The European invasion of North America brought with it not only new people, new animals, and new diseases, but also a new religion—Christianity--with burial customs that were strange to the indigenous people that had lived and died on the continent for thousands of years. As the United States, a Christian nation, followed its manifest destiny to spread across the continent, the government and its Christian missionaries insisted that American Indians change the way they disposed of corpses. The government required burial in an east-west orientation with the body on its back. One of the American Indian practices which government officials and missionaries found to be repugnant, and therefore destined to be outlawed, was the practice of the sky burial.
Sky burial is a practice found in many parts of the world and involves placing the corpse above ground. In American Indian cultures, sky burial included: placing the corpse in trees, building special platforms for the corpse and placing the corpse in a canoe which was elevated above ground. In some American Indians cultures, sky burial was the preferred practice, while in others it coexisted with burial below ground.
Some of the Northern Plains tribes practiced sky burial in which the body was placed in a scaffold or in a tree and exposed to the sky. Among the Assiniboine, for example, a warrior’s body on the scaffold would be oriented with the feet toward the south and the head slightly elevated.
In his chapter on the Blackfoot in the Handbook of North American Indians, anthropologist Hugh Dempsey reports that scaffold burial was the traditional norm and underground burial was not practiced.
In addition to the scaffold burial, the Blackfoot also used tree burial. John Young, the Indian agent at the Blackfeet Agency, sent the following description (included in H.C. Yarrow’s 1878 report, North American Indian Burial Customs):
“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 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.”
With regard to the Sioux on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, Dr. L. S. Turner, an Army physician, reported in H.C. Yarrow’s 1878 monograph:
“The Dakotas bury their dead in the tops of trees when limbs can be found sufficiently horizontal to support scaffolding on which to lay the body, but as such growth is not common in Dakota, the more general practice is to lay them upon scaffolds from seven to ten feet high and out of reach of carnivorous animals, such as the wolf.”
With regard to sky burial among the Brule Sioux, William J. Cleveland, quoted in H.C. Yarrow’s 1878 monograph, says:
“These scaffolds are about eight feet high, and made by planting four forked sticks firmly in the ground, one at each corner, and then placing others across the top, so as to form a floor, on which the body is firmly fastened. Sometimes more than one body is placed on the same scaffold, though generally a separate one is made for each occasion.”
William J. Cleveland also reports:
“…they believe each person to have a spirit which continues to live after the death of the body. They have no idea of a future life in the body, but believe that after death their spirits will meet and recognize the spirits of their departed friends in the spirit land. They deem it essential to their happiness here, however, to destroy as far as practicable their recollections of the dead.”
Among the Cheyenne, the body of the deceased would be dressed in good clothing and then wrapped in a buffalo robe. The body would then be taken from camp and placed in a tree or on a scaffold.
Among the Mandans, an agricultural tribe on the Missouri River, the body of the deceased, dressed in the finest clothes, would be wrapped in a buffalo robe with personal belongings. A second covering of raw buffalo hide which had been soaked in water was then wrapped about the bundle. When dry this hide would form a hard, protective shell. The body would then be placed on top of a willow scaffold. Sometime later, after the scaffold had fallen apart, the skull would be added to a circle of skulls in the burial ground and the bones buried.
Among the Crows in Montana, the use of the scaffold burial appears to be a relatively recent innovation, borrowed about 1825 from the Hidatsa.
Among the Indian nations living in the Northwest Coast area, canoe burials were sometimes used. Among the S’Klallam, for example, the body would be placed in a canoe which was supported about two or three feet above the ground.
Among the Chinookan-speaking bands along the Columbia River from the Willamette River to the Pacific, canoe burials were one of the primary forms of internment. The bodies would be carefully wrapped in blankets and then placed in canoes with important personal items. Holes would be bored into the bottom of the canoes to keep water from collecting inside and the canoe would then be covered with mats. Wealthy families would sometimes top the burial vessel with a larger canoe which would be turned upside down and lashed to the burial canoe. The burial canoe would usually be oriented downstream, and the bodies would be placed face down inside the canoe.
One example of a canoe burial is seen in 1830 when Chinook chief Comcomly died in a smallpox epidemic in 1830 at the age of 65. He was given a traditional Chinook canoe burial on Memaloose Island in the Columbia River. The Chinook custom was to place the dead body along with a number of prized possessions in a canoe which was then elevated in the trees out of the reach of animals.
In the Arctic Area, the Inuit of Unalaklik used sky burial. W. H. Dall reports in H.C. Yarrow’s 1878 monograph:
“The usual fashion is to place the body, doubled up on its side, in a box of plank hawed out of spruce logs, and about four feet long; this is elevated several feet above the ground on four posts, which project above the coffin or box. The sides are often painted, with red chalk, in figures of fur animals, birds, and fishes.”
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 presents various American Indian topics. More from this series:
Indians 101: Cheyenne Medicine Bundles
Indians 101: Native Spirituality in Northern California
Indians 101: Some Pawnee Ceremonies
Indians 101: A very short overview of Northern Plains Indian spirituality
Indians 101: The Plateau Indian vision quest
Indians 101: American Indian Beliefs About Ghosts
Indians 101: A Brief Description of Caddo Religion
Indians 101: Some Cayuga Ceremonies