Another Mode Of Sepulture Which We Saw Here Was, Where The Body Of The
Deceased Had Been Wrapped In Birch Rind, And With His Property, Placed
On A Sort Of Scaffold About Four Feet And A-Half From The Ground.
The
scaffold was formed of four posts, about seven feet high, fixed
perpendicularly in the ground, to sustain a
Kind of crib, five feet
and a-half in length by four in breadth, with a floor made of small
squared beams, laid close together horizontally, and on which the body
and property rested.
A third mode was, when the body, bent together, and wrapped in
birch-rind, was enclosed in a kind of box on the ground. The box was
made of small squared posts, laid on each other horizontally, and
notched at the corners, to make them meet close; it was about four
feet by three, and two and a-half feet deep, and well lined with
birch-rind, to exclude the weather from the inside. The body lay on
its right side.
A fourth, and the most common mode of burying among these people, has
been, to wrap the body in birch-rind, and cover it over with a heap of
stones, on the surface of the earth, in some retired spot; sometimes
the body, thus wrapped up, is put a foot or two under the surface, and
the spot covered with stones; in one place, where the ground was sandy
and soft, they appeared to have been buried deeper, and no stones
placed over the graves.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 10 of 19
Words from 2503 to 2761
of 5074
