daily for a few days to the place of burial, toward the hour of sunset, and chant their grief until it is apparently assuaged by its own expression.  This is rarely kept up for more than four or five days, but is occasionally resorted to, at intervals, for weeks, or even months, according to the mood of the bereft.  I have seen few things in life so touching as the spectacle of an old father going daily to the grave of his child, while the shadows are lengthening, and pouring out his grief in wails that would move a demon, until his figure melts with the gray twilight, when, silent and solemn, he returns to his desolate family.  The weird effect of this observance is sometimes heightened, when the deceased was a grown-up son, by the old man kindling a little fire near the head of the scaffold, and varying his lamentations with smoking in silence.  The foregoing is drawn from my memory of personal observances during a period of more than six years’ constant intercourse with several subdivisions of the Dakota Indians.  There may be much which memory has failed to recall upon a brief consideration.

Figure 20 represents scarification as a form of grief-expression for the dead.

Perhaps a brief review of Dr. Turner’s narrative may not be deemed inappropriate here.

Supplying food to the dead is a custom which is known to be of great antiquity; in some instances, as among the ancient Romans, it appears to have been a sacrificial offering, for it usually accompanied cremation, and was not confined to food alone, for spices, perfumes, oil, &c., were thrown upon the burning pile.  In addition to this, articles supposed or known to have been agreeable to the deceased were also consumed.  The Jews did the same, and in our own time the Chinese, Caribs, and many of the tribes of North American Indians followed these customs.  The cutting of hair as a mourning observance is of very great antiquity, and Tegg relates that among the ancients whole cities and countries were shaved (sic) when a great man died.  The Persians not only shaved themselves on such occasions, but extended the same process to their domestic animals, and Alexander, at the death of Hephaestin, 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