utside
markings. This seems conclusively to couple the tenants of these
ancient graves with the makers and users of these salt-pans. The
great number of graves and the quantity of slabs that have been
washed out prove either a dense population or a long occupancy, or
both.

W. J. Owsley, of Fort Hall, Idaho, furnishes the writer with a
description of the cist graves of Kentucky, which differ somewhat from
other accounts, inasmuch as the graves appeared to be isolated.

I remember that when a school-boy in Kentucky, some twenty-five
years ago, of seeing what was called "Indian graves," and those that
I examined were close to small streams of water, and were buried in
a sitting or squatting posture and inclosed by rough, flat stones,
and were then buried from 1 to 4 feet from the surface. Those graves
which I examined, which examination was not very minute, seemed to
be isolated, no two being found in the same locality. When the
burials took place I could hardly conjecture, but it must have been,
from appearances, from fifty to one hundred years. The bones that I
took out on first appearance seemed tolerably perfect, but on short
exposure to the atmosphere crumbled, and I was unable to save a
specimen. No implements or relics were observed in those examined by
me, but I have heard of others who have found such. In that State,
Kentucky, there are a number of places where the Indians buried
their dead and left mounds of earth over the graves, but I have not
examined them myself. * * *

According to Bancroft,[17] the Dorachos, an isthmian tribe of Central
America, also followed the cist form of burial.

In Veragua the Dorachos had two kinds of tombs, one for the
principal men, constructed with flat stones laid together with much
care, and in which were placed costly jars and urns filled with food
and wine for the dead. Those for the plebians were merely trenches,
in which were deposited some gourds of maize and wine, and the place
filled with stones. In some parts of Panama and Darien only the
chiefs and lords received funeral rites. Among the common people a
person feeling his end approaching either went himself or was led to
the woods by his wife, family, or friends, who, supplying him with
some cake or ears of corn and a gourd of water, then left him to die
alone or to be assisted by wild beasts. Others, with more respect
for their dead, buried them in