process to their domestic animals, and Alexander, at the death of
Hephastin, not only cut off the manes of his horses and mules, but
took down the battlements from the city walls, that even towns might
seem in mourning and look bald. Scarifying and mutilating the body has
prevailed from a remote period of time, having possibly replaced, in
the process of evolution, to a certain extent, the more barbarous
practice of absolute personal sacrifice. In later days, among our
Indians, human sacrifices have taken place to only a limited extent,
but formerly many victims were immolated, for at the funerals of the
chiefs of the Florida and Carolina Indians all the male relatives and
wives were slain, for the reason, according to Gallatin, that the
hereditary dignity of Chief or Great Sun descended, as usual, by the
female line; and he, as well as all other members of his clan, whether
male or female, could marry only persons of an inferior clan. To this
day mutilation of the person among some tribes of Indians is usual.
The sacrifice of the favorite horse or horses is by no means peculiar
to our Indians, for it was common among the Romans, and possibly even
among the men of the Reindeer period, for at Solutre, in France, the
writer saw horses' bones exhumed from the graves examined in 1873. The
writer has frequently conversed with Indians upon this subject, and
they have invariably informed him that when horses were slain great
care was taken to select the poorest of the band.

Tree-burial was not uncommon among the nations of antiquity, for the
Colchiens enveloped their dead in sacks of skin and hung them to
trees; the ancient Tartars and Scythians did the same. With regard to
the use of scaffolds and trees as places of deposit for the dead, it
seems somewhat curious that the tribes who formerly occupied the
eastern portion of our continent were not in the habit of burying in
this way, which, from the abundance of timber, would have been a much