Their manner of burial has always been (until recently) to inclose the dead body in robes or blankets, the best owned by the departed, closely sewed up, and then, if a male or chief, fasten in the branches of a tree so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and then left to slowly waste in the dry winds.  If the body was that of a squaw or child, it was thrown into the underbrush or jungle, where it soon became the prey of the wild animals.  The weapons, pipes, &c., of men were inclosed, and the small toys of children with them.  The ceremonies were equally barbarous, the relatives cutting off, according to the depth of their grief, one or more joints of the fingers, divesting themselves of clothing even in the coldest weather, and filling the air with their lamentations.  All the sewing up and burial process was conducted by the squaws, as the men would not touch nor remain in proximity to a dead body.

The following account of scaffold burial among the Gros Ventres and Mandans of Dakota is furnished by E.H.  Alden, United States Indian agent at Fort Berthold: 

The Gros Ventres and Mandans never bury in the ground, but always on a scaffold, made of four posts about eight feet high, on which the box is placed, or, if no box is used, the body wrapped in red or blue cloth if able, or, if not, a blanket of cheapest white cloth, the tools and weapons being placed directly under the body, and there they remain forever, no Indian ever daring to touch one of them.  It would be bad medicine to touch the dead or anything so placed belonging to him.  Should the body by any means fall to the ground, it is never touched or replaced on the scaffold.  As soon as one dies he is immediately buried, sometimes within an hour, and the friends begin howling and wailing as the process of interment goes on, and continue mourning day and night around the grave, without food sometimes three or four days.  Those who mourn are always paid for it in some way by the other friends of the deceased, and those who mourn the longest are paid the most.  They also show their grief and affection for the dead by a fearful cutting of their own bodies, sometimes only in part, and sometimes all over their whole flesh, and this sometimes continues for weeks.  Their hair, which is worn in long braids, is also cut off to show their mourning.  They seem proud of their mutilations.  A young man who had just buried his mother came in boasting of, and showing his mangled legs.

According to Thomas L. McKenney,[67] the Chippewas of Fond du Lac, Wis., buried on scaffolds, inclosing the corpse in a box.  The narrative is as follows: