y supleent. Ainsi ils ne pleurent pas en
vain. Le deuil consiste a ne se point couper
ni graisser les cheveux et de se tenir neglige
sans aucune parure, couverts de mechantes hardes.
Le pere et la mere portent le deuil de leur fils.
Si le pere meurt les garcons le portent, et les
filles de leur mere.
Dr. P. Gregg, of Rock Island, Illinois, has been kind enough to forward to the writer an interesting work by J.V. Spencer,[43] containing annotations by himself. He gives the following account of surface and partial surface burial occurring among the Sacs and Foxes formerly inhabiting Illinois:
Black Hawk was placed upon the ground in a sitting posture, his hands grasping his cane. They usually made a shallow hole in the ground, setting the body in up to the waist, so the most of the body was above ground. The part above ground was then covered by a buffalo robe, and a trench about eight feet square was then dug about the grave. In this trench they set picketing about eight feet high, which secured the grave against wild animals. When I first came here there were quite a number of these high picketings still standing where their chiefs had been buried, and the body of a chief was disposed of in this way while I lived near their village. The common mode of burial was to dig a shallow grave, wrap the body in a blanket, place it in the grave, and fill it nearly full of dirt; then take split sticks about three feet long and stand them in the grave so that their tops would come together in the form of a roof; then they filled in more earth so as to hold the sticks in place. I saw a father and mother start out alone to bury their child about a year old; they carried it by tieing it up in a blanket and putting a long stick through the blanket, each taking an end of the stick.
I have also seen the dead bodies placed in trees. This is done by digging a trough out of a log, placing the body in it, and covering it. I have seen several bodies in one tree. I think when they are disposed of in this way it is by special request, as I knew of an Indian woman who lived with a white family who desired her body placed in a tree, which was accordingly done.[44] Doubtless there was some peculiar superstition attached to this mode, though I do not remember to have heard what it was.
Judge H. Welch[45] states that “the Sauks, Foxes, and Pottawatomies buried by setting the body on the ground and building a pen around it of sticks or logs. I think the bodies lay heads to the east.” And C.C. Baldwin, of Cleveland, Ohio, sends a more detailed account, as follows: