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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL LIFE 181
Claiborne's notes on this subject indicate, either that the Choctaw
whose mortuary rites he happened to observe were influenced by the
Chickasaw or Creeks, or that they were rapidly degenerating. Hal-
bert thinks he has confused the earlier and later rites.
The Choctaw, [he says] scafEold their dead until the flesh rots off them;
the scaffold being eight or ten feet high and built on the edge of their yard.
They then scrape the bones clean, place them in a box or put boards or bark
around them and bury them in the ground—burying them sometimes in their
yard, sometimes under their house.
" When I assisted," says General Dale, " in moving the first body of Choctaws
that went west, there were some of them whose dead were still on scaffolds.
They remained to bury the bones and chant the funeral rites the required time,
and came afterwards." **
The notes which Claiborne took when acting as United States
Commissioner, being from personal observation and direct conversa-
tions with the Indians, are of more value.
It was formerly the custom to deposit the corpse upon a scaffold ; well pro-
tected from intrusion, under which a small bark fire was kept. It there lay
until decomposition supervened, when a set of men called Iksa-nom-buUa [iksa
anumpuli, " speakers for the moiety "], or the Bone-pickers of the Ik-sa, or clan,
were sent for, whose duty it was to strip the bones of the remaining integuments.
They were an exclusive order of itinerants, with something of the sacerdotal
character, and these last ceremonies could only be performed by them. They
were painted and tattooed in a peculiar style, and wore their finger-nails like
talona, to enable them to perform these revolting rites. The bones were then
placed in a deep basket and interred in their cabins or camps. The widow and
children sit around the grave twice every day for three months, and weep,
chanting a melancholy dirge. Some six months afterward his relatives and
friends are invited to lament. They shroud themselves in a blanket and cry.
These guests all bring a contribution of provisions, and after the cry, they have
a feast, and sometimes a dance, or a ball-play, but the immediate family of the
deceased take no part in the festivities. This cry is regarded as the most
solemn of obligations, never to be omitted when possible to be performed. To
illustrate it, I abridge from my journal now on file in the office of Indian
Affairs at Washington
" No. 72. Toipah," full-blooded Choctaw, supposed to be seventy years of age,
presented her claim. An-na-le-ta deposed that at date of treaty claimant occupied,
with her family, three cabins ; had a good corn-field ; their land was
yock-a-norchic-a-vm [yakni achukma] (good land) ; some time thereafter a
white man named Wilkinson, ordered her off, saying that he had bought the
land. Claimant had just lost a daughter, and she first remonstrated, and then
begged that she might stay until she cried over the grave. Wilkinson angrily
refused. Witness knew a friendly white man named Johnson. He, the witness,
went to him, and he wrote to Wilkinson to let them stay till the cry was over.
He consented, and when they had cried they all moved about a mile off, and
built a cha-pa-chook-cha [chabli chuka?] (bark house) where they have resided
ever since, not wishing to go too far from the dead."
« Claiborne, Miss., i, p. 493. Other mortuary notes by Claiborne are commented on
by Halbert. (See p. 188.)
*'' Towah signifies " a ball."