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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL. LIFE 177
far and near, and, in a long and imposing procession, with weeping and wail-
ing and loud lamentations of the women, bore off the boxes of bones to their
last place of rest, and there depositing them in the form of a pyramid they
were covered with earth three or four feet in depth forming a conical mound.
All then returned to a previously designated village and concluded the day in
feasting.
Thus many of the mounds found in Mississippi and Alabama are but the
cemeteries of the ancient Choctaws ; since, as often as the bone-houses became
filled, the boxes of bones were carried out to the same cemetery and deposited
on the previously made heap commencing at the base and ascending to the
top, each deposit being covered up with earth to the depth of three or four
feet, and thus, by continued accession through a long series of ages, became
the broad and high mounds, concerning which there has been so much wild
speculation with so little foundation for truth or common sense. Even at
the time the missionaries were established among them (1818), many of the
mounds were of so recent date that not even bushes were growing upon them,
though the custom of thus laying away their dead had become obsolete; still tv
few Bone-Pickers had survived the fall of their calling, and were seen, here
and there, wandering about from village to village as ghosts of a departed age,
with the nails of the thumb, index and middle fingers still untrimmed, and
whose appearance indicated their earthly pilgrimage had reached nearly to a
century, some of whom I personally knew.
Shortly before the advent of the missionaries, the custom of placing the dead
upon the scaffolds was abolished, though not without much opposition ; and
that of burial in a sitting posture was adopted, with also new funeral ceremonies,
which were as follows : Seven men were appointed whose duty it was
to set up each a smooth pole (painted red) around the newly made grave,
six of which were about eight feet high, and the seventh about fifteen, to
which thirteen hoops (made of grape vines) were suspended and so united
as to form a kind of ladder, while on its top a small white flag was fastened.
This ladder of hoops was for the easier ascent of the spirit of the deceased to
the top of the pole, whence, the friends of the deceased believed, it took its
final departure to the spirit land."^
This later form is thus enlarged upon
When a death was announced, which was made by the firing of guns in
quick succession, the whole village and surrounding neighborhood—almost to
a man—assembled at once at the home of the deceased, to console and mourn
with the bereaved. On the next day a procession was formed headed by
seven men called Fabussa Sholih (Pole-bearer), each carrying on his shoulder
a long, slender pole painted red, and all slowly and in profound silence marched
to the grave, where the poles were at once firmly set up in the ground—three
on each side of the grave, and one at the head, on which thirteen hoops
were suspended while on its top a small white flag fluttered in the breeze. The
corpse was then carefully placed in its last earthly place of rest, the grave filled
up, and all returned to the former home of the departed. They had specified
cries at the grave of the deceased, which continued for thirteen moons. At
the termination of each cry, a hoop was taken off of the pole, and so on
until the last one was removed; then a grand funeral ceremony was cele-
brated called Fabussa halut akuchchih [or fabassa halat akkachi], (pole to
pull down). And the manager of the pole-pulling was called Hattak (man)
=' But regarding this belief see p. 191.