After The Carcass Has Laid A Day Or Two
In The Sun, They Remove And Lay It Upon Crotches Cut On Purpose
For The Support Thereof From The Earth; Then They Anoint It All Over
With The Fore-Mention'd Ingredients Of The Powder Of This Root,
And Bear's Oil.
When it is so done, they cover it very exactly over
with Bark of the Pine or Cyprus Tree, to prevent any Rain to fall upon it,
sweeping the Ground very clean all about it.
Some of his nearest of Kin
brings all the temporal Estate he was possess'd of at his Death,
as Guns, Bows, and Arrows, Beads, Feathers, Match-coat, &c. This Relation
is the chief Mourner, being clad in Moss, and a Stick in his Hand,
keeping a mournful Ditty for three or four Days, his Face being black
with the Smoak of Pitch, Pine, mingl'd with Bear's Oil. All the while
he tells the dead Man's Relations, and the rest of the Spectators,
who that dead Person was, and of the great Feats perform'd in his Life-time;
all what he speaks, tending to the Praise of the Defunct.
As soon as the Flesh grows mellow, and will cleave from the Bone,
they get it off, and burn it, making all the Bones very clean,
then anoint them with the Ingredients aforesaid, wrapping up the Skull
(very carefully) in a Cloath artificially woven of Possums Hair.
(These Indians make Girdles, Sashes, Garters, &c. after the same Manner.)
The Bones they carefully preserve in a wooden Box, every Year
oiling and cleansing them:
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