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Show 70 SCAFFOLD BURIAL. skin about four feet in length, elaborately decorated with bead- work in stripes. The outer was covered with rows of blue and white bead- work, the second was green and yellow, and the third blue and red. All were further adorned by spherical brass bells attached all about the borders by strings of beads. " The remains with their wrappings lay upon a matting similar to that used by the Navajo and other Indians of the southern plains, and upon a pillow of dirty rags, in which were folded a bag of red paint, bits of antelope skin, bunches of straps, buckles, & c. The three bead- work hooded cloaks were now removed, and then we successively unwrapped a gray woolen double shawl, five yards of blue cassimere, six yards of red calico, and six yards of brown calico, and finally disclosed the remains of a child, probably about a year old, in an advanced stage of decomposition. The cadaver had a beaver- cap ornamented with disks of copper containing the bones of the cranium, which had fallen apart. About the neck were long wampum necklaces, with dentaliutn, unionuke, and auricula, interspersed with beads. There were alro strings of the pieces of Haliotis from the Gulf of California, so valued by the Indians on this side of the Rocky Mountains. The body had been elaborately dressed for burial, the costume consisting of a red- flannel cloak, a red tunic, and frock- leggins adorned with bead- work, yarn stockings of red and black worsted, and deerskin bead- work moccasins. With the remains were numerous trinkets, a porcelain image, a China vase, strings of beads, several toys, a pair of mittens, a fur collar, a pouch of the skin of putorius vison, & c." Another extremely interesting account of scaffold burial, furnished by Dr. L. S. Turner, U. S. A., Fort Peck, Mont, and relating to the Sioux, is here given entire, as it refers to certain curious mourning observances which have prevailed to a great extent over the entire globe: " The Dakotas bury their dead in the tops of trees when limbs can be found sufficiently horizontal to support scaffolding on which to lay the body, but as such growth is not common in Dakota, the more general practice is to lay them upon scaffolds from 7 to 10 feet high and out of the reach of carniverous animals, as the wolf. These scaffolds are constructed upon four posts set into the ground something after the manner of the rude drawing |