are placed broad boards and
pieces of canoes in a slanting direction, so as to form a shed. It
stands east and west, and neither of the extremities are closed. On
entering the western end we observed a number of bodies, wrapped
carefully in leather robes, and arranged in rows on boards, which were
then covered with mats. This was the part destined for those who had
recently died: a little further on, bones half decayed were scattered
about, and in the centre of the building was a large pile of them heaped
promiscuously on each other. At the western extremity was a mat on which
twenty-one sculls were placed in a circular form, the mode of interment
being first to wrap the body in robes, and as it decays the bones are
thrown into the heap, and the sculls placed together. From the different
boards and pieces of canoes which form the vault were suspended on the
inside fishing-nets, baskets, wooden bowls, robes, skins, trenchers, and
trinkets of various kinds, obviously intended as offerings of affection
to deceased relatives. On the outside of the vault were the skeletons of
several horses, and great quantities of bones were in the neighbourhood,
which induced us to believe that these animals were most probably
sacrificed at the funeral rites of their masters."--_Lewis and Clarke_,
ii, 24.

It was not worth while for these travellers to imply a doubt that those
animals were sacrificed. The custom obtains among all the tribes of the
Western continent, from Labrador to Cape Horn, of sacrificing the most
valuable animals, on the death of their master. In this they are
actuated by a common belief that the deceased will need their assistance
in the land of spirits. See the various traditions.

The Choctaws, a tribe living near the gulf of Mexico, till very late
years had a practice similar to that of the Pishquitpaws, of exposing
their dead upon scaffolds, till such time as the flesh was decayed; it
was then separated from the bones by a set of old men, who devoted
themselves to this custom, and were called "bone-pickers;" after which,
the bones were interred in some place set apart for the purpose.

With the tribes living far towards the northern lakes, the ceremonies
and superstitions which formerly preceded inhumation, were
these:--Charlevoix, the best writer that ever treated of the Indians, is
my authority. "As soon as the sick person expires, the place is filled
with mournful cries. The dead body, dressed in the finest