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
Henry Gillman[54] has published an interesting account of the
exploration of a mound near Waldo, Fla., in which he found abundant
evidence that cremation had existed among the former Indian population.
It is as follows:
In opening a burial-mound at Cade’s Pond, a small body of water
situated about two miles northeastward of Santa Fé Lake, Fla., the
writer found two instances of cremation, in each of which the skull
of the subject, which was unconsumed, was used as the depository of
his ashes. The mound contained besides a large number of human
burials, the bones being much decayed. With them were deposited a
great number of vessels of pottery, many of which are painted in
brilliant colors, chiefly red, yellow, and brown, and some of them
ornamented with indented patterns, displaying not a little skill in
the ceramic art, though they are reduced to fragments. The first of
the skulls referred to was exhumed at a depth of 2½ feet. It rested
on its apex (base uppermost), and was filled with fragments of half
incinerated human bones, mingled with dark-colored dust, and the
sand which invariably sifts into crania under such circumstances.
Immediately beneath the skull lay the greater part of a human tibia,
presenting the peculiar compression known as a platycnemism to the
degree of affording a latitudinal index of .512; while beneath and
surrounding it lay the fragments of a large number of human bones,
probably constituting an entire individual. In the second instance
of this peculiar mode in cremation, the cranium was discovered on
nearly the opposite side of the mound, at a depth of 2 feet, and,
like the former, resting on its apex. It was filled with a black
mass--the residuum of burnt human bones mingled with sand. At three
feet to the eastward lay the shaft of a flattened tibia, which
presents the longitudinal index of .527. Both the skulls were free
from all action of fire, and though subsequently crumbling to pieces
on their removal, the writer had opportunity to observe their strong
resemblance to the small, orthocephalic crania which he had exhumed
from mounds in Michigan. The same resemblance was perceptible in the
other cranium belonging to this mound. The small narrow, retreating
frontal, prominent parietal protuberances, rather protuberant
occipital, which was not in the least compressed, the well defined
supraciliary ridges, and the superior border of the orbits,
presenting a quadrilateral outline, were also particularly noticed.
The lower facial bones, including the maxillaries, were wanting. On
consulting such works as are accessible to him, the writer finds no
mention of any similar relics having been discovered in mounds in
Florida, or elsewhere. For further particulars reference may be had
to a paper on the subject read before the Saint Louis meeting of the
American Association, August, 1878.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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