CHAPTER XXXVII.

FUNERALS.

I believe that no sufficiently detailed account has yet been given of the manner in which the North American Indians conduct the funerals of their dead. Captain Carver tells us that the Naudowessies, among whom he was, kept those ceremonies a secret, and would not give him an opportunity of witnessing them. Loskiel, although he drew his information from the journals of our Missionaries, has treated this subject rather superficially. I therefore run little risk of repetition in describing what I have myself seen, and I hope that the particulars which I am going to relate will not be thought uninteresting.

It is well known that the Indians pay great respect to the memory of the dead, and commit their remains to the ground with becoming ceremonies. Those ceremonies, however, are not the same in all cases, but vary according to circumstances, and the condition of the deceased; for rank and wealth receive distinctions even after death, as well among savages as among civilised nations. This, perhaps, may be easily accounted for. When a great chief dies, his death is considered as a national loss; of course all must join in a public demonstration of their sorrow. The rich man, on the other hand, had many friends during his life, who cannot decently abandon him the moment the breath is out of his body; besides, his fortune supplies the means of a rich entertainment at the funeral, of which many, as may well be supposed, are anxious to partake. Thus social distinctions are found even in the state of nature, where perfect equality, if it exists any where, might with the greatest probability be supposed to be found. Though the earth and its fruits are common to all the Indians, yet every man is permitted to enjoy the earnings of his industry, and that produces riches; and though there is no hereditary or even elective rank in their social organization, yet as power follows courage and talents, those who are generally acknowledged to be possessed of those qualities, assume their station above the rest, and the distinction of rank is thus established. Politicians and philosophers may reason on these facts as they please; the descriptions that I give are from nature, and I leave it to abler men than myself to draw the proper inferences from them.

On the death of a principal chief, the village resounds from one end to the other with the loud lamentations of the women, among whom those who sit by the corpse distinguish themselves by the shrillness of their cries and the frantic expression of their sorrow. This scene of mourning over the dead body continues by day and by night until it is interred, the mourners being relieved from time to time by other women.

These honours of “mourning over the corpse” are paid to all; the poor and humble, as well as the rich, great, and powerful; the difference consists only in the number of mourners, the undistinguished Indian having few besides his immediate relations and friends, and sometimes only those. Women (notwithstanding all that has been said of their supposed inferior station and of their being reduced to the rank of slaves) are not treated after their death with less respect than the men, and the greatest honours are paid to the remains of the wives of renowned warriors or veteran chiefs, particularly if they were descended themselves of a high family, which, however strange it may appear, is not an indifferent thing among the Indians, who love to honour the merit of their great men in their relatives. I was present in the year 1762, at the funeral of a woman of the highest rank and respectability, the wife of the valiant Delaware chief _Shingask_;[214] as all the honours were paid to her at her interment that are usual on such occasions, I trust a particular description of the ceremony will not be unacceptable.

At the moment that she died, her death was announced through the village by women specially appointed for that purpose, who went through the streets crying, “_She is no more! she is no more!_” The place on a sudden exhibited a scene of universal mourning; cries and lamentations were heard from all quarters; it was truly the expression of the general feeling for a general loss.

The day passed in this manner amidst sorrow and desolation. The next morning, between nine and ten o’clock, two counsellors came to announce to Mr. Thomas Calhoon, the Indian trader, and myself, that we were desired to attend and assist at the funeral which was soon to take place. We, in consequence, proceeded to the house of the deceased, where we found her corpse lying in a coffin, (which had been made by Mr. Calhoon’s carpenter) dressed and painted in the most superb Indian style. Her garments, all new, were set off with rows of silver broaches,[215] one row joining the other. Over the sleeves of her new ruffled shirt were broad silver arm-spangles from her shoulder down to her wrist, on which were bands, forming a kind of mittens, worked together of wampum, in the same manner as the belts which they use when they deliver speeches. Her long plaited hair was confined by broad bands of silver, one band joining the other, yet not of the same size, but tapering from the head downwards and running at the lower end to a point. On the neck were hanging five broad belts of wampum tied together at the ends, each of a size smaller than the other, the largest of which reached below her breast, the next largest reaching to a few inches of it, and so on, the uppermost one being the smallest. Her scarlet leggings were decorated with different coloured ribands sewed on, the outer edges being finished off with small beads also of various colours. Her mocksens were ornamented with the most striking figures, wrought on the leather with coloured porcupine quills, on the borders of which, round the ankles, were fastened a number of small round silver bells, of about the size of a musket ball. All these things, together with the vermilion paint, judiciously laid on, so as to set her off in the highest style, decorated her person in such a manner, that p