siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEKEMONIAL. LIFE 171
country, and it Is right that he have everything he needs in his journey. They
believe that the warriors go to war in the other world, and that everyone there
performs the same acts that he did in this. Tlie body rests in this five or six
months, until they thinli that it is rotted, whicli malves a terrible stench
(infection) in tlie house. After some time all the relatives assemble ceremoniously
and the honored woman (femme de valleur) of the village who has
for her function (distriqiie) to strip oft the flesh from the bones of the dead,
comes to take off the flesh from this body, scrapes the bones well, and places
them in a very clean cane hamper, which they enclose in linen or cloth. They
throw the flesh into some field, and this same flesh stripper, without washing
her hands, comes to serve food to the assembly. This woman is very much
honored in the village. After the repast, singing and howling, they proceed to
carry the bones into the charnel-house of the canton, a cabin with only one
covering in which these hampers are placed in a row on poles. The same ceremony
is performed over chiefs except that instead of putting the bones in
hampers they are placed in chests locked with keys in the charnel-house of the
chiefs."
Female " bone-pickers " are mentioned by no other writer, but
there is no occasion to doubt their existence. Such offices were usuallyheld
by men.
The second French informant is the traveler Bossu.
They have [he says] great regard for the bodies of their dead which they
never bury." After a Chacta has died, his body is put into a bier made of
cypress bark expressly for the purpose and placed on four forked sticks about
fifteen feet high. After the worms have consumed the flesh, the entire family
assembles. The bone-picker comes and dismembers the skeleton. He tears ofC
the muscles, nerves, and tendons which may be left. Then they bury the latter
and deposit the bones in a chest after having painted the head with vermilion.
During this entire ceremony the relatives weep and it is followed by a feast
to the friends who have come to pay the compliment of their condolence, after
which the remains of the deceased are carried to the common cemetery, to
the place where are deposited those of his ancestors. While these mournful
ceremonies are taking place a gloomy silence is observed. There is no singing
or dancing ; each one retires weeping.
Early in November, they hold a great ceremony which they call the ceremonial
of the dead or of the souls. Each family then comes to the common
cemetery and visits, weeping all the while, the mortuary chests of its relations,
and when they have returned they have a great feast terminating the
ceremony.^
We now turn to English writers, of whom the earliest is Adair.
He touches upon the subject in two different places, the first a brief
note introduced in the description of Choctaw medical practice,
the second a fairly full narration. These accounts are as follows:
The Choktah are so exceedingly infatuated in favour of the infallible judgment
of their pretended prophets, as to allow them without the least regret,
to dislocate the necks of any of their sick who are in a weak state of body,
2« Appendix, pp. 251-252 ; Mem. Am. Anth. Assn.. vol. v. No. 2, pp. 64-65, 1918.
^ Bossu seems to have failed to learn of the periodical burials in mounds.
^' Appendix, p. 260 ; Bossu, Nouv. Voy., vol. 2, pp. 95-96.