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Mummies
In connection with cave burial,
the subject of mummifying or embalming the dead may be taken up, as most
specimens of the kind have generally been found in such repositories.
It might be both interesting and instructive to search
out and discuss the causes which have led many nations or tribes to
adopt certain processes with a view to prevent that return to dust which
all flesh must sooner or later experience, but the necessarily limited
scope of this preliminary work precludes more than a brief mention of
certain theories advanced by writers of note, and which relate to the
ancient Egyptians. Possibly at the time the Indians of America sought to
preserve their dead from decomposition some such ideas may have animated
them, but on this point no definite information has been procured. In
the final volume an effort will be made to trace out the origin of
mummification among the Indians and aborigines of this continent.
The Egyptians embalmed, according to Cassien, because
during the time of the annual inundation no interments could take place,
but it is more than likely that this hypothesis is entirely fanciful. It
is said by others they believed that so long as the body was preserved
from corruption the soul remained in it. Herodotus states that it was to
prevent bodies from becoming a prey to animal voracity. "They did not
inter them," says he, "for fear of their being eaten by worms; nor did
they burn, considering fire as a ferocious beast, devouring everything
which it touched." According to Diodorus of Sicily, embalmment
originated in filial piety and respect. De Maillet, however, in his
tenth letter on Egypt, attributes it entirely to a religious belief
insisted upon by the wise men and priests, who taught their disciples
that after a certain number of cycles, of perhaps thirty or forty
thousand years, the entire universe became as it was at birth, and the
souls of the dead returned into the same bodies in which they had lived,
provided that the body remained free from corruption, and that
sacrifices were freely offered as oblations to the manes of the
deceased. Considering the great care taken to preserve the dead, and the
ponderously solid nature of their tombs, it is quite evident that this
theory obtained many believers among the people. M. Gannal believes
embalmment to have been suggested by the affectionate sentiments of our
nature--a desire to preserve as long as possible the mortal remains of
loved ones; but MM. Volney and Pariaet think it was intended to obviate,
in hot climates especially, danger from pestilence, being primarily a
cheap and simple process, elegance and luxury coming later; and the
Count de Caylus states the idea of embalmment was derived from the
finding of desiccated bodies which the burning sands of Egypt had
hardened and preserved. Many other suppositions have arisen, but it is
thought the few given above are sufficient to serve as an introduction
to embalmment in North America.
From the statements of the older writers on North
American Indians, it appears that mummifying was resorted to among
certain tribes of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, especially for
people of distinction, the process in Virginia for the kings, according
to Beverly, [Footnote: Hist. of Virginia, 1722, p 185] being as follows:
"The "Indians" are religious in preserving the Corpses
of their Kings and Rulers after Death, which they order in the following
manner: First, they neatly flay off the Skin as entire as they can,
slitting it only in the Back; then they pick all the Flesh off from the
Bones as clean as possible, leaving the Sinews fastened to the Bones,
that they may preserve the Joints together: then they dry the Bones in
the Sun, and put them into the Skin again, which in the mean time has
been kept from drying or shrinking; when the Bones are placed right in
the Skin, they nicely fill up the Vacuities, with a very fine white
Sand. After this they sew up the Skin again, and the Body looks as if
the Flesh had not been removed. They take care to keep the Skin from
shrinking, by the help of a little Oil or Grease, which saves it also
from Corruption. The Skin being thus prepar'd, they lay it in an
apartment for that purpose, upon a large Shelf rais'd above the Floor.
This Shelf is spread with Mats, for the Corpse to rest easy on, and
skreened with the same, to keep it from the Dust. The Flesh they lay
upon Hurdles in the Sun to dry, and when it is thoroughly dried, it is
sewed up in a Basket, and set at the Feet of the Corpse, to which it
belongs. In this place also they set up a "Quioccos," or Idol, which
they believe will be a Guard to the Corpse. Here Night and Day one or
other of the Priests must give his Attendance, to take care of the dead
Bodies. So great an Honour and Veneration have these ignorant and
unpolisht People for their Princes even after they are dead."
It should be added that, in the writer's opinion, this
account and others like it are somewhat apocryphal, and it has been
copied and recopied a score of times.
According to Pinkerton [Footnote: Collection of
Voyages, 1812, vol. XIII, p 39.], the Werowanco preserved their dead as
follows:
"By him is commonly the sepulcher of their Kings. Their
bodies are first bowelled, then dried upon hurdles till they be very
dry, and so about the most of their joints and neck they hang bracelets,
or chains of copper, pearl, and such like, as they used to wear. Their
inwards they stuff with copper beads, hatchets, and such trash. Then lap
they them very carefully in white skins, and so roll them in mats for
their winding-sheets. And in the tomb, which is an arch made of mats,
they lay them orderly. What remained of this kind of wealth their Kings
have, they set at their feet in baskets. These temples and bodies are
kept by their priests.
"For their ordinary burials, they dig a deep hole in
the earth with sharp stakes, and the corpse being lapped in skins and
mats with their jewels they lay them upon sticks in the ground, and so
cover them with earth. The burial ended, the women being painted all
their faces with black coal and oil do sit twenty-four hours in the
houses mourning and lamenting by turns with such yelling and howling as
may express their great passions.
"Upon the top of certain red sandy hills in the woods
there are three great houses filled with images of their Kings and
devils and tombs of their predecessors. Those houses are near sixty feet
in length, built harbor wise after their building. This place they count
so holy as that but the priests and Kings dare come into them; nor the
savages dare not go up the river in boats by it, but they solemnly cast
some piece of copper, white beads, or pocones into the river for fear
their Okee should be offended and revenged of them.
"They think that their Werowances and priests which
they also esteem quiyoughcosughs, when they are dead do go beyond the
mountains towards the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in form
of their Okee, with their heads painted red with oil and pocones, finely
trimmed with feathers, and shall have beads, hatchets, copper, and
tobacco, doing nothing but dance and sing with all their predecessors.
But the common people they suppose shall not live after death, but rot
in their graves like dead dogs."
The remark regarding truthfulness will apply to this
account in common with the former.
The Congaree or Santee Indians of South Carolina,
according to Lawson, used a process of partial embalmment, as will be
seen from the subjoined extract from Schoolcraft; [Footnote: Hist.
Indian Tribes of the United States, 1854, Part IV, p. 155, et seq] but
instead of laying away the remains in caves, placed them in boxes
supported above the ground by crotched sticks.
"The manner of their interment is thus: A mole or
pyramid of earth is raised, the mould thereof being worked very smooth
and even, sometimes higher or lower, according to the dignity of the
person whose monument it is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made
ridgeways, like the roof of a house. This is supported by nine stakes or
small posts, the grave being about 6 or 8 feet in length and 4 feet in
breadth, about which is hung gourds, feathers, and other such like
trophies, placed there by the dead man's relations in respect to him in
the grave. The other parts of the funeral rites are thus: As soon as the
party is dead they lay the corpse upon a piece of bark in the sun,
seasoning or embalming it with a small root beaten to powder, which
looks as red as vermilion; the same is mixed with bear's oil to beautify
the hair. After the carcass has laid a day or two in the sun they remove
it and lay it upon crotches cut on purpose for the support thereof from
the earth then they anoint it all over with the aforementioned
ingredients of the powder of this root and bear's oil. When it is so
done they cover it over very exactly with the bark of the pine or
cypress 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 possessed of at his death, as guns, bows and
arrows, beads, feathers, match coat etc. This relation is the chief
mourner, being clad in moss, with a stick in his hand, keeping a
mournful ditty for three or four days, his face being black with the
smoke of pitch pine mixed with bear's oil. All the while he tells the
dead mans relations and the rest of the spectators who that dead person
was, and of the great feats performed in his lifetime, all that 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
the bones very clean then anoint them with the ingredients aforesaid,
wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth artificially woven of
opossum's hair. The bones they carefully preserve in a wooden box, every
year oiling and cleansing them. By these means they preserve them for
many ages that you may see an Indian in possession of the bones of his
grandfather or some of his relations of a longer antiquity. They have
other sorts of tombs as when an Indian is slain in, that very place they
make a heap of stones (or sticks where stones are not to be found), to
this memorial every Indian that passes by adds a stone to augment the
heap in respect to the deceased hero. The Indians make a roof of light
wood or pitch pine over the graves of the more distinguished, covering
it with bark and then with earth leaving the body thus in a subterranean
vault until the flesh quits the bones. The bones are then taken up,
cleaned, jointed, clad in white dressed deer skins, and laid away in the
"Quiogozon," which is the royal tomb or burial place of their kings and
war captains, being a more magnificent cabin reared at the public
expense. This Quiogozon is an object of veneration, in which the writer
says he has known the king, old men, and conjurers to spend several days
with their idols and dead kings, and into which he could never gain
admittance."
Another class of mummies are those which have been
found in the saltpeter and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a
matter of doubt with archaeologists whether any special pains were taken
to preserve these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the
soil with certain minerals would account for the condition in which the
specimens were found. Charles Wilkins [Footnote: Trans. Amer. Antiq.
Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 360] thus describes one:
"exsiccated body of a female ... was found at the depth of about 10 feet
from the surface of the cave bedded in clay strongly impregnated with
nitre, placed in a sitting posture, incased in broad stones standing on
their edges, with a flat stone covering the whole. It was enveloped in
coarse clothes, ... the whole wrapped in deer- skins, the hair of which
was shaved off in the manner in which the Indians prepare them for
market. Enclosed in the stone coffin were the working utensils, beads,
feathers, and other ornaments of dress which belonged to her."
The next description is by Dr Samuel L. Mitchill:
[Footnote: Trans. and Coll. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 318]
[A letter from Dr. Mitchill of New York, to Samuel M.
Burnside, Esq., Secretary of the American Antiquarian Society, on North
American Antiquities.]
"Aug 24th, 1815
"DEAR SIR: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of American
antiquity now in New York, It is a human body [Footnote: A mummy of this
kind, of a person of mature age, discovered in Kentucky, is now in the
cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society. It is a female. Several
human bodies were found enwrapped carefully in skins and cloths. They
were inhumed below the floor of the cave, "inhumed", and not lodged in
catacombs.] found in one of the limestone caverns of Kentucky. It is a
perfect exsiccation, all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and
other firm parts are in a state of entire preservation. I think it
enough to have puzzled Bryant and all the archeologists.
"This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the
neighborhood of Glasgow for saltpeter.
"These recesses, though under ground, are yet dry
enough to attract and retain the nitric acid. It combines with lime and
potash, and probably the earthy matter of these excavations contains a
good proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst these drying and
antiseptic ingredients, it may be conceived that putrefaction would be
stayed, and the solids preserved from decay. The outer envelope of the
body is a deer skin, probably dried in the usual way and perhaps
softened before its application by rubbing. The next covering is a
deer's skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp instrument
resembling a hatter's knife. The remnant of the hair and the gashes in
the skin nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. The next wrapper is
of cloth made of twine doubled and twisted. But the thread does not
appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the loom. The
warp and filling seem to have been crossed and knotted by an operation
like that of the fabricks of the northwest coast, and of the Sandwich
islands. Such a botanist as the lamented Muhlenburgh could determine the
plant which furnished the fibrous material.
"The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth like the
preceding, but furnished with large brown feathers arranged and fastened
with great art so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from
wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole bears a
near similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the nations of the
northwestern coast of America. A Wilson might tell from what bird they
were derived.
"The body is in a squatting posture with the
right arm reclining forward and its hand encircling the right leg. The
left arm hangs down, with its hand inclined partly under the seat. The
individual, who was a male did not probably exceed the age of fourteen,
at his death. There is near the occiput a deep and extensive fracture of
the skull, which probably killed him. The skin has sustained little
injury, it is of a dusky color, but the natural hue cannot be decided
with exactness from its present appearance. The scalp, with small
exceptions is cohered with sorrel or foxy hair. The teeth are white and
sound. The hands and feet, in their shriveled state, are slender and
delicate. All this is worthy the investigation of our acute and
perspicacious colleague, Dr Holmes.
"There is nothing bituminous or aromatic in or about the body, like the
Egyptian mummies, nor are there bandages around any part. Except the
several wrappers, the body is totally naked. There is no sign of a
suture or incision about the belly whence it seems that the viscera were
not removed.
"It may now be expected that I should offer some
opinion, as to the antiquity and race of this singular exsiccation.
"First, then, I am satisfied that it does not belong to
that class of white men of which we are members.
"2dly. Nor do I believe that it ought to be referred to the bands
of Spanish adventurers, who, between the years 1500 and 1600, rambled up
the Mississippi, and along its tributary streams. But on this head I
should like to know the opinion of my learned and sagacious friend, Noah
Webster.
"3dly. I am equally obliged to reject the opinion that it belonged
to any of the tribes of aborigines, now or lately inhabiting Kentucky.
"4thly. The mantle of the feathered work, and the mantle of twisted
threads, so nearly resemble the fabricks of the indigines of Wakash and
the Pacifick islands, that I refer this individual to that era of time,
and that generation of men, which preceded the Indians of the Green
River, and of the place where these relics were found. This conclusion
is strengthened by the consideration that such manufactures are not
prepared by the actual and resident red men of the present day. If the
Abbe Clavigero had had this case before him, he would have thought of
the people who constructed those ancient forts and mounds, whose exact
history no man living can give. But I forbear to enlarge; my intention
being merely to manifest my respect to the society for having enrolled
me among its members, and to invite the attention of its Antiquarians to
further inquiry on a subject of such curiosity.
"With respect, I remain yours,
"SAMUEL L. MITCHILL"
It would appear from recent researches on the Northwest
coast that the natives of that region embalmed their dead with much
care, as may be seen from the work recently published by W. H. Dall,
[Footnote: Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. 1, p. 89] the description
of the mummies being as follows:
"We found the dead disposed of in various ways; first,
by interment in their compartments of the communal dwelling, as already
described; second, by being laid on a rude platform of drift-wood or
stones in some convenient rock shelter. These lay on straw and moss,
covered by matting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or
carvings associated with them. We found only three or four specimens in
all in these places, of which we examined a great number. This was
apparently the more ancient form of disposing of the dead, and one which
more recently was still pursued in the case of poor or unpopular
individuals.
"Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within
a few centuries, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was
adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The
bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters in running water,
dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings of fur and fine
grass matting The body was usually doubled up into the smallest compass,
and the mummy case, especially in the case of children, was usually
suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in some convenient rock
shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepared body was placed in a lifelike
position, dressed and armed. They were placed as if engaged in some
congenial occupation, such as hunting, fishing, sewing, etc. With them
were also placed effigies of the animals they were pursuing, while the
hunter was dressed in his wooden armor and provided with an enormous
mask, all ornamented with feathers and a countless variety of wooden
pendants, colored in gay patterns. All the carvings were of wood, the
weapons even were only facsimiles in wood of the original articles.
Among the articles represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons,
effigies of men, birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of rods or
scales of wood, and remarkable masks, so arranged that the wearer when
erect could only see the ground at his feet. These were worn at their
religious dances from an idea that a spirit which was supposed to
animate a temporary idol was fatal to whoever might look upon it while
so occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the masking of those
who had gone into the land of spirits.
"The practice of preserving the bodies of those
belonging to the whaling class--a custom peculiar to the Kadiak Innuit--has
erroneously been confounded with the one now described. The latter
included women as well as men, and all those whom the living desired
particularly to honor. The whalers, however, only preserved the bodies
of males, and they were not associated with the paraphernalia of those I
have described. Indeed, the observations I have been able to make show
the bodies of the whalers to have been preserved with stone weapons and
actual utensils instead of effigies, and with the meanest apparel, and
no carvings of consequence. These details, and those of many other
customs and usages of which the shell heaps bear no testimony ... do not
come within my line."
Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings' Expedition
[Footnote: Billings' Exped. 1802, p. 167.] in 1802, speaks of the
Aleutian Islanders embalming their dead, as follows:
"They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead,
for they embalm the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass; bury
them in their best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with
their darts and instruments; and decorate the tomb with various colored
mats, embroidery, and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less
ceremony. A mother will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut for
some months, constantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it begins
to smell, or when they get reconciled to parting with it."
Regarding these same people, a writer in the San
Francisco Bulletin gives this account:
"The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska
Commercial Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company
with the mummified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of
Ounalaska one hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to science
was secured by Captain Henning, an agent of the company, who has long
resided at Ounalaska. In his transactions with the Indians he learned
that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the island in
question, as the last resting-place of a great chief, known as
Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the neighborhood of
Kagamale, in quest of sea-otter and other furs and he bore up for the
island, with the intention of testing the truth of the tradition he had
heard. He had more difficulty in entering the cave than in finding it,
his schooner having to beat on and off shore for three days. Finally, he
succeeded in effecting a landing, and clambering up the rocks he found
himself in the presence of the dead chief, his family and relatives.
"The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With
great care the mummies were removed, and all the little trinkets and
ornaments scattered around were also taken away.
"In all there are eleven packages of bodies. Only two
or three have as yet been opened. The body of the chief is enclosed in a
large basket like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the
wrappings are finely-wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in
texture, and skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of
thinly-cut wood, and adjoining the center portions are pieces of body
armor composed of reeds bound together. The body is covered with the
fine skin of the sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in the
interments of the Aleuts, and round the whole package are stretched the
meshes of a fish-net, made of the sinews of the sea lion; also those of
a bird- net. There are evidently some bulky articles enclosed with the
chief's body, and the whole package differs very much from the others,
which more resemble, in their brown-grass matting, consignments of crude
sugar from the Sandwich Islands than the remains of human beings. The
bodies of a pappoose and of a very little child, which probably died at
birth or soon after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of the
feet of the latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The remaining
mummies are of adults.
"One of the packages has been opened, and it reveals a
man's body in tolerable preservation, but with a large portion of the
face decomposed. This and the other bodies were doubled up at death by
severing some of the muscles at the hip and knee joints and bending the
limbs downward horizontally upon the trunk. Perhaps the most peculiar
package, next to that of the chief, is one which encloses in a single
matting, with sea-lion skins, the bodies of a man and woman. The
collection also embraces a couple of skulls, male and female, which have
still the hair attached to the scalp. The hair has changed its color to
a brownish red. The relics obtained with the bodies include a few wooden
vessels scooped out smoothly; a piece of dark, greenish, flat stone,
harder than the emerald, which the Indians use to tan skins; a
scalp-lock of jet-black hair; a small rude figure, which may have been a
very ugly doll or an idol; two or three tiny carvings in ivory of the
sea-lion, very neatly executed, a comb, a necklet made of birds' claws
inserted into one another, and several specimens of little bags, and a
cap plaited out of sea-grass and almost water-tight."
With the foregoing examples as illustration, the matter
of embalmment may be for the present dismissed, with the advice to
observers that particular care should be taken, in case mummies are
discovered, to ascertain whether the bodies have been submitted to a
regular preservative process, or owe their protection to ingredients in
the soil of their graves or to desiccation in arid districts.
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Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs
Among the North American Indians
Native American Nations
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