Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 2 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian CollectionCatlin, George
History
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 2 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection
Catlin, George
England -- Description and travel; France -- Description and travel; Indians of North America
This wonderful place has been described by many travellers, and
therefore needs but a passing notice here. This wilderness of tombs,
of houses or boxes of the dead, thrown and jumbled together amidst
its gloomy cypress groves and thickets, is perhaps one of the most
extraordinary scenes of the kind in the world: beautiful in some
respects, and absurd and ridiculous in others, it is still one of
the wonders of Paris, and all who see the one must needs visit the
other. The scene was one peculiarly calculated to excite and please
the Indians. The wild and gloomy and almost endless labyrinths of
the little mansions of the dead were pleasing contrasts to their
imprisonment within the dry and heated walls of the city; the varied
and endless designs that recorded the places and the deeds of the dead
were themes of amusement to them, and the subject altogether one that
filled their minds with awe, and with admiration of the people who
treated their dead with so much respect.
We wandered for an hour through its intricate mazes of cypress,
examining the tombs of the rich and the poor so closely and curiously
grouped together--a type, even in the solitudes of death, of the great
Babylon in which their days had been numbered and spent. Whilst we
were strolling through the endless mazes of this _sub-rosa_ city, we
met an immense concourse of people, evidently bearing the body of some
distinguished person to the grave. The pompous display of mourning
feathers and fringes, &c., with hired mourners, was matter of some
surprise to the Indians; but when a friend of the deceased stepped
forward to pronounce an eulogium on his character, recounting his many
virtues and heroic deeds, it reminded the Indians forcibly of the
custom of their own country, and they all said they liked to see that.
We took them to the patched and vandalized tomb of Abelard and Eloisa;
but as there was not time for so long a story, it lost its interest
to them. They were evidently struck with amazement at the system and
beauty of this place, and from that moment decided that they liked the
French for the care they took of their old soldiers and the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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