Burials of the Algonquian, Siouan and Caddoan tribes west of the Mississippi / by David I. Bushnell, Jr.

  • David I. Bushnell
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Burials of the Algonquian, Siouan and Caddoan tribes west of the Mississippi / by David I. Bushnell, Jr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ii]). ... I subsequently learned that they had all died of the cholera, and that this young girl, being considered past recovery, had been arrayed by her friends in the habiliments of the dead, enclosed in the lodge alive, and abandoned to her fate—so fearfully alarmed were the Indians by this, to them, novel and terrible disease.” (Op. cit., pp. 42-43.) The following reference from Yarrow may have referred, in part, to the Oglala: “General Stewart Van Vliet, U. S. A., informs the writer that among the Sioux of Wyoming and Nebraska when a per¬ son of consequence dies a small scaffold is erected inside his lodge and the body wrapped in skins deposited therein. Different utensils and weapons are placed by his side, and in front a horse is slaugh¬ tered; the lodge is then closed up.” (Yarrow, p. 153.) This was, however, merely a protection of the scaffold burial. The body was probably placed exactly as it would have been if exposed to the ele¬ ments, without the scant and necessarily rather temporary protection afforded by the skin-covered lodge. ASSINIBOIN It is quite evident the Assiniboin, about the first years of the seven¬ teenth century, moved northward from the densely forested region surrounding the headwaters of the Mississippi, where they had formed a division of the Yanktonai, to the vicinity of the Lake of the Woods and beyond, where they soon became allied with the Cree. They continued to move northward and westward, and by the close of the century were living in the region about Lake Winnipeg. A hundred years later they were occupying widely scattered villages near the banks of the Assiniboin and Saskatchewan Rivers. Later the region just mentioned was occupied by the northern division of the tribe, while others dominated a section of the extreme upper Val¬ ley of the Missouri. In the year 1775 Alexander Henry reached the scattered camps of the Assiniboin. He became well acquainted with the peculiar man¬ ners and ways of life of the people, and it is evident he was a careful observer. His reference to the burial customs are here quoted at length: “ With respect to the burial of the dead, if the death happen in the winter-season, and at a distance from the burial-ground of the family, the body invariably accompanies all the wanderings and journeys of the survivors, till the spring, and till their arrival at the place of interment. In the mean time, it is every where rested on a scaffold, out of the reach of beasts of prey. The grave is made of a circular form, about five feet deep, and lined with bark of the birch, or some other tree, or with skins. A seat is prepared, and the body is placed in a sitting posture, with supporters on either side. If the
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