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Show BTTBIAL IS BOXES- CREEKS, INDIA!* TERRITORY. 65 but little effluvia; in fact, I have seldom found much in a burial- teepee, and when this mode of burial is thus performed it is less repulsive than natural to suppose." This account is furnished by Col. P. W. Norris, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, he having been an eye- witness of what he relates in 1876. The Blackfeet, Sioux, and Navajos also bury in lodges, and the Indians of Bellingham Bay, according to Dr. J. F. Hammond, U. S. A., place their dead in carved wooden sarcophagi, inclosing these with a rectangular tent of some white material. Bancroft* states that certain of the Indians of Costa Rica, when a death occurred, deposited the body in a small hut constructed of plaited palm reeds. In this it is preserved for three years, food being supplied, and on each anniversary of the death it is redressed and attended to amid certain ceremonies. The writer has been recently informed that a similar custom prevailed in Demerara. No authentic accounts are known of analogous modes of burial among the peoples of the Old World, although quite frequently the dead were interred beneath the floors of their houses, a custom which has been followed by the Mosquito Indians of Central America and one or two of our own tribes. BOX BURIAL. Under this head may be placed those examples furnished by certain tribes on the Northwest coast who used as receptacles for the dead wonderfully carved, large wooden chests, these being supported upon a low platform or resting on the ground. In shape they resemble a small house with an angular roof, and each one has an opening through which food may be passed to the corpse. Some of the tribes formerly living in New York used boxes much resembling those spoken of, and the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees did the same. Capt. J. H. Gageby, U. S. A., furnishes the following relating to the Creeks in Indian Territory: sc* * * are buried on the surface, in a box or a substitute made of 5 Y • Nat. Races of Pac. StateB, 1874, vol. 1, p. 780. |