A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American IndiansYarrow, H. C. (Harry Crécy)
History
A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians
Yarrow, H. C. (Harry Crécy)
Indians of North America -- Funeral customs and rites
A Yo-kaí-a widow’s style of mourning is peculiar. In addition to the
usual evidences of grief, she mingles the ashes of her dead husband
with pitch, making a white tar or unguent, with which she smears a
band about two inches wide all around the edge of the hair (which is
previously cut off close to the head), so that at a little distance
she appears to be wearing a white chaplet.
It is their custom to “feed the spirits of the dead” for the space
of one year by going daily to places which they were accustomed to
frequent while living, where they sprinkle pinole upon the ground.
A Yo-kaí-a mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to
some place where her little one played when alive, or to the spot
where the body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This
is accompanied by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling
upon her little one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and
melancholy chant, and dances with a wild static swaying of the body.
_SONGS._
It has nearly always been customary to sing songs at not only funerals,
but for varying periods of time afterwards, although these chants may no
doubt occasionally have been simply wailing or mournful ejaculation.
A writer[100] mentions it as follows:
At almost all funerals there is an irregular crying kind of singing,
with no accompaniments, but generally all do not sing the same
melody at the same time in unison. Several may sing the same song
and at the same time, but each begins and finishes when he or she
may wish. Often for weeks, or even months, after the decease of a
dear friend, a living one, usually a woman, will sit by her house
and sing or cry by the hour, and they also sing for a short time
when they visit the grave or meet an esteemed friend whom they have
not seen since the decease. At the funeral both men and women sing.
No. 11 I have heard more frequently some time after the funeral, and
No. 12 at the time of the funeral, by the Twanas. (For song see
p. 251 of the magazine quoted.) The words are simply an exclamation
of grief, as our word “alas,” but they also have other words which
they use, and sometimes they use merely the syllable _la_. Often the
notes are sung in this order, and sometimes not, but in some order
the notes _do_ and _la_, and occasionally _mi_, are sung.
Some pages back will be found a reference, and the words of a peculiar
death dirge sung by the Senèl of California, as related by Mr. Powers.
It is as follows:
Hel-lel-li-ly,
Hel-lel-lo,
Hel-lel-lo.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Ghost Gamble.]
Mr. John Campbell, of Montreal, Canada, has kindly called the attention
of the writer to death songs very similar in character; for instance,
the Basques of Spain ululate thus:
Lelo il Lelo, Lelo dead Lelo,
Lelo il Lelo,
Lelo zarat, Lelo zara,
Il Lelon killed Lelo.
This was called the “ululating Lelo.” Mr. Campbell says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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