higher or lower, according to the dignity of the person whose monument
it is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made ridgeways, like the
roof of a house. This is supported by nine stakes or small posts, the
grave being about 6 or 8 feet in length and 4 feet in breadth, about
which is hung gourds, feathers, and other such like trophies, placed
there by the dead man's relations in respect to him in the grave. The
other parts of the funeral rites are thus: As soon as the party is
dead they lay the corpse upon a piece of bark in the sun, seasoning or
embalming it with a small root beaten to powder, which looks as red as
vermilion; the same is mixed with bear's oil to beautify the hair.
After the carcass has laid a day or two in the sun they remove it and
lay it upon crotches cut on purpose for the support thereof from the
earth then they anoint it all over with the aforementioned ingredients
of the powder of this root and bear's oil. When it is so done they
cover it over very exactly with the bark of the pine or cypress tree
to prevent any rain to fall upon it, sweeping the ground very clean
all about it. Some of his nearest of kin brings all the temporal
estate he was possessed of at his death, as guns, bows and arrows,
beads, feathers, match coat etc. This relation is the chief mourner,
being clad in moss, with a stick in his hand, keeping a mournful ditty
for three or four days, his face being black with the smoke of pitch
pine mixed with bear's oil. All the while he tells the dead mans
relations and the rest of the spectators who that dead person was, and
of the great feats performed in his lifetime, all that he speaks
tending to the praise of the defunct. As soon as the flesh grows
mellow and will cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it,
making the bones very clean then anoint them with the ingredients
aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth
artificially woven of opossum's hair. The bones they carefully
preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By