An Introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American IndiansYarrow, H. C. (Harry Crécy)
History
An Introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians
Yarrow, H. C. (Harry Crécy)
Indians of North America -- Funeral customs and rites
The discoveries made by Mr. Gillman would seem to indicate that the
people whose bones he excavated resorted to a process of partial
cremation, some examples of which will be given on another page. The
use of crania as receptacles is certainly remarkable, if not unique.
The fact is well known to archaeologists that whenever cremation was
practiced by Indians it was customary as a rule to throw into the
blazing pyre all sorts of articles supposed to be useful to the dead,
but no instance is known of such a wholesale destruction of property
as occurred when the Indians of southern Utah burned their dead, for
Dr. E. Foreman relates, in the American Naturalist for July, 1876, the
account of the exploration of a mound in that Territory, which proved
that at the death of a person not only were the remains destroyed by
fire, but all articles of personal property, even the very habitation
which had served as a home. After the process was completed, what
remained unburned was covered with earth and a mound formed.
A. S. Tiffany [Footnote: Proc. Dav. Acad. Nat Soc., 1867-76, p. 64.]
describes what he calls a cremation-furnace, discovered within seven
miles of Davenport, Iowa:
"... Mound seven miles below the city, a projecting point known as
Eagle Point. The surface was of the usual black soil to the depth of
from 6 to 8 inches. Next was found a burnt indurated clay, resembling
in color and texture a medium-burned brick, and about 30 inches in
depth. Immediately beneath this clay was a bed of charred human
remains 6 to 18 inches thick. This rested upon the unchanged and
undisturbed loess of the bluffs, which formed the floor of the pit.
Imbedded in this floor of unburned clay were a few very much
decomposed, but unburned, human bones. No implements of any kind were
discovered The furnace appears to have been constructed by excavating
the pit and placing at the bottom of it the bodies or skeletons which
had possibly been collected from scaffolds, and placing the fuel among
and above the bodies, with a covering of poles or split timbers
extending over and resting upon the earth, with the clay covering
above, which latter we now find resting upon the charred remains. The
ends of the timber covering, where they were protected by the earth
above and below, were reduced to charcoal, parallel pieces of which
were found at right angles to the length of the mound. No charcoal was
found among or near the remains, the combustion there having been
complete. The porous and softer portions of the bones were reduced to
pulverized bone-black. Mr. Stevens also examined the furnace. The
mound had probably not been opened after the burning."
This account is doubtless true, but the inferences may be incorrect.
Many more accounts of cremation among different tribes might be given
to show how prevalent was the custom, but the above are thought to be
sufficiently distinctive to serve as examples.
PARTIAL CREMATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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