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Show INHUMATION- MOHAWKS. 5 attention to similar or almost analogous customs among the peoples of the Old World. For our present purpose the following provisional arrangement of burials may be adopted: 1st By INHUMATION in pits, graves, holes in the ground, mounds, cists, and caves. 2d. By CREMATION, generally on the surface of the earth, occasionally beneath, the resulting bones or ashes being placed in pits, in the ground, in boxes placed on scaffolds or trees, in urns, sometimes scattered. 3d. By EMBALMENT or a process of mummifying, the remains being afterwards placed in the earth, caves, mounds, or charnel- houses. 4th. By AERIAL SEPULTURE, the bodies being deposited on scaffolds or trees, in boxes or canoes, the two latter receptacles supported on scaffolds or posts, or on the ground. Occasionally baskets have been used to contain the remains of children, these being hung to trees. 5th. By AQUATIC BURIAL, beneath the water, or in canoes, which were turned adrift These heads might, perhaps, be further subdivided, but the above seem sufficient for all practical needs. The use of the term burial throughout this paper is to be understood in its literal significance, the word being derived from the Anglo- Saxon " birgan" to conceal or hide away. In giving descriptions of different burials and attendant ceremonies, it has been deemed expedient to introduce entire accounts as furnished, in order to preserve continuity of narrative. INHUMATION. The commonest mode of burial among North American Indians has been that of interment in the ground, and this has taken place in a number of different ways; the following will, however, serve as good examples of the process: " The Mohawks of New York made a large round hole in which the body was placed upright or upon its haunches, after which it was covered with timber, to support the earth which they lay over, and thereby kept |