e
substitute for the dead husband.

The substitution of a reminder for the dead husband, made from rags,
furs, and other articles, is not confined alone to the Chippewas, other
tribes having the same custom. In some instances the widows are obliged
to carry around with them, for a variable period, a bundle containing
the bones of the deceased consort.

Similar observances, according to Bancroft,[88] were followed by some of
the Central American tribes of Indians, those of the Sambos and
Mosquitos being as follows:

The widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband for a year,
after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for
another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and
then only was she allowed to marry again.

On returning from the grave the property of the deceased is
destroyed, the cocoa palms being cut down, and all who have taken
part in the funeral undergo a lustration in the river. Relatives cut
off the hair, the men leaving a ridge along the middle from the nape
of the neck to the forehead. Widows, according to some old writers,
after supplying the grave with food for a year take up the bones and
carry them on the back in the daytime, sleeping with them at night
for another year, after which they are placed at the door or upon
the house-top. On the anniversary of deaths, friends of the deceased
hold a feast, called _seekroe_, at which large quantities of liquor
are drained to his memory. Squier, who witnessed the ceremonies on
an occasion of this kind, says that males and females were dressed
in _ule_ cloaks fantastically painted black and white, while their
faces were correspondingly streaked with red and yellow, and they
performed a slow walk around, prostrating themselves at intervals
and calling loudly upon the dead and tearing the ground with their
hands. At no other time is the departed referred to, the very
mention of his name being superstitiously avoided. Some tribes
extend a thread from the house of death to the grave, carrying it in
a straight line over every obstacle. Froeebel states that among the
Woolwas all property of the deceased is buried with him, and that
both husband and wife cut the hair and burn the hut on the death of
either, placing a gruel of maize upon the grave for a certain time.

Benson[89] gives the following account of the Choctaws' funeral
ceremonies, embracing the disposition of