of her and themselves. At the commencement they deposit with great ceremony the remains of the burnt dead in a box, which they affix to the top of a high pole, anddance round it. The widow is then stripped and smeared from head to foot with fish-oil, over which one of the bystanders throws a quantity of swans’-down, covering her entire person. After this she is free to marry again, if she have the inclination and courage enough to venture on a second risk of being roasted alive and the subsequent horrors.

It has often happened that a widow, who has married a second husband in the hope perhaps of not outliving him, commits suicide in the event of her second husband’s death, rather than undergo a second ordeal.

A Mandan Chief.

Among the Mandans, another tribe of North American Indians, burial is unknown. A tract of land is set apart, and is known to all the tribes as the “village of the dead.” When a Mandan dies he is wrapped in the hide of a freshly-slaughtered buffalo, which is secured by thongs of new hide. Other buffalo skins are soaked until they are soft as cloth, and inthese the already thoroughly enveloped body is swathed till the bulk more resembles a bale of goods packed for exportation than a human body. Within the bundle are placed the man’s bow and quiver, shield, knife, pipe and tobacco, flint and steel, and provisions enough to last him some time “on his long journey.” Then his relatives bear him on their shoulders, and carry him to the cemetery, “where,” says Catlin, “are numerous scaffolds, consisting of four upright poles some six or seven feet in height. On the top of these are small poles passing around from one corner post to another; across these are placed a row of willow rods, just strong enough to support the body.”

Mandan Place of Skulls.

On this scaffold, and with his feet towards the rising sun, the Mandan is laid, and he is not disturbed till the scaffold poles decay, and the buffalo coffin, still containing the Mandan’s bones, falls to the earth. Then the relatives of the deceased, having received notice of the circumstance, once more assemble at the cemetery and, digging a hole, bury the bones—all except the skull; for this is reserved a separate ceremony.

Apart from the willow biers may be seen circles of skulls, numbering from fifty to a hundred, each about nine inches from its neighbour, and with the face turned towards the centre. In this ghastly cordon room is made, and the newly fallen skull added thereto, and ever after regarded with the rest as an object of veneration, not only by those who can claim with it family acquaintance, but by the whole tribe. “Very frequently,” says Catlin, “the traveller may observe a wife, or maybe a mother, of this sadremnant of mortality sitting down by the side of the skull of its departed husband or child, talking to it in the most endearing tones, and even throwing herself down to embrace it, the while bewailing with loud and incessant cries; very often too they will cut and hack themselves with knives as a punishment for any offence they may have given their relative while alive.”

Among the Ojibbeways, as soon as the man is dead, they array him in his best clothes, and as soon as possible place him in a coffin. If this latter article is not available, he is wrapped in the best skins or blankets the tent furnishes. A hole about three feet deep is dug, and generally within twelve hours of his decease the man is buried, with his head towards the west. By the side of his body is placed his former hunting and war implements, such as his bow and arrow, tomahawk, gun, pipe and tobacco, knife, pouch, flint and steel, medicine-bag, kettle, trinkets, and other articles which he carried with him when going on a long journey. The grave is then covered, and on the top of it poles or sticks are placed lengthways, to the height of about two feet, over which birch bark or mats form a covering to secure the body from the rain. The relations or friends of the deceased then sit on the ground in a circle round the head of the grave, when the usual offering to the dead, consisting of meat, soup, or the fire-waters, is made. This is handed to the people present in bowls, a certain quantity being kept back for a burnt offering. While this is preparing at the head of the grave, the old man, or speaker for the occasion, makes a prayer to the soul of the departed, enumerating his good qualities, imploring the blessing of the dead that his spirit may intercede for them, that they may have plenty of game; he also exhorts his spirit to depart quietly from them. They believe that the soul partakes of a portion of the feast, and especially that which is consumed by fire. If the deceased was a husband, it is often the custom for the widow, after the burial is over, to spring or leap over the grave, and then run zigzag behind the trees, as if she were fleeing from some one. This is called running away from the spirit of her husband, that it may not haunt her. In the evening of the day on which the burial has taken place, when it begins to grow dark, the men fire off their guns through the hole left at the top of the wigwam. As soon as this firing ceases, the old women commence knocking and making such a rattling at the door as would frighten away any spirit that would dare to hover near. The next ceremony is to cut into narrow strips like ribbon, thin birch bark. Thesethey fold into shapes, and hang round inside the wigwam, so that the least puff of wind will move them. With such scarecrows as these, what spirit would venture to disturb their slumbers? Lest this should not prove effectual, they will also frequently take a deer’s tail, and after burning or singeing off all the hair, will rub the necks or faces of the children before they lie down to sleep, thinking that the offensive smell will be another preventive to the spirit’s entrance. “I well remember,” says the Rev. Peter Jones, a Christianised Ojibbeway and missionary, “when I used to be daubed over with this disagreeable fumigation, and had great faith in it all. Thinking that the soul lingers about the body a long time before it takes its final departure, they use these means to hasten it away.

“I was present at the burial of an old pagan chief by the name of Odahmekoo, of Muncey Town. We had a coffin made for him, which was presented to his relatives; but before they placed the body in it, they bored several holes at the head, in order, as they supposed, to enable the soul to go in and out at pleasure.

“During the winter season, when the ground is frozen as hard as a rock two or three feet deep, finding it almost impossible to penetrate through the frost, having no suitable tools, they are obliged to wind up the corpse in skins and the bark of trees, and then hang it on the fork of a large tree, high enough to be beyond the reach of wolves, foxes, and dogs, that would soon devour it. Thus the body hangs till decomposition takes place, and the bones, falling to the ground, are afterwards gathered up and buried.

“Immediately after the decease of an Indian all the near relatives go into mourning, by blackening their faces with charcoal, and putting on the most ragged and filthy clothing they can find. These they wear for a year, which is the usual time of mourning for a husband or wife, father or mother.

“At the expiration of a year the widow or widower is allowed to marry again. Should this take place before the year expires, it is considered, not only a want of affection for the memory of the dead, but a great insult to the relations, who have a claim on the person during the days of the mourning. The first few days after the death of the relative are spent in retirement and fasting; during the whole of their mourning they make an offering of a portion of their daily food to the dead, and this they do by putting a part of it in the fire, which burns while they are eating. I have seen my poor countrymen make an offering of the fire-waters to thedeparted: they deem this very acceptable, on account of its igniting the moment it touches the fire. Occasionally they visit the grave of the dead, and there make a feast and an offering to the departed spirit: tobacco is never forgotten at these times. All the friends of the dead will for a long time wear leather strings tied round their wrists and ankles, for the purpose of reminding them of their deceased relative.”

It is a custom always observed by widows to tie up a bundle of clothes in the form of an infant, frequently ornamented with silver brooches. This she will lie with and carry about for twelve months, as a memorial of her departed husband. When the days of her mourning are ended, a feast is prepared by some of her relatives, at which she appears in her best attire. Having for the first time for a twelvemonth washed herself all over, she looks once more neat and clean.

The Shahonees bury their dead with everything belonging to them. The Comanches generally bury a warrior with his arms and his favourite horse; formerly his wives also shared the same fate, but this custom has disappeared. Whilst the Sioux put striking marks on their tombs that they may be easily distinguished, the Comanches cover them with grass and plants to keep them concealed. Among the tribes of the west the warriors are still sometimes buried on horseback, wrapped in their richest dress, with bow in hand, buckler on arm, the quiver full of arrows slung behind, the pipe and the medicine-bag hanging to the belt, and supplied with a provision of tobacco and dried meat sufficient for the voyage to the enchanted prairies.

The Assineboins, like several other tribes of the great American desert, never bury their dead, but suspend them by thongs of leather between the branches of the great trees, or expose them on scaffoldings sufficiently high to place the body out of reach of the voracious wild animals. The feet of the corpse are turned towards the rising sun; and when the scaffoldings fall through old age, the bones are collected and burned religiously within a circle formed of skulls. The sacred deposit is guarded, as among the Mandans, by medicine-trees or posts, from which amulets or medicine-bags are suspended.

On the death of a member of their tribe, the Potowatomies, the Ottawas, and several other people of the north, distribute all the things which belonged to the deceased to his friends. Some of them are Catholics, and these fix on the tomb a great pole, at the summit of which floats a banner ornamented with a black cross. Among these same tribes, when a marriedman or woman dies, the survivor pays the debt of the body by giving money, horses, and other presents to the relatives of the deceased. The Ottawas sacrifice a horse on the tomb of the dead; they strangle the animal by means of a noose, then cut off its tail and suspend it to stakes fixed on the tomb. The women of the Crows also pay the debt of the dead by making incisions deep in their own flesh. The Chippewas are in the habit of lighting large fires on the tombs of members of their family for several nights after the funeral.

As to the origin of this last-mentioned custom nothing is known; but there exists among the Chippewas a legend which may be worth the reader’s perusal as throwing some light on the subject.

“Once upon a time, many years ago, a war raged between the Chippewas and their enemies, and the lands of the hostile tribes were red with blood. It was then that a party of the Chippewas met a band of their foes upon an open plain in the country of the Great Lakes. Meteewan, the leader of the Chippewas, was a brave; his martial deeds were the song of every youth who looked to obtain renown in the warpath; and the young squaws talked of them at the fires. And never did the chief act with more bravery or prudence than on this occasion. After he had, by the strength of his arm, turned the battle against his enemies, and while he was giving the great shout of victory, an arrow quivered in his breast, and he fell upon the plain. No Indian warrior killed thus is ever buried. According to old custom, he was placed in a sitting posture upon the field of battle, his back supported by a tree, and his face turned towards the path in which his enemies had fled. His spear and club were placed in his hands, and his bow and quiver leaned against his shoulder. So they left him.

“He heard them recount their valiant deeds.”

“But was he gone to the land of spirits? Though he could not move, nor speak, he heard all that had been said by his friends. He heard them bewail his death and could not comfort them; he heard them speak of his great deeds; he heard them depict the grief of his wife when she should be told he was dead. He felt the touch of their hands, but his limbs were bound in chains of strength, and he could not burst them. His thoughts flowed as free as the great rivers; but his limbs were like the fallen branches. His anguish, when he felt himself thus abandoned, was heavy; but he was compelled to bear it. His wish to follow his friends who were about to return to their wigwams so filled his mind, that, after making a violent exertion, he rose, or seemed to rise, and followed them.

But he was invisible; they neither saw his form nor heard his voice. Astonishment, disappointment, rage filled him, while he attempted to make himself heard, seen, or felt, and could not; but still he followed on their track. “Wherever they went, he went; when they walked, he walked; when they ran, he ran; when they built their fires, and sat down, his feet were in the embers; when they slept, he slept; when they awoke, he awoke. He heard them recount their valiant deeds, but he wasunable to tell them how much his own exceeded theirs; he heard them paint the joys which awaited their return to their wigwams, but could not say how much peace and how much love was in his.

“At length the war-party reached their village, and the women and children came out to welcome their return. The old warrior whom weakness had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy who was fast hastening to take them up, did each his part in making joy. The wife came forward with embraces, the timid maiden with love weighing on her eyelids, to meet their braves. And if an old warrior found not his son, he knew he had fallen bravely, and grieved not; and if the wife found not her husband, she wept only a little while: for was he not gone to the great Hunting Grounds?

“Still no one seemed conscious of the presence of the wounded chief. He heard many ask for him; he heard them say that he had fought, conquered, and fallen, pierced through his breast with an arrow, and that his body had been left among the slain.

“‘It is not true,’ replied the indignant chief with a loud voice. ‘I am here; I live! I move! See me! touch me! I shall again raise my spear and bend my bow in the war path; I shall again sound my drum at the feast.’ But nobody knew of his presence; they mistook the loudest tones of his voice for the softest whisperings of the winds. He walked to his own lodge; he saw his wife tearing her hair, and bewailing him. He endeavoured to undeceive her, but she also was insensible to his presence or his voice. She sat despairing, with her head upon her hands. He told her to bind up his wounds, but she made no reply. He then placed his mouth close to her ear and shouted, ‘Give me food.’ The wife said, ‘It is a fly buzzing.’ Her enraged husband struck her upon the forehead. She placed her hand to her head and said, ‘It is a little arrow of pain.’

“Foiled thus in every attempt to make himself known, the chief began to think upon what he had heard the priests and wise men say, that the spirit sometimes left the body, and might wander. He reflected that possibly his body had remained upon the field of battle, while his spirit only accompanied his returning companions. He determined then to return upon their track, though it was four days’ journey. He went. For three days he pursued his way, and saw nothing; but on the fourth, at evening, as he came to the skirts of the battle-field, he saw a fire in the path. He walked on one side to avoid stepping into it, but the fire alsowent aside, and was still before him. He went another way, but the fire still burned in his path. ‘Demon!’ he exclaimed at length, ‘why dost thou keep my feet from the field of battle, where my body lies? Knowest thou not that I am a spirit also, and seek again to enter that body? Or dost thou say I shall return and do it not? Know that I am a chief and a warrior, well tried in many a hard battle—I will not be turned back.’

“So saying, he made a vigorous effort, and passed through the flame. In this exertion he awoke from his trance, having lain eight days on the field. He found himself sitting on the ground, with his back to a tree, and his bow leaning against his shoulder, the same as they had been left. Looking up, he beheld a large canieu, a war-eagle, sitting upon the tree above his head. Then he knew this bird to be the same he had dreamed of in his youth, and which he had taken as his guardian spirit, his Manitou. While his body had lain breathless, this friendly bird had watched it. He got up and stood upon his feet; but he was weak, and it was a long time before he felt that his limbs were his. The blood upon his wound had stanched itself; he bound it up. Possessing, as every Indian does, the knowledge of medicinal roots, he sought diligently in the woods for them, and obtained sufficient for his purpose. Some of them he pounded between stones and placed upon the wound, others he ate. So in a short time he found himself so much recovered as to commence his journey. With his bow and arrows he killed birds in the day, which he roasted before the fire at night. In this way he kept hunger from him until he came to a water that separated his wife and friends from him. He then gave that whoop which says a friend is returned. The signal was instantly known, and a canoe came to bring him across; and soon the chief was landed amidst many shouts. Then he called his people to his lodge, and told them all that happened. Then ever after it was resolved to build a fire by the dead warrior, that he might have light and warmth, if he only dreamed as the chief had dreamed.”

The Indians of Natchez carried to a still higher point their profound veneration for those who were no more. At the funerals of their relatives or friends they gave unequivocal signs of extreme and most sincere grief. They did not burn the body, like the Greeks, the Romans, and several American nations, but they placed it for a time in a coffin of reed, and regularly brought it food in token of their love and solicitude. This they continued till nothing remained of the body but dry bones, which were then collected and placed in the funeral temple. These temples of the dead onlydiffered from the ordinary dwellings of the Natchez in having a wooden head suspended over the entrance door. Nothing could surpass their attachment to these relics of the departed beings they had lost, and when they emigrated they generally carried away the bones of their ancestors.

The interment of their sovereigns, or one of his near relations, assumed with the Natchez the proportions of a public calamity. Such funereal ceremonies were accompanied by a real voluntary massacre, in which a multitude of individuals allied to the family of the deceased, his friends or servants, were immolated. We will give, still through the Abbé Dominech, a few examples of this custom, by citing some details related in history concerning the death of the “Stung Serpent,” brother of the “Great Sun.” As the number of victims to be sacrificed during the funeral ceremony was very considerable, the officers of Port Rosalie repaired to the village where the deceased had dwelt, in order to save from death as many people as they could. Thanks to the charitable intervention of the French, the number of victims was limited to the two wives of the deceased, the chamberlain, physician, servant, pipe-bearer, and a remarkably beautiful young Indian girl, who had loved him greatly, and some old women, who were to be strangled near the mortal remains of the noble dead.

The body of the “Stung Serpent” was clothed in beautiful garments, and placed on a bed of state; his face was painted vermilion, on his feet were beautiful embroidered mocassins, and on his head he wore a crown of red and white feathers, as a prince of blood. By his side was placed his gun, his pistol, his bow and a quiver full of arrows, and his best tomahawk, with all the calumets of peace which had been offered to him during his life. At the head of the bed was a red pole supporting a chain of reeds also painted red, and composed of forty-six rings, indicating the number of enemies he had killed in battle.

All the persons composing the household surrounded the deceased, serving him from time to time as when in life; but as of course all the food remained untouched, his servant called out, “Why do you not accept our offerings? Do you no longer love your favourite meats? Are you angry with us, and will you allow us no longer to serve you? Ah! you speak to us no more as you used to do. You are dead! all is finished! Our occupation is ended; and since you abandon us, we will follow you to the land of spirits.” Then the servant uttered the death shout, which was repeated by all present, and spread from village to village to the farthest extremities of the country like a tremendous funeral echo.

The beautiful young Indian, who would not survive her lover, raised her voice in the midst of the general lamentations, and, addressing the officers, said, “Chiefs and nobles of France, I see how much you regret my husband. His death is indeed a great calamity for you, as well as for your nation, for he carried them all in his heart. How he has left us for the world of spirits; in two days I shall be with him, and I will tell him that your hearts swelled with sadness at the sight of his mortal remains. When I am no more, remember that our children are orphans, remember that you loved their father, and let the dew of your friendship fall in abundance on the children of him who was friendly to you.”

The following day the grand master of the ceremonies came to fetch the victims for the death dance, and led them in procession to the place where they were to die. Each of them was accompanied by eight of his nearest relatives, who were to perform the office of executioners: one carried a tomahawk, and threatened every instant to strike the victim; another carried the mat on which the sacrifice was to be made; a third the cord which was to serve for the execution; a fourth bore the deer skin which was to be placed on the head and shoulders of the condemned; the fifth carried a wooden bowl containing the pills of tobacco which the patient swallowed before dying; the sixth an earthen bottle full of water, to facilitate the passage of the pills. The office of the last two was to render the strangulation as speedy as possible, by drawing the cord to the right and to the left of the patient.

These eight persons became noble after the execution: they walked two and two after the victims, whose hair was painted red. On arriving at the public place where the temple stood, all began to shout out the death cry; the persons who were to be sacrificed placed themselves on the mats, and danced the death dance. Their executioners formed a circle round them, and danced the same dance; then all returned in procession to the cabin of the deceased.

The inauspicious day of the funeral ceremony having arrived, the legitimate wife of the “Stung Serpent” took leave of her children with the following words. “The death of your father is a great loss. He wills that I accompany him into the world of spirits, and I must not let him wait for me in vain. I am in haste to depart, for since his death I walk the earth with a heavy step. You are young, my children; you have before you a long path, which you must pursue with a prudent spirit and a courageous heart. Take care you do not tear your feet on the thorns ofduplicity and the stones of dishonesty. I leave you the keys of your father’s inheritance, brilliant and without rust.”

The body of the prince was borne by eight guardians of the temple, and preceded by a multitude of warriors, who, in walking, described continual circles until they reached the temple where the body of the “Stung Serpent” was deposited. The victims, after having been strangled according to custom, were buried in the following order: the two widows in the same tomb as their husband, the young Indian woman to the right of the temple, and the chamberlain to the left. The other bodies were removed to the different villages to which they belonged. Then the dwelling of the “Stung Serpent” was fired, and burnt to its foundations. Such were the barbarous and touching ceremonies observed by the Natchez on the death of the highest dignitaries of their ancient nation.

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