This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far
as can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it
was employed as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed
for time. The Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow
trees, the bodies being placed in an upright position, occasionally
the dead being crammed into a hollow log lying on the ground. With
some of the Eastern tribes a log was split in half and hollowed out
sufficiently large to contain the corpse; it was then lashed together
with withes and permitted to remain where it was originally placed. In
some cases a pen was built over and around it. This statement is
corroborated by Mr. R. S. Robertson, of Fort Wayne, Ind., who states
in a communication received in 1877 that the Miamis practiced surface
burial in two different ways:

"... 1st. The surface burial in hollow logs. These have been found in
heavy forests. Sometimes a tree has been split and the two halves
hollowed out to receive the body, when it was either closed with
withes or confined to the ground with crossed stakes; and sometimes a
hollow tree is used by closing the ends.

"2d. Surface burial where the body was covered by a small pen of logs
laid up as we build a cabin, but drawing in every course until they
meet in a single log at the top."

Romantically conceived, and carried out to the fullest possible extent
in accordance with the _ante mortem_ wishes of the dead, were the
obsequies of Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas. The account is
given by George Catlin: [Footnote: Manners, Customs, &c., of North
American Indiana, 1844, vol. ii, p. 5]