upply the thread to bind together the
accounts furnished.

It is proper to add that all the material obtained will eventually be
embodied in a quarto volume, forming one of the series of Contributions
to North American Ethnology prepared under the direction of Maj. J. W.
Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution,
from whom, since the inception of the work, most constant encouragement
and advice has been received, and to whom all American ethnologists owe
a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid.

Having thus called attention to the work, the classification of the
subject may be given, and examples furnished of the burial ceremonies
among different tribes, calling especial attention to similar or almost
analogous customs among the peoples of the Old World.

For our present purpose the following provisional arrangement of burials
may be adopted, although further study may lead to some modifications.

CLASSIFICATION OF BURIAL.

1st. By INHUMATION in pits, graves, or holes in the ground, stone graves
or cists, in mounds, beneath or in cabins, wigwams, houses or lodges, or
in caves.

2d. By EMBALMMENT or a process of mummifying, the remains being
afterwards placed in the earth, caves, mounds, boxes on scaffolds, or in
charnel-houses.

3d. By DEPOSITION of remains in urns.

4th. By SURFACE BURIAL, the remains being placed in hollow trees or
logs, pens, or simply covered with earth, or bark, or rocks forming
cairns.

5th. By CREMATION, or partial burning, generally on the surface of the
earth, occasionally beneath, the resulting bones or ashes being placed
in pits in the ground, in boxes placed on scaffolds or trees, in urns,
sometimes scattered.

6th. By AERIAL SEPULTURE, the bodies being left in lodges, houses,
cabins, tents, deposited on scaffolds or trees, in boxes or canoes, the
two latter receptacles supported on scaffolds or posts, or placed on the
ground. Occasionally baskets have been used to contain the remains of
children, these being hung to trees.

7th. By AQUATIC BURIAL, beneath the water, or in canoes, which were
turned adrift.

These heads might, perhaps, be further subdivided, but the above seem
sufficient for all practical needs.

The use of the term _burial_ throughout this paper is to be understood
in its literal significance, the word being derived from the Teutonic
Anglo-Saxon "_birgan_," to conceal or hide away.

In giving descriptions of differe